ACE Director Emily Durham and Coach for College US Director Seth Napier co-presented at the Pathways to Achieving Civic Engagement (PACE) Conference on February 9, 2022. Sponsored by NC Campus Compact, PACE provides faculty, community partners, and students with new ways to encourage civic engagement.
Selected to participate in PACE’s new “Virtual Engagement” workshop track, Durham and Napier presented on the virtual service model that was developed for the ACE in Vietnam program as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Coach for College is a longstanding community partner with ACE and has run the ACE in Vietnam program since the program started in 2016. Coach for College is an international service-learning program that brings US student-athletes and Vietnamese university students together. Both student groups lesson plan and teach academics, sports, and life skills alongside each other at a summer camp for middle school youth in rural Vietnam.
Due to pandemic related travel restrictions, the program transitioned from a highly immersive, service-learning program abroad to an online medium over the past year and a half. The presentation titled, “Between Zoom Screens: Creative Approaches to Long Distance Service-Learning,” outlined benefits and drawbacks of the virtual model. Durham and Napier also raised questions about the ethical implications and sustainability of the virtual model for the field going forward.
Want to learn more about PACE and the other conference workshops? Visit their website.