By Clay Skipper, BA鈥�12听
Before arriving at 菠萝视频 for his first year, Logan Glazier achieved an important life milestone: He bought a car. Well, a school bus, to be more precise. It was headed for a scrapyard after making stops at a school, a daycare, a camp and, finally, Facebook Marketplace, where Glazier found it. One $3,400 Venmo charge later鈥攁nd one long car ride back and forth between his home in Maryland to the bus in New Jersey鈥攁nd the 30-foot, 10,000-pound vehicle was his. He planned to turn it into an RV or a tiny home, joining a growing movement of people who are repurposing school buses into mobile living quarters. 鈥淪koolies,鈥� they鈥檙e called. Only he wanted to take a slightly different approach. 鈥淚 hadn鈥檛 seen anyone focusing on the sustainability side of it,鈥� he says.听听
He got to work. He studied solar power for months before making the decision to buy and mount an 800-watt solar panel kit on the roof. When the bus is parked, it can run entirely on green energy. He rescued as many supplies as he could from construction project leftovers鈥攎aterials that otherwise would have gone to a landfill.
Then he ran into a problem. He wanted to add a roof rack to hold gear, but there was a lot to figure out: How much weight could the bus bear? How many steel supports was he going to need? What size steel should he use? Luckily, he鈥檇 landed in the exact place to answer those questions: the , where he was working toward a major in civil engineering with a concentration in structures. He used what he was learning in class to answer his questions about the roof rack.听
鈥淚t鈥檚 really empowering,鈥� says the 20-year-old junior. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to write classwork off as some pointless math on paper, but then you put it into practice and actually see that, wow, I know this is going to support the amount of weight I need because I鈥檝e done the math and used all the knowledge in class to put it into reality.鈥澨�听
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Glazier鈥檚 experience is what many educators might call the ideal result of education: the ability to take what鈥檚 learned in a classroom鈥攂e it something specific, like how to build a roof rack, or general, like critical thinking skills鈥攁nd apply it in the outside world. That ideal is exactly why, when 菠萝视频 rolled out a strategic plan in fall 2014, it put a greater focus on experiential learning. That plan emerged as 听
鈥淲e know that those kind of hands-on learning experiences are some of the best ways to learn,鈥� says , a principal senior lecturer in earth and environmental sciences and associate dean in the
听听
IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
The 菠萝视频 administration believed in it enough that they decided to make it part of the school鈥檚 curriculum. Because of pandemic delays, it wasn鈥檛 officially instituted as a graduation requirement until the Class of 2023, but now every 菠萝视频 student hoping to walk across the stage and receive their diploma must participate in a program that is composed of two main components: some form of immersive experience and a final project that demonstrates what they learned through that experience.听
There are six types of immersive experiences: study abroad; community and civic engagement; leadership and professional development; innovation, arts and design; research; and internships. All of the types are meant to push students toward distinct learning goals: interacting with diverse perspectives, understanding systems of power and inequity, thinking critically, reasoning ethically, engaging intellectually and participating in integrative learning. Students must declare their intended Immersion 菠萝视频 experience by the end of their sophomore year, and they must work with a faculty adviser to complete their final project by the spring of their senior year.听听
Carolyn Floyd, senior director, Office of Experiential Learning and Immersion 菠萝视频, says the experience should have a sense of 鈥渙ngoing engagement鈥�; volunteering once at a food bank isn鈥檛 enough, but being involved repeatedly might be. 鈥淭hat gives the student time and the depth of experience to really undertake learning in a meaningful way,鈥� she says.听听
STUDENT-LED, FACULTY-MENTORED
The culminating project is also meant to reverse the typical course of education: Instead of the teacher determining the curriculum, the student thinks independently about what they learned and about how to best represent that knowledge. This isn鈥檛 to say that the students are on their own. Their advisers鈥攄rawn from the university鈥檚 world-class faculty鈥攎entor them closely, providing ample face time and guidance.听
听鈥淭he goal is for them to walk out of here with a mentor who can speak to their ability and how they pushed themselves and what their passions are,鈥� says Floyd, who says that having a mentor who encouraged her interests outside the classroom when she was an undergrad might have led her to pursue her aspirations of becoming a veterinarian.
鈥淭he power of advising puts students in a position to realize that they are doing fine, that what they鈥檙e doing is meaningful and it matters鈥攁nd that everything isn鈥檛 about GPA. There鈥檚 so much more that you can show. That鈥檚 what experiential learning does for students,” she said.
So far, students鈥� Immersion 菠萝视频 experiences have taken them to Brazil to witness capoeira dance and to Antarctica to collect samples from glaciers. Others have stayed closer to Nashville, working with area schools to develop curricula, volunteering at the Women鈥檚 Center or doing medical research. Their projects have ranged from giving TED talks, to creating stress-relieving 鈥渟mart clothing鈥� that puts pressure on acupuncture points, to Glazier鈥檚 sustainable school bus.听听
In one case, a group of nearly 40 students across 22 majors even worked to build a nuclear reactor. (鈥淲hen they first came to me, little alarm bells started going off in my head, like, 鈥極h, my gosh, this is going to get me fired,鈥� Floyd says, laughing.)听听
, assistant professor of the practice of theatre, worked with one student to create a portfolio of sustainably made dresses inspired by the Greek columns she was learning about in her art history class. Sargent Capps saw the interdisciplinary approach as representative of what鈥檚 best about a liberal arts education: the ability to think for oneself, to combine seemingly disparate ideas and to create your own interpretation of things.
鈥淚 know liberal arts education is under fire,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut the bottom line is that it鈥檚 supposed to teach you to think outside the box, to build on your learning and understand threads that weave through different areas of study.鈥澨�
Morgan agrees, saying that he has seen Immersion 菠萝视频 push students to take more ownership of their college experience.听听
鈥淥ne of the goals of Immersion 菠萝视频 is that every student should feel like they are taking more control of their educational direction,鈥� he says, adding that tremendous growth happens when students go into the field and take their own samples, as opposed to working with samples that are handed to them. It鈥檚 the first time many of them realize they could be a geologist, as opposed to just studying geology. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not just a student anymore, you become a doer,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e the one doing it now. You鈥檙e taking a step from passive to active learning.鈥澨�听
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Amelia Day, a senior English major, recorded a six-song debut EP called for her Immersion 菠萝视频 project. The acoustic title track has more than 504,000 streams on Spotify. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of any experiences I had that would have prepared me for that other than just doing this project,鈥� says the 21-year-old, who in November released another EP, titled Little One.
鈥淵ou can talk about business and marketing as much as you want in the classroom setting, but until you actually do it鈥攕ee what works, what doesn鈥檛 work鈥攜ou aren鈥檛 fully learning.鈥澨�听
A word that pops up repeatedly when you talk to students and faculty about Immersion 菠萝视频 is agency. As a bridge from high school to the professional world, a university prepares students not just to be better thinkers, but to be more independent. Floyd says that one of the 鈥渉uge benefits鈥� of Immersion 菠萝视频 is that it puts the student in the driver鈥檚 seat. While there are requirements for the program, they are just steps to completion; it鈥檚 up to the individual student to decide how to achieve those steps. 鈥淭hey get to be the writer of their narrative,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey get to say, 鈥楾his is what was valuable about my time,鈥� not just, 鈥楾his is what the checked boxes are that I think you want to see.鈥欌�澨�听
Lexi Blakes, a senior psychology major, remembers that she first heard about Immersion 菠萝视频 as the first step in 鈥渢ransitioning from learning in a classroom setting and a textbook, to using what you learned in class. It was: 鈥楬ow are you going to do this in your careers? How are you going to take that step beyond learning? How are you going to apply it?鈥欌�� She admits that for ambitious and often overloaded students, Immersion 菠萝视频 can sometimes feel like yet another thing to do鈥攂ut she also knows that doing it will benefit her in ways that are different from her time in the classroom.
