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Experiential Learning Committee Recommendations 2023-2024

Experiential Learning Committee

  • Laurel McNall, Psychology (Chair)
  • Heidi Byrne, KSSPE
  • Joe Chesebro, Communication
  • Laurie Cook, Biology
  • Ashley Fico, Public Health and Health Education
  • Jennifer Hecker, Art
  • Pam O’Keefe, School of Business and Management

Assisted by Dr. Emily Carpenter, Career Consultant, Associate Vice President for Experiential Impact, Nazareth University

Initial Charge (August 2023)

  • A definition of what constitutes Experiential Learning within the classroom to ultimately prepare students for careers and life.
  • What criteria/rules/expectations should be used?
  • What resources are needed to see this come to fruition and what stakeholders should be involved?
  • Thoughts/suggestions for faculty professional development, helping faculty to learn how to embed and assess these experiences.

Historical Context

For over a decade, the Campus has engaged in numerous strategic conversations around engaged, applied and experiential learning. On May 12th, 2012, President John Halstead signed and approved Resolution #21 2011-2012 on Student Engagement. The University endorsed a definition for student engagement as “the time, efforts and energy that our students spend on purposeful academic activities” and set forth on a multitude of conversations to strengthen the campus culture around engaged and experiential learning. This resulted in the integration of High-Impact Practices into learning outcomes in both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. In fact, Engagement was identified as a pillar of the 2017-2022 Strategic Plan:

“Alumni and students in the activities of the local, regional, national, and/or global communities. We are dedicated to fulfilling our individual and collective obligation to offer meaningful and intentional learning opportunities that promote intellectual, professional and interpersonal development. The impact of these experiences contributes to the achievement of learning outcomes, scholarly accomplishments, professional growth, and quality of place. Such engagement contributes to the development and maintenance of our collaborative, inclusive community based on reciprocal relationships within and outside the classroom.”

In April 2017, the Senate approved a definition of applied and engaged learning activities: “Engaged Learning is a mechanism by which we can develop meaningful educational experiences that are high impact in that they increase a student’s chance for success. Often, but not always directly associated with one’s academic major, the skills learned are transferable to many aspects of life, including civic responsibility, global awareness and career readiness. The following definitions of specific Engaged and Applied Learning opportunities for students at Brockport are aligned with the SUNY Applied Learning Initiative. Whereas Engaged Student Learning may incorporate some or all of the appended “High Impact Practices,” in order to be approved as Applied Learning, the activity must adhere to the applied learning criteria outlined by SUNY’s Applied Learning Committee:

  1. that the activity is structured, intentional and authentic,
  2. that the activity requires preparation, orientation and training,
  3. that there will be monitoring and opportunity for continuous improvement,
  4. that reflection is embedded in the activity, and
  5. that the activity be accompanied by assessment and evaluation.

Whereas all approved Applied Learning activities are instances of Engaged Learning, Engaged Learning Activities that lack one or more of the learning criteria outlined by SUNY’s Applied Learning Committee (for instance, the embedded student reflection on the experience), do not constitute SUNY-approved Applied Learning Activities.”

Experiential Learning at Brockport Today

We realize our campus, post-pandemic, has reacted to new realities of constrained budgets and shifting priorities. Our students have evolved as well. However, faculty remain committed to student engagement and the educational advantage of integrating these practices is strong. Better student retention and improved graduation rates and job-placement remain impactful outcomes. Yet, institutional and situational obstacles make it difficult to broadly offer impactful, classroom-based experiences for our students. There is currently no face, office, or department related to experiential learning on our campus. Many of the recommendations put forward by previous Taskforces and Committees have not been implemented, and a supportive campus infrastructure is lacking. Our Committee has reassessed our strengths and weaknesses regarding the collective status of engaged and experiential learning in the current context of our campus climate. 

Method

Our committee reviewed existing Taskforce reports (e.g., Provost’s Strategic Planning Taskforce on Experiential Learning 2015-16), along with Society for Experiential Education (SEE), National Association of Colleges & Employers (NACE), and American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) reports. We explored other campus exemplars. With guidance from our external Career Consultant, we facilitated an initial activity during the Chairs & Directors meeting with the Provost in February 2024. This provided a baseline of what is happening on campus so we can identify who is doing this work well. This labor should be amplified and celebrated. Dr. Carpenter shared a high-level summary of these results with Chairs and Directors in April 2024, sharing with stakeholders how our committee had reflected on their comments and concerns.

Redefined Charge

During the Fall 2023 semester, our committee discussed the relationship among career readiness, experiential learning, engaged learning, applied learning, and HIPS (small and big). This quickly became difficult due to the messy nature of experiential learning definitions and criteria. If our committee struggled with the interrelationships among these terms, then we cannot expect effective campus-wide communication to other stakeholders. In addition, the challenging history of experiential learning on our campus has left faculty feeling unsupported and burned out (sentiments also reflected in the recent Presidential Campus Climate Report. Taken together, our charge was revised to a list of recommendations to support faculty in experiential learning activities. Note that our recommendations are faculty-centric given the composition of our committee, but other stakeholders should be involved in future conversations.

Themes

Several themes emerged over the course of our year-long discussions:

  • Experiential learning is at the center of the work we do to engage our students. For example, when members of the School of Arts & Sciences Student Advisory Board and students at the Exercise Science accreditation advisory board were asked about their best assignments from this academic year, students consistently identified hands-on activities and projects with real world implications.
  • A one size fits all approach to experiential learning and/or career readiness will not work on our campus: Different stakeholders will have different ideas around what experiential learning means. Career readiness also looks different across programs, from minimal to robust, and often depends on accreditation standards. Parameters regarding experiential learning definitions, criteria, and pathways are needed to guide these conversations, but there should be enough flexibility so experiential learning activities can take different shapes in different places.
  • We should build on earlier work that has already been done on our campus: The campus has already identified engaged learning pathways using SUNY applied learning criteria that fits SEE principles. We can use this as a starting point and make progress on what already exists. We should not reinvent the wheel, but some updates are also needed to reflect the state of experiential learning today.
  • When career readiness is discussed in the context of experiential learning, confusion and pushback is likely and expected: As a liberal arts campus, faculty often express concerns over a career-centric message. As mentioned earlier, our campus made progress on engaged and applied learning initiatives, and we should capitalize on this. With this lens, we can focus on experiential learning first and foremost, with career readiness as preparation for, and an outcome of, experiential learning. Our committee developed a visual representation (see below) to communicate these ideas, which includes the recommended experiential learning pathways, criteria, and benefits (e.g., career readiness and preparation).
  • The work of experiential learning needs to be built into a high-level administrator role: Dr. Cook formerly served as Assistant to the Provost for Applied Learning, but conversations and momentum stalled when Dr. Cook stepped down. There is a need for this work to be embedded within a high-level role. This role would support a college-wide committee with faculty and staff representation for each experiential learning pathway in addition to other key players (e.g., CELT Director, Career Design Director, Global Engagement Director, Undergraduate Research Director, Leadership & Civic Engagement Director). A critical piece to this role is tracking these experiences. In addition to identifying new mechanisms of support for experiential learning, a central commitment to experiential learning will also be crucial in helping faculty identify existing mechanisms, offices, and accounts to support these initiatives. In our discussions, possible mechanisms for funding (e.g., the ability of residential life to support experiential learning) were raised of which members of the group were not aware. A central resource for support of experiential learning will assist in removing these organizational barriers.

Summary of Recommendations with Caveats

Several recommendations emerged from our work related to rebuilding connections between faculty/departments and the new Career Design Center, as well as recognition, rewards and faculty development for experiential learning. The Director of the Career Design Center and the liaison model will play a pivotal role in the planning and implementation of several initiatives, in conjunction with faculty champions/leads for the various experiential learning pathways. At the same time, we also want to caution that the specific recommendations listed below will only be effective if infrastructure issues, identified via earlier taskforce reports, are acted upon in a thoughtful and intentional manner. There is a perception of a broken system, with several starts and stops under various leaders, and we need to proceed cautiously to rebuild trust. 

