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Engaging Today's Students with the Liberal Arts |
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Connecting with Chicago Resources for Experiential Education Lake Forest College |
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Both increased engagement with off-campus learning experiences and on-campus academic engagement with resources from the city have become integral to how Lake Forest College defines its liberal arts experience. The model Lake Forest has been developing over the last ten years, of encouraging off-campus engagement with Chicago in academic ways, whether through internships, senior thesis research, or off-campus study, has also begun to link to conversations regarding the Lake Forest College mission to prepare responsible, global citizens. As the city of Chicago is a diverse, international community with much to teach our students about global issues, the College is considering the role of the surrounding community in educating our students as responsible and globally-aware citizens. The liberal arts as we see it, should be about making connections between disciplines, and between study and hands-on application of that study. It should encourage research that extends beyond the home campus, and self-directed education for life-long learning. Our developing model of using Chicago as an educational resource during all four years of undergraduate education for students at Lake Forest College, is aimed at the above goals. Maximizing Chicago resources for our students, from recently developed first-year "Chicago experiences" and Chicago-centered courses across the curriculum (with thanks to the Mellon Foundation), sustained contact with Chicago-based scholars/artists, and increased opportunities for upper-level semester-long off-campus research, study and internships, is expanding the educational impact of a Lake Forest College liberal arts education. Recent efforts, with grant assistance from the ACM Engagement Project, to bring a dozen faculty, students, and administrators together for year-long ongoing discussion on campus and with Chicago professionals, of how best to coordinate our efforts and redefine our goals in this area, have resulted in a series of recommendations made to the administration regarding existing efforts and future plans. Short-term recommendations (1-2 years) from this report included: increasing resources for our "Chicago Outreach" Program (financial and administrative support), the completion of a Chicago database and Web site of resources, the establishment of a Scholar/Artist in Residence Program, development of a Chicago Residential Semester Program, further development of Chicago-based internships, and a sharing of these initiatives through the College Web site and ACM conference at Coe College in 2005. Longer-term recommendations (3-5 years) included: continued building of the "Chicago Outreach" Program, further campus discussion and evaluation of Chicago elements within our curriculum, an evaluation of the Scholar/Artist in Residence Program, ongoing evaluation and development of a Chicago Residential Semester Program, and continued development of area internships The newly created Center for Chicago Programs, with its faculty director in a new Associate Dean of Faculty role, charged with increasing coordination of existing initiatives and pushing for greater development of alliances with Chicago institutions and an interdisciplinary Chicago residential program, is a happy result of increased campus communication, initiatives and desire for maximization of results. It is expected that this new coordination of efforts will advance and shape our initial recommendations, and that campus involvement in this area, by administrators, faculty and students, will continue to grow. While we are still examining the issues of transportation into the city, scheduling class time to accommodate increased contact with Chicago, identifying a suitable space and putting in place the curricular and staffing components of a Chicago-based semester program, as well as increasing the financial resources to support this College-wide extended classroom model, the added value of these experiences for our students remains clear. In short, Lake Forest College, now marketed as "Chicago's National Liberal Arts College," is embracing in ever greater ways the importance of this kind of academic outreach as integral to the liberal arts curriculum. Cynthia Hahn, Professor of French |
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Return to: Engagement Project |
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