Integrating Service Learning into the Business School Curriculum: Development and Assessment of an Ethics Intensive Service-Learning Course

Consistent with Jesuit tradition, a service-learning course that is also ethics intensive, Healthcare Delivery Alternatives, was developed and implemented with a nursing home community service-learning partner. Course objectives addressed the ethically charged dynamics of U.S. healthcare delivery and presented students with opportunities for academic and community service learning. The course's objectives from four semesters were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively to determine how well students met objectives for academic and community service learning by analyzing components of the course's grade using a method derived from the Service-Learning Course Design Workbook's assessment methods. Qualitative results for all four semesters were favorable, e.g., changed students' attitudes toward older adults. Quantitative results were also favorable, suggesting the course provides a positive learning experience that equips students with an improved ability to consider medical issues of moral consequence with an enlightened perspective of fundamental values and ethical principles. In serving a marginalized and vulnerable population in this nursing home setting, students were able consider ethical implications and identify issues of social justice and inequality.