Recommendation 1: Rebuilding Infrastructure

  • Currently there is limited communication across divisions as it pertains to experiential learning. In the past, an interdivisional executive steering committee on Applied and Engaged Learning was proposed “for college-wide coordination, reporting, and policy recommendations for applied and engaged learning” (see Resolution #20 – 2016-2017). This committee was intended to collaborate with “Institutional Research, College-wide Committees on Internships, Service Learning, and Research and Creative Activities, and relevant departments, programs, and offices across the College.” The Institute for Engaged Learning included three major branches (Internships, Undergraduate Research, Service Learning) but also included representatives from Education Abroad/Global Engagement and Leadership/Student Employment.
  • Unfortunately, this structure has not been maintained, which makes coordination and communication across departments and divisions challenging. For example, the college-wide Internship Committee was not given a charge, resources, or reporting structure over multiple years, and eventually dissolved due to frustration. We recommend revisiting this interdivisional steering committee or advisory board to facilitate cross-divisional communication. This also fits with NACE’s (2023) recommendation for an advisory committee comprised of different stakeholders with the purpose of bringing individuals together from across the institution.
  • Relatedly, faculty are often left trying to figure out on their own what steps are needed to facilitate experiential learning, both inside and outside the classroom. All members of the EL committee had specific stories to share about the frustrations that go into this work. Hurdles such as these lead faculty to question whether experiential learning activities are worth the time and effort. “Jumping through hoops” only adds to faculty workload, on top of the already higher workload associated with experiential learning. The Presidential Campus Climate Report also underscored the confusion and misunderstandings about roles and how we work together to support students. As such, the development of a regularly updated point-of-contact list for experiential learning activities and/or a list of FAQs is needed.
  • This responsibility needs to reside with a specific role related to experiential learning and should address the following types of issues:
    • Room reservations (Union and other)
    • Reservations for student tabling (Union, residence halls, and other locations)
    • Reservations for shared meeting spaces for interdisciplinary collaboration (CELT could serve this purpose)
    • Contact to obtain relevant paperwork/permission to drive students to a site in a personal vehicle
    • Contact to obtain other forms of transportation for students (e.g., van? van driver certification?)
    • Convenient parking for guests
    • Food* (also food waivers and when they are applicable)
    • Printing for student posters (contact, deadlines, methods of submission)
    • Contacts for student travel money** (e.g., for conferences)
    • Contact for if/when a memorandum of understanding/affiliation agreement must be put in place
    • Information on course fees and if/when they are applicable
    • Transportation updates (e.g., Uber program for interviews)
  • In rebuilding infrastructure, the campus should also demonstrate its support for existing experiential learning activities. For example, the campus could offer a mechanism by which faculty could obtain continued multi-year financial support to sustain existing experiential learning projects with demonstrated successful outcomes. Ongoing commitment to projects reduces faculty burden in seeking new resources each time a project is offered.

*We recommend offering faculty a small stipend to support course-based engaged learning activities. This could be used to purchase food, supplies, or other expenses for an existing project. For example, Nazareth offers up to $300 per-course stipend to support faculty.

**Student travel grants are offered for up to $400 to present research (covers travel, or meeting fee, and/or poster) but not all faculty are aware of this.

Recommendation 2: Rebuild Connections Between Faculty/Departments and Key Departments

