2013 White Papers on Learning, Service and Leadership by Eureka College

THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE Eureka College White Papers on Learning, Service and Leadership

[table of contents] [1] Excellence in Learning | 7 Appendix A | Principles of Excellence 25 Appendix B | Revised Eureka College Student Learning Outcomes 29 Appendix C | Inquiry Seminars | Proposal for a New Course 32 Appendix D | Five Characteristics of a Learning Paradigm College 34 Appendix E â&#x20AC;&#x160;| Remedial Courses at Eureka College 35

[2] Excellence in Service | 37 Appendix A | Service at Eureka College in the 21st Century 49 Appendix B | Pedagogical Guidelines for Service Learning 50

[3] Excellence in Leadership Education | 52 Appendix A | Leadership Development Model 64

[acknowledgements] Authors and Committee Members Dr. Phillip Acree-Cavalier Dave Adams Dr. Jessica Barr Erin Bline Brooke Campbell, Leadership co-chair Amanda Coutre Bruce Fowlkes Prof. Amanda Frioli Dr. Ann Fulop, Leadership co-chair Bob Gold Sarah Hall Dr. Joseph Henry, Learning co-chair Sarah Jiter, co-chair Dr. Duce McCune Prof. Jim Miller John Morris Dr. Codrin Nedita Erika Quinn Members Authors andDr. Committee Jessica Barr

Shari Rich, Service co-chair

Bob Gold

Zane Ridings

Sarah Hall

Dr. William Staudenmeier

Dr. Mike Thurwanger Joseph Henry (Co-Chair) Dr. Prabhu Venkataraman Sarah Jiter (Co-Chair) Jim Miller

Dr. Kathy Whitson

Erika Quinn

Scott Wignall

Dr. Bill Wright Prabhu Venkataraman Kathy Whitson Scott Wignall

TO: EUREKA COLLEGE FACULTY, STAFF, & TRUSTEES FROM: DR. J. DAVID ARNOLD, PRESIDENT SUBJECT: WHITE PAPERS AND ACHIEVING OUR STRATEGIC VISION DATE: AUGUST 2013 As we prepare to begin a new academic year, it is important to both note and to celebrate the successful conclusion of a collaborative and productive process in which Eureka College faculty and staff developed three White Papers detailing our best thoughts on achieving excellence in learning, service and leadership. These White Papers—one each on learning, service, and leadership—were presented to alumni and friends of the College (i.e., the “President’s Commission”) during last academic year. This academic year, we will distill the recