Service Learning

StFX was the first university in Canada to develop and offer a dedicated experiential learning program to undergraduate students. As an academic program under the stewardship of the Academic Vice President and Provost, Service Learning provides opportunities to approximately 27% of the student population each year.

The program has two branches; Course Based Service Learning (CBSL) and Immersion Service Learning (ISL). CBSL is an experiential educational component within existing academic courses. ISL is an intense cross‐cultural travel experience offered during Reading Week, the end of winter term or over the summer months. Student placements are designed in collaboration with Community Partners to address specific needs within their organizations.

CBSL students spend approximately 20 hours per semester working with local non-profit community agencies while completing course assignments that help them link practical experience and theoretical learning. ISL students provide service in their host community, attend lectures, and visit local sites of historical, cultural or political importance, developing a framework for reflection on global social justice and community development issues.

  • My Immersion experience has sparked me to learn more about the global community and not just the community I am directly in contact with.

    - Student

  • Immersion Service Learning has allowed me to understand what is actually happening to people in developing countries. I now realize there are real people behind all the news stories and statistics we hear at home.

    - Student

  • This Immersion Service Learning trip was an amazing time and I now realize that there is so much more to life than what my immediate surroundings and social life can offer. By learning about other cultures and other ways of life, the possibility of a positive global community becomes more of a reality. You have to experience other cultures; it is not enough to read about them in a textbook

    - Student

  • My Immersion Service Learning experience was incredible. It opened my eyes to aspects of life I didn't even know existed. I wouldn't consider my education complete without including my time in Immersion.

    - Student

  • The Immersion program provides a unique opportunity to gain first-hand insight into the factors contributing to inequality. The staff at the partner agency do an excellent job of enabling our students to learn about what life is like in Mexico and to reconsider their own socio-economic environment, in light of the experience

    - Professor Monica Lent, Business

  • In my view the (Immersion) experience both for myself and everyone else was delightfully memorable. Students learned as they had never learned before --- about issues of social justice and historical injustices, about another culture, about their own world and about themselves

    - Professor Jim Taylor

  • Many of the programs that the students assisted with during their placement would not have been possible without their assistance.

  • Students researched projects, analyzed and presented information that needed to be done, but which were beyond the abilities and time of our volunteers…The students offered us valuable information to assist our decision-making about the future.

  • The combination of course-work and hands-on service forced me to examine certain preconceptions I held and reevaluate the way I look at certain issues.
  • This experience helped me to apply my academic learning to a real situation in a natural setting. By being able to apply theory to an actual setting, I feel that my understanding of theory is improved and more defined.