Recommendation 3: Recognition & Rewards for Current Experiential Learning Stars

  • The Presidential Campus Climate Report found that faculty are feeling stretched thin and at capacity, which makes it challenging to motivate faculty to get involved in experiential learning. This report noted that workload issues should be considered when launching new endeavors and experiential learning initiatives are no exception.
  • In a 2024 faculty survey, Gatta et al. (2024) found that faculty need professional development opportunities to support the integration of career and career competencies into the curriculum, and in particular, a supportive learning community to foster sharing learning and relationships. Two of the top resources faculty reported needing were a) professional development in career and career preparation (38%) and funding/course release to integrate careers into existing courses (34%).
  • Departments may also wish to consider if or how activities falling under the domain of scholarship of teaching and learning are incentivized within their appointment to promotion and tenure frameworks. Commitment of leadership and formal recognition of experiential learning as valuable may help to enhance its dissemination across campus.
  • It is currently challenging to know which faculty are doing experiential learning well as this is often tied to a faculty member’s pedagogy. We sometimes learn of these stories through social media (e.g., Dr. Eric Owusu and his students Brockport Village Tree app), the Daily Eagle, or The Port, but there could be more systematic ways to share and highlight this work.
    • The existing Faculty Annual Report includes the following question in the “Activities” section of Faculty Success: “Did this course have a service-learning component?” Our understanding is that this question was added several years ago when the Community Development office was more robust, but we are unaware of whether these data have been reviewed or used in a meaningful way. This question could be broadened to include different engaged learning activities beyond service-learning, but there would need to be parameters to help faculty understand what is meant.
    • The existing Departmental Annual Report includes the following questions: “(1) Do you use engaged or project-based learning in your courses? Please provide up to 3 examples. (2) Are your students involved with internships, undergraduate research, or other types of experiential learning? Be as specific as possible, for example “We placed XXX student teachers across YY school districts.” Please provide up to 5 examples.”
      • As mentioned earlier, faculty in different disciplines may have a different understanding of what engaged or project-based learning looks like, and whether it counts as teaching, scholarship or service. As stated above, it may be helpful to offer parameters around what is meant (see Figure below). It is currently unclear how this information will be analyzed and disseminated.
  • There are currently few incentives for creating experiential learning activities in the classroom. We explored Nazareth University’s Community Engaged Learning (CEL) Project Development Grant and would like to offer something similar at Brockport, except it would be broadened to all experiential learning activities and not limited to community engaged learning. This grant offers support for both exploration and implementation of EL activities. For example, faculty can apply for $500-1000 for an idea for a new or re-developed project to add to an existing or developing credit-bearing experience, and faculty can apply for $1000-2000 for a new or re-developed project ready to launch in an existing credit-bearing course. We especially appreciated the following language from Nazareth: “grants are intended to “buy time” for faculty members, all of whom are assumed to have too-full work lives already, to do work that should lead to long-term relationships that benefit the faculty, students and community partners.”
  • We investigated funding sources for this grant, and learned that there are two existing funds for engaged learning here at Brockport. The School of Arts and Sciences Experiential Learning Support Fund (#690.14) and The SUNY Brockport Student Experiential Learning Support Fund (#522.00) are offered by the Dean and Provost’s Office, respectively (see appendix for guidelines for these grants). However, no one on the experiential learning committee was aware that these funds exist, and it is unclear how to apply for these funds or who decides on the awards. It would make sense to link the type of grant mentioned above (e.g., “Brockport’s Engaged Learning Project Development Grant”) to these funds and the aforementioned steering committee/advisory board could review these applications. Further collaboration with Advancement for specific fundraising for engaged learning is needed.
  • There are currently a few faculty awards available for engaged learning: Outstanding Global Engagement Award and the Faculty Student Engagement Award. The Faculty Student Engagement Award focuses specifically on the partnership of students and faculty toward scholarly and creative works. Recognizing that engaged learning includes multiple pathways, more awards could be created for different categories of engaged learning. Ideally, the nomination and application process should be relatively easy to do (unlike other awards where it feels punishing to apply).
  • CELT could create a program similar to Oregon’s Communities Accelerating the Impact of Teaching (CAIT): “Communities Accelerating the Impact of Teaching (CAITs) bring faculty into small, compensated innovator groups to work on compelling problems and issues, which CAITs consider through lenses of both pedagogical and institutional change. CAIT fellows meet across multiple terms with facilitators from Teaching Engagement Program, devoting time to community-building and activities like reading research on student learning, revising courses, developing resources for colleagues, and recommending policy and curricular changes.” Examples of CAIT groups at Oregon include topics such as Career Readiness, Writing and Assessment, Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, Teaching and AI, High Enrollment Online Courses.
    • We could envision CAIT groups on career readiness and/or different types of engaged learning, which would establish a pipeline of engaged learning leaders on our campus. Other ideas for specific CAITs are offered below. Oregon compensates faculty involvement in CAITs, and this aligns with Gatta et al.’s (2024) recommendation to incentivize faculty with summary salary stipends and/or course releases, and this should be included and valued for promotion and tenure review.
    • Specific details/outcomes can be found on Oregon’s career readiness CAIT page.
  • Similarly, we could create a Faculty Scholar/Faculty Fellow role for different forms of engaged learning. The committee reviewed Nazareth University’s Faculty Scholar for Community Engaged Learning Position Description, which could help us identify the parameters for this role (e.g., 50% reassignment time for administrative work). A similar structure already exists in the Honors College, Director of Undergraduate Research, and Faculty Diversity Fellow here at Brockport. Individuals in the role of Faculty Scholar/Faculty Fellow would be required to share ideas broadly to the campus (e.g., Lunch & Learns) for additional professional development.
  • NACE (2023) also recommends supporting faculty through fellowships and grants, and highlighted an award winning program at University of Redlands’ Career Faculty Fellows Program which could be adapted to SUNY Brockport.
    • At Redlands, students identify faculty who helped with their career development, and then select up to five Career Faculty Fellows per year.
    • Faculty fellows are paid a stipend for the following responsibilities:
      • Monthly meetings with Career staff
      • Integrating career into their curricula
      • Identifying areas on campus where career development support would benefit students
      • Partnering with department liaisons to share their work
      • Overseeing a university-side project focused on career development
      • Facilitating trainings

