Prof. Suzanne Piscopo from the Department of Health, Physical Education and Consumer Studies within the Faculty of Education recently returned from a Staff Week and Conference at the University of Cadiz, one of the member universities of the SEA-EU Alliance.
During Staff Week, Suzanne joined other university lecturers and researchers who shared their vision, perceptions, insights, and practices regarding how Service Learning can be integrated within the programmes and curricula in higher education institutions. A number of examples of initiatives which had been implemented and evaluated were presented and their transferability to other settings was discussed.
Later in the week, Suzanne presented at the 2nd SEA-EU Conference -- ‘Higher Education in the Service of Society. Her presentation title was ‘Good, better, best… or worst! Evaluating Service Learning opportunities within the B.Sc. (Hons) Home Economics programme at the University of Malta.’ Here she highlighted how Home Economics is a multidisciplinary field bringing together different knowledge and skills to foster good resource management and with the goal of bettering human well-being. She further explained how the BSc (Hons) Home Economics degree lends itself very easily to a variety of Service Learning opportunities for its students through the annual placements, Long Essay and Master's research projects and regular study-unit assessments. Suzanne showcased a number of these opportunities which were sometimes implemented on campus, but more often in collaboration with other entities such as government departments and agencies, schools, NGOs, or philanthropic and religious organisations. These included taking part in interactive stands at public community events, at the Farmers Market, and in post-secondary institutions, as well as organising workshops for primary school children or older people attending active ageing hubs, among others. Based on the evaluation done so far, Suzanne concluded that these Service Learning opportunities will be refined and extended to forge new internal and external collaborations and to broaden the organisational, communication, teamwork, reflection, caring and other practical skills training for the students.
At the conference, other presentations by UM faculty were those by Prof. Joseph Cacciottolo (Pro-Rector for Academic Affairs) on ‘Outreach activities at the University of Malta’ and by Prof. Milosh Raykov on ‘The role of Service Learning in Students' Career Development.’
On her return, Suzanne shared the following reflections: “This experience helped to lay the groundwork for more training and research collaborations both with UM colleagues, but also with other members of the SEA-EU alliance. There is a common vision and many similar goals with respect to rebuilding a better society by working across disciplines. It also strengthened my impetus to work further with Maltese state and non-state entities to showcase how BSc (Hons) Home Economics graduates can be an asset to their goals and projects, possibly opening additional job opportunities and career paths for those pursuing the BSc (Hons) Home Economics degree.”