Bentley University Professor of English Edward Zlotkowski received the Distinguished Contribution Award at the International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) Conference October 28 to 30 in Indianapolis. The award recognizes the significant role that Zlotkowski has played during the past two decades to advance service-learning and civic engagement, both in the United States and abroad.

"My national and international work would not have been possible without the remarkable support I have received from Bentley at every level for more than two decades," observes Zlotkowski, who has pioneered service-learning and civic engagement on campuses in every state in the U.S. and in several countries abroad. "The award was very significant for me because it was endorsed by so many of the organizations and institutions with which I have worked."

As founding director of the Bentley Service-Learning Center more than 20 years ago, Zlotkowski helped establish a model that connects student learning with real-world, public-sector initiatives. In the classroom, he regularly uses service-learning in courses such as Expository Writing, Effective Communication, and Forms of Drama. Expository writing students have written grants for Waltham-area non-profits, as well as other documents needed by those organizations to help clarify objectives and procedures for staff and clients. They have also participated in writing projects with immigrants and seniors. Communication students have given public service presentations both in Waltham and in their home towns. Through the Fitzgerald Drama Program, drama students have worked with children from the Fitzgerald Elementary School in Waltham to help them develop skills such as script writing, acting, stage presence, movement, enunciation, and voice projection. 

Zlotkowski served as general editor of a 21-volume Series on Service-Learning in the Disciplines (Stylus Publishing, LLC) and is currently a Senior Associate and Visiting Scholar at the New England Resource Center for Higher Education. He has also served as a Senior Faculty Fellow with the Project on Integrating Service with Academic Study at the National Campus Compact and has published widely on service-learning and civic engagement, serving as editor of Successful Service-Learning Programs (1998) and as co-editor of Students as Colleagues (2006). Over a dozen of his most significant essays have been included in Higher Education and Democracy: Essays on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement (co-authored with John Saltmarsh, forthcoming from Temple University Press).