Joshua DeKlotz

Leading Across Cultures

25 November 2019
Motives and Service
Gonzaga University is a Catholic and Jesuit University. With that designation attracts

many different types of students of all different interests, backgrounds, talents, and creeds.

However, the fact that service and a culture of social justice attitudes are associated with

Jesuit education attracts a student body who are keen on community service and service

learning. I think most Gonzaga students would agree that service is a core tenet of the

student body. The Gonzaga website even boasts over 100,000 hours of annual student

service. In fact, the Gonzaga vision statement even includes service in their ideal

formulation of a graduate: “We exist to develop generations of leaders whose actions

reflect a faith that promotes justice, the pursuit of truth, a dedication to service, and a

commitment to ethics and the common good.” As a result of this, there is immense social

and academic pressure to perform service in some way or another as a Gonzaga student.

Social justice and service-learning courses are woven into the Gonzaga core for all students.

The fact that Gonzaga student culture is rooted in service is not a problem by any means.

However, I believe that the culture of service can become problematic and has become

problematic to some extent when students lose sight of why they are doing service and

develop a savior-complex and result to service simply as a means of resume-boosting or as

an ego boost.

Gonzaga students participate in service in a diverse array of placements. Some work

on campus with other students and community members. Some focus their service work off

campus in the Spokane community, working with different marginalized populations. Some
students even choose to leave Spokane altogether, concentrating efforts around the country

on various “immersion” or mission trips that can even extend internationally—often

working within socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Personally, I see Gonzaga’s

deep association with a culture of service as one of its greatest strengths and draws for me

as a student. However, as a leader on Gonzaga’s campus, I value a critical mindset and a

wariness of hegemony as discussed by John Dugan in Leadership Theory. He stresses the

point that “ideological critique helps examine how dominant narratives emerge and are

positioned as normative” (Dugan 63). I dare to examine service through Dugan’s lens of

commodification, meaning that I want to focus on the “negative effects that can occur when

production and consumption are pursued regardless of costs” (Dugan 64). As Gonzaga is a

predominantly white and Christian student body and has an even more predominantly

white faculty, it is important to recognize the lens that comes with the relative homogeneity

in terms of racial makeup of the campus culture. It is easy for the majority to create the

“story most often told” and dominate the narrative, washing away other voices and

viewpoints—thus creating and maintaining a culture of hegemony.

I have done a great deal of reflection on the service and intercultural experiences I

have had while abroad and while back at home. After reading Ivan Illich’s To Hell With Good

Intentions speech, I was seriously challenged with my own ideas about what role service

should play in our lives as students at a private and Catholic institution such as Gonzaga.

Illich raises concerns about how the intentions of short-term American missionaries are met

by global communities. He made a radical point that sometimes these trips intended for

service will often do more harm than good (Illich). While I think Aaron Ausland contructs a

valid methodology in Staying for Tea on how to shift one’s mindset, goals, and intentions

whilst engaging in foreign service experiences (Ausland), I think there is still a void in the
conversation about specifically student service on campuses. The Article Reframing Activism

as Leadership speaks directly to the problem,

Given the overwhelming whiteness of service learning offices and programs, this

benevolence can be seen as flowing in a one directional nature—from mostly white

middle-class students and norms to mostly students of color and largely low-income

spaces. This means there is little disruption to the larger systems of oppression;

instead, an individual action is taken thereby posing little to no threat to the dominant

system of oppression that could rid the need for service learning altogether. This is

where tension among activism and service learning exists. (Martin 18)

This tension described is a difficult issue to address. When a culture of service already exists

and is shared, cultivated, advertised, and promoted by social media and other means, it is

easy to lose sight of why service is conducted in the first place and why it is so integral to

our identity as Gonzaga students. Students have various motives for engaging in service.

Some may have good intentions, and some may have self-serving intentions. Reframing

Activism as Leadership notes that “failure to properly train students can result in reification

of norms, perpetuation of a white savior complex , and additional burdens on students of

color who do find themselves engaged in service learning work” (Martin 18). I have been

involved in only a few service programs at Gonzaga, so I cannot speak to the training of all

the Gonzaga service programs. However, as a student it is easy to see the formations of the

white savior complex bubbling within the student body—especially when working with

marginalized populations off campus. It is a common occurrence for students to widely

share about their foreign service experiences in a broad sense and speak about the impact it

had on themselves, often articulating these viewpoints on social media outlets, or even in an
informal conversation setting. There are also valid issues present that are raised by Illich

that have to do with students being underprepared to engage culturally with the

communities they enter. The issue I would like to address is the culture of service at

Gonzaga. I would like to promote a culture of service that is closely tied to activism, long-

term investment, and that is intimately aware of the dangers of developing a white savior

complex1.