Recommendation 4: Faculty Development for Future Experiential Learning Stars

  • If a faculty member is interested in a specific pedagogical practice (e.g., project-based learning), it is not always clear how to get support and resources. For example, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) integrate research experiences in the classroom to increase student access and success in STEM careers. A CAIT group (mentioned above) on CURE could be helpful starting point to developing faculty expertise on this topic. Another example is with Statistics, a course that is offered in multiple disciplines with a high DEW rate. Passion-Driven Statistics “is a multidisciplinary, project-based curriculum that supports students in conducting data-driven research, asking original questions, and communicating methods and results using the language of statistics. The curriculum supports students to work with existing data covering psychology, health, earth science, government, business, education, ecology and more. From existing data, students are able to pose questions of personal interest and then use statistical software (e.g. SAS, R, Python, Stata, SPSS) to answer them.” A CAIT group on Passion-Drive Statistics may be another option.
  • Many faculty may be uncomfortable advising students on career paths they did not take themselves, and career education is needed. Beyond the champions program mentioned above at UCONN, SUNY offers a Career Readiness Champion Certificate Program. This is a more in-depth professional development opportunity, and a small group of faculty and staff could be incentivized to participate in this program, and ultimately teach others on campus some “bite-sized” lessons to bolster confidence around career conversations.

Future Recommendation: Consider an Institutional-Wide Learning Outcome for Career Readiness/Professional Development

  • NACE (2023) recommends that “career readiness is defined through a competency framework that represents student learning outcomes and uses a common language” (p. 6). After progress is made on the recommendations above, the Career Design Center could restart discussions on the appropriateness of a career readiness/professional development code. However, our committee feels strongly that we first need to build the infrastructure to increase trust and confidence required to make this leap, which will take time. Ultimately, a course tag can signal the importance of career readiness to the institution. NACE could be adopted as our framework, but for now we recommend discussing career readiness as one of many benefits within the experiential learning framework (to avoid “framework overload”).

References

Figure: Experiential Learning (ExL) is an engaged learning process where students learn by doing.

Experiential Learning Diagram

 

The figure above describes that in Experiential Learning:

  • the activity is structured, intentional, and authentic
  • the activity requires preparation, orientation, and training
  • reflection is imbedded in the activity
  • there will be continuous monitoring and opportunity for continuous improvement
  • the activity will be accompanied by assessment and evaluation

Experiential Learning Pathways include:

  • Internships & Fieldwork
  • Research and Creative Works
  • Community-Engaged Learning
  • Project-based learning
  • Leadership & Student Employment
  • Education Abroad/Global Engagement

The benefits of Experiential Learning include:

  • Enhanced Retention
  • Application of Knowledge
  • Connections & Community
  • Personal Growth
  • Career Readiness & Preparation
  • Skill Development
  • Civic Engagement
  • Active & Inclusive Pedagogy

Notes on the Figure:

  • Definition: We abbreviated Experiential Learning as ExL to differentiate from the abbreviation of Engaged Learning (EL). We incorporated a simplified definition of experiential learning that fits under the previously approved definition of engaged learning.
  • ExL Criteria: The criteria are drawn from SUNY and align with SEE principles.
  • ExL Benefits: We listed the multiple benefits of ExL, including career readiness and preparation, but the focus remains on ExL to fit the history of our campus and our liberal arts tradition.
    • One of the benefits listed is skill development, which could be broken down into technical and soft skills. The terms “soft skills” can imply that communication and interpersonal skills are lightweight and require little effort. Professionalism is another term that often aligns with accreditation standards, but can be loaded to mean assimilation to white male business culture. Therefore, we opted to retain “skill development” as the overarching term.
    • Civic engagement was added as a wide-reaching benefit of ExL since “connection and community” may be perceived as confined to our internal community (but the benefits extend outside the walls of Brockport).
  • ExL Pathways: We included already established ExL pathways from the past, but also added new ones.
    • We changed service learning to community engaged learning because service learning implies a power differential and usually leaves out co-curricular activities, and community engaged learning is now the preferred term.
    • We added project-based learning (PBL) as a new ExL pathway. In the past, PBL was excluded as an ExL pathway, consistent with AAC&U, because it is a form of pedagogy and a HIP but doesn’t always fit the ExL criteria (e.g., needs preparation, orientation and training) due to being course embedded. However, there could be ways to make PBL count, and it could be considered a small HIP that meets enough of the ExL criteria while also fitting our goals of improved access and equity for students.
    • Creative Works is currently listed with Research but could be its own stand-alone pathway.

Appendix

Existing Experiential Learning Funds at SUNY Brockport

  • The School of Arts and Sciences Experiential Learning Support Fund (#690.14) is managed by the Dean’s office. It was created to ensure all students in the school have the resources to participate in experiential learning & professional development opportunities. Some examples of activities and/or programs that this fund may be used to support includes, but is not limited to:
    • Funding student travel to and from their experiential learning site (approved education abroad, research, internship, etc.). This may include airfare, gas, mileage reimbursement, and/or parking.
    • Providing grants or stipends to students participating in unpaid internships, research, or other opportunities.
    • Funding tuition, travel, lodging, & meals for students while attending conferences, presenting research, participating in residencies, internships, other professional development opportunities, etc.
    • Purchasing supplies needed by students to participate in experiential learning opportunities.
    • Reimbursing fees for students who have successfully passed professional board exams (E.G., Actuarial Exams, medical technician, etc.).
    • Purchasing other miscellaneous expenses needed by students to participate in experiential learning opportunities.
  • The SUNY Brockport Student Experiential Learning Support Fund (#522.00) is manned by the Provost’s Office and helps all students participate in experiential learning opportunities. Some examples of activities and/or programs that this fund may be used to support includes, but is not limited to:
    • Funding student travel to and from their experiential learning site (research, internship, etc.). This may include airfare, gas, mileage reimbursement, and/or parking.
    • Providing grants or stipends to students participating in unpaid internships, research, or other opportunities.
    • Funding tuition, travel, lodging, & meals for students while attending conferences, presenting research, participating in residencies, internships, other professional development opportunities, etc.
    • Purchasing supplies needed by students to participate in experiential learning opportunities.
    • Reimbursing fees for students who have successfully passed professional board exams (E.G., Actuarial Exams, medical technician, etc.).
    • Purchasing other miscellaneous expenses needed by students to participate in experiential learning opportunities.