When leading students in an international service project, ethical practice in the field is a result of prioritizing the reciprocal relationship with the community partner. How might a faculty member compromise this relationship by starting with a position of negativity? Instead, ethical engagement establishes a relationship with the community partner from a place of positivity and, as a faculty member, you are modelling respectful and hopeful interaction with the community partner, showing how “human systems are forever projecting ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation that brings the future powerfully into the present as a causal agent” (Cooperrider, 1990, 97).
In addition to the relationship with the community partner, the faculty member must ask themselves what their ethical role is in an experiential education environment in relation to their students. Some faculty have called it the “24-hour teacher” dilemma, in which they feel responsible, during the international placement, for the students’ behaviour around-the-clock; there is a sense of accountability that the faculty member has to the community partner and to the students that makes this feeling valid.
