Mind

Create a Center for Project-Based Learning and Action

Rationale

To fulfill its vision of preparing students to become informed, self-aware, and participatory citizens for our democracy and servant-leaders for the world, the University must provide opportunities to connect classroom experiences with experiential learning. Across the College and School of Theology, many faculty at the University of the South engage students in high-impact, project-based learning and research that provides opportunities for students to build multiple disciplinary perspectives and tools and integrate curricular and co-curricular experiences. This interdisciplinary, engaged inquiry is essential for our graduates’ ability to navigate the world and address its multifaceted cultural, economic, social, political, and environmental challenges.

Description

The University will create an interdisciplinary center that will bring together and enhance existing programs such as the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Center, the Roberson Project, the Office of Civic Engagement, the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Office of Global Citizenship, and Sewanee’s Integrated Program in the Environment, through the provision of resources to support project-based learning across the University and—through the creation of a physical space on campus—enable synergetic learning. Through integration of research, curricular, and co-curricular learning, the center will marshal the liberal arts to address current and future challenges to society.

The center will have anchor offices that promote ongoing research, teaching across disciplinary lines, outreach projects, and public programming, including a speaker series, workshops and training, publications, and an active social media presence. The center will offer support to all faculty interested in project-based teaching and research that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries. To encourage new collaborations, the center will support faculty fellows who are awarded course releases or summer stipends to initiate projects with elements of community engagement and/or research with students in local or global venues.

Leaning on the University of the South’s tradition of relationship-rich education, this center will augment faculty and staff mentorship of students, including student fellows, who will be empowered to explore purpose and career paths through coursework, research, and engagement with local and global communities. The center will attract recognition, prospective students, and financial support.

Supporting Tactics:

The integration of five anchor offices:

  • The University’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Center will partner with the Roberson Project to continue the University’s reckoning with its past and to work on building a more equitable future for the University of the South. The center’s work will also include efforts to attract a more diverse faculty and develop more diverse courses through some or all of the following ways:
    • By hosting a DEI faculty fellows program.
    • By working to expand existing curricular programming dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as in Women’s and Gender Studies and African and African American Studies.
    • By working with interested faculty in developing courses in Latinx and Asian American studies.
    • By working with the Center for Teaching to host more sessions dedicated to diversifying the curriculum.
  • The Sewanee Integrated Program in the Environment, under the new title of the Sewanee Environmental Institute (SEI), will be dedicated to tackling issues of environmental justice through education and action. We envision it will work closely with the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, and the
  • Center for Religion and Environment at the School of Theology. The Office of Civic Engagement will provide opportunities for students to participate in meaningful academic and co-curricular community-engagement programming, while also reflecting on their agency as citizens and developing empathy, gaining issue-based knowledge, and learning skills of collaboration and dialogue. Students at the School of Theology will participate in some of these efforts.
  • The Office of Undergraduate Research will be established with office space and a faculty director. It will continue to facilitate summer and semester faculty-student research, but its placement in the center will elevate opportunities for synergies with other offices to promote community-based and global student research.
  • The Office of Global Citizenship will bring a global lens to the center’s project-based learning. This office will be important for bringing attention to the fact that current and future challenges have global dimensions, and that most students’ study-away experiences include research, interdisciplinary learning, and community-engagement components that would integrate well with the center’s mission. This office might also help our efforts to diversify our student’s learning in the following ways:
    • By working with Career Readiness to develop internships abroad, including in non-Western countries.
    • By continuing to work with faculty to develop Sewanee-led study-abroad programs in non-European countries.
    • By helping our students find ways of studying non-European languages in addition to Chinese, which is taught in the college.

These anchor offices will work closely with the proposed Center for Data Analytics and the Digital Humanities.

  • The Center for Data Analytics and Digital Humanities will support projects and research that require the use of digital tools and training available through the proposed Center for Project-Based Learning and Action.
  • A faculty or staff position in data analytics may also be housed in the center.

The Center for Project-Based Learning and Action will also coordinate with other offices including the Babson Center for Global Commerce, Career Readiness and Student Success, and the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In addition to anchor offices, the center will have space for faculty fellows and student fellows.

  • Faculty fellows may receive course releases and/or summer stipends, and hold the position for multi year terms.
  • Fellows will help generate new ideas for student-faculty-community learning.
  • Fellows will work across disciplinary lines on project-based learning, team-teaching, and student mentoring.
  • Student fellows will be recruited, with some provided scholarships to engage in project-based work.