It does this in ways which are connected to and consistent with the core academic mission of universities and colleges.”1 With these words, the Canadian Alliance for Community Service-Learning has chosen to define CSL as a way of mobilizing universities and colleges to address community issues that is at the same time consistent with the core academic mission and purpose of these institutions. [...] For example: • Critical thinking and the ability to communicate and work effectively with others fall into all three categories • Personal efficacy and appreciation of diversity are both societal/civic and personal • Problem-solving and interdisciplinarity are both academic and societal/civic And many of these outcomes might be best understood as emerging from the interplay of these categories. [...] Bringing Knowledge to the Institution from the Community – There is increasing awareness of the limits of institutional knowledge and the consequent value of creating opportunities for the co-generation of new knowledge and understanding from the community. [...] FIGURE 1. SOFAR provides a structural model for examining dyadic interactions between persons, and it explicitly broadens and refines the set of potential partners in service- learning and civic engagement beyond “community” and “campus.” This allows a more detailed analysis of the nature of the wide range of interactions and relationships that are involved in service-learning and civic engagement