Gaging from the online forum conversations I have had through this course, it seems

as if reading articles by Illich and Ausland provided a wake-up call for the CLP students

taking this course. CLP students are generally oriented towards service more than average

Gonzaga students and represent a demographic of students who are committed to being

conscious and critical learners. I think the fact that CLP students in this course were

seriously challenged by ideas raised by Illich shows that there is a significant gap in students’

understanding of why service learning is done and how it should be conducted. I took a

service-learning course at Gonzaga when I was a freshman that required a certain number

of service hours. While I look back and still find great value in the course, I think the course

could be substantially improved by including a conversation that examines service critically

and allows students to be challenged and engage with the question of why they should do

service and how they should do it. For many Gonzaga students, a service-learning course or

one service extra-curricular could be the only engagement they have with service their

whole time on campus. As a Jesuit and service-oriented institution, I feel it is important for

students who engage in a service activity to be presented with an opportunity to emerge

1
When I use “white savior complex,” I realize that not all students engaging in service are as racially
whitewashed as the term makes it sound. This term is used to refer more broadly to the idea of a more
privileged demographic seeing their own work as a saving grace towards a less-privileged demographic.
with a complex and nuanced understanding of personal motives and potential dangers

within service.

In terms of a plan for how to address this issue, I think the first step is to take a step

back and look at what is going on at Gonzaga as a whole. I am excited to be taking another

CLP elective service-learning course next semester, and I will be very curious as to how the

idea of service is presented in this course and if the course includes a critical component. I

think it would also be a good idea to conduct a review of student attitudes by having

conversations with people engaged in service about their service mindset. I think I could do

this within my service-learning class or within my social groups that I have from my own

service engagements such as the CCE program. Conversations with a variety of real people

are the best way to gage the way people think about an issue like service. It would also be

helpful to gain understanding into what motivates people to engage in service whether it be

faith, building a resume, generosity, building community, a sense of duty, bringing a sense

of purpose, etc. I would want to see if there are already any training programs or policies in

place within programs like CCE that are directly tied to addressing a “savior complex.” I

would start by contacting leaders within the programs I have already been involved in at GU

such as CCE. These conversations would help get a feel for how Gonzaga already sees this

issue and to see if there are already measures in place to combat the development of a

savior attitude. In other words, I need to get myself up onto the balcony to get a viewpoint

that will help to understand the patterns and behaviours that are shaping the culture of

service at Gonzaga.

I think the next steps that should be taken would be to create a conversation around

the issue. Reframing Leadership as Activism notes that proper training is the best way to
combat the development of dangerous self-serving attitudes. While certain forms of training

may already exist in the service sphere at Gonzaga to specifically target these attitudes, it

seems as if there could be improvement. If after my initial gaging of attitudes, it seems as if

there is a consensus about a need for more awareness and conversation about the culture

of service, I would make intentional inquiries about the official Gonzaga policy on service

education and their philosophy and plan on combatting the savior complex attitudes in

students. The ultimate goal would be to introduce a newer and more intentional aspect of

service training that includes conversation and the direct addressing of intentions and

impact. This training would hopefully make its way into all service-learning classes and hold

a place within all aspects of service with Gonzaga students including courses, trips, summer

immersions, and long-term commitments while on campus.

Moving forward, I want to continue the conversations that were started in the online

discussion and bring them back to campus with me. I am especially curious to hear the

feedback and opinions of people who have done service work in other countries and who

can bring their foreign experiences to the conversation.

Comments from Instructor

“Josh - I appreciate your thoughtful exploration of the culture of service at GU.  This was an
outstanding paper, what I have come to expect from you.  I loved the ways that you integrated your
suggestions and challenges within the readings from Dugan, Illich, Ausland and Martin. This added
depth to your proposals and assisted me in seeing how you are applying our shared knowledge.  This
theme is one that is important to me personally, and I hope that you are able to continue to develop
your understanding next semester in Service & Leadership.  Thanks for engaging in this exercise. I
know that Scotland has been an amazing and challenging experience for you.  Now comes the hard
part, integrating this learning into your life back in Spokane.  I know you can do it, but it takes
dedication to find these lessons.  I'm excited to have you back on campus. - Josh”
 Works Cited

Aaron Ausland. Staying for Tea: Five principles for the community service volunteer. The Global
Citizen, 2005. pp 5-15.

Dugan, John P. Leadership Theory: Cultivating Cultural Perspectives. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2017.

Illich, Ivan. “To Hell With Good Intentions.” Conference on Interamerican Student Projects. 20 April
1968.

Martin, Georgianna L. et al. Reframing Activism as Leadership.New Directions for Student

Leadership, no. 161. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 2019. pp 9-24.