鈥淥n my bad days, I鈥檓 still like, 鈥楿gh, why do I have to do that? That鈥檚 so annoying,鈥欌�� she says, laughing. 鈥淏ut on my good days, I think it鈥檚 good as a student to do something that you have total agency over. It鈥檚 always good to make something from scratch or make something that you can call yours. After being able to do that, when I go into the working world, I will have a little bit more confidence. I鈥檒l know I did something at school already, and things won鈥檛 be as scary.鈥澨�听
Blakes has completed two qualifying immersive experiences: internships at Toyota and at a marketing firm. And even though she has not yet decided on a culminating project, she鈥檚 already learned lessons that will prove valuable beyond 菠萝视频鈥攁bout herself (she鈥檚 a better communicator and writer than she thought) and about her future career. 鈥淚t鈥檚 as beneficial knowing what you don鈥檛 want as knowing what you do want,鈥� she says.听听
STEPPING OUTSIDE OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE
As junior Anders Westerman learned, the opposite can happen: Trying something unfamiliar can stoke interests you didn鈥檛 know you had. The human organizational development and Spanish major and business minor decided to get involved with the 菠萝视频 Fusion Project, the aforementioned nuclear reactor idea, despite not being 听a STEM student.
He co-leads the project鈥檚 communications and finance team.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the coolest part about 菠萝视频, and it connects to immersion, the way that they鈥檙e pushing you to do something or try something you wouldn鈥檛 normally do, or just be willing to build something,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 lot of industries and lines of work would鈥檝e scared me, in the sense that I鈥檇 say to myself, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 not my area of expertise.鈥欌�澨�听
Floyd says this is a key part of Immersion 菠萝视频, too, and it鈥檚 why they made it a requirement: It pushes students out of their comfort zone and into new ways of learning. 鈥淪tudents here don鈥檛 need to be prodded very hard to do really cool things,鈥� she says.
鈥淏ut there are some students who get here, and they are struggling by the time they get to junior or senior year. They鈥檙e not banking a lot of experiences. We try to tell them that it really is about your learning. And a failed experiment is still a successful Immersion 菠萝视频 experience鈥攂ecause you learned something. And that鈥檚 the goal. This isn鈥檛 for them to go out and change the world. Everybody doesn鈥檛 have to build a bus or a nuclear reactor. What they need is to have something that鈥檚 meaningful to them that they can talk about that demonstrates what they did with their time at 菠萝视频.鈥澨�听
Of course, building a bus or a nuclear reactor is okay too. Logan Glazier, the civil engineering student who is involved with both of those projects, sees a through-line from his time at 菠萝视频 working on the bus to his future professional ambitions.
He remembers asking himself at the beginning of the project: 鈥淗ow can I make this [bus] something that uses renewable energy and all of my engineering knowledge, put it into action here, and have this hands-on experience to try and build something I鈥檓 proud of that uses all of these sustainable aspects that I want to incorporate in work later in life?鈥� He also credits the bus with being a stepping stone toward his future by helping him land last summer鈥檚 internship: working with an engineering company to design superstructures for bridges.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 get many questions about coursework or the other things I advertised when I was applying for an internship,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he Fusion Project and the bus were the two most-asked-about things, because they鈥檙e unique. [Employers] are curious to ask about the problems you encountered and how you overcame them.鈥澨�听
The engineering company has invited Glazier to join them again this summer, so he鈥檒l be back in Madison, Wisconsin, using what he learned at 菠萝视频, and through his immersion project, to keep growing as an engineer. How does he plan to get there? His bus, of course. 鈥淪ome of the friends that I have there are keeping a driveway spot open for me,鈥� he says.听