Universidade Católica debates the transformation of the University through Service-Learning
Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) in collaboration with the Universidad de Deusto and the Observatory of Social Responsibility and Higher Education Institutions (ORSIES) organised a conference on "Transforming the University through Service-Learning", with the aim of discussing and reflecting on the teaching methodology of Service-Learning (SPL).
This is a teaching methodology that combines academic learning with service to the community, so that students are formed, personally and professionally, from working with the real needs of the community.
The event took place on 22 and 23 June, at the Porto Regional Centre, within the UNISERVITATE programme, which promotes ApS in Catholic Higher Education, of which the Universidade Católica Portuguesa is a member. It reinforces the CApS- Universidade Católica Service-Learning: Innovation and Social Responsibility project, whose aim is to institutionalise and consolidate the ApS methodology in specific, transversal and extracurricular curricular areas within the University, as well as to create guidelines for other higher education institutions that want to follow the same steps.
The event was attended and opened by Isabel Capeloa Gil, president of the UCP, who, during her opening speech, stated "Unquietness as a strategy requires the university to question itself and become a restless studio of transformation for a better world. And this is precisely the proposal that the Service-Learning methodology inspires the university to make". "The Universidade Católica Portuguesa is committed to a design that is action: to assume education as a design of implicated action aiming at the defence of the Common Home", she concluded.
Also present were the partner universities of the UNISERVITATE programme - Deusto (Bilbao), St Mary's (London), Sacro Cuore (Milan and Rome).
The event allowed the exchange of experiences and testimonies that demonstrated the importance of this methodology in the positive transformation of universities. Aligned with this principle, the Universidade Católica Portuguesa reinforces its mission of transformation of society, oriented towards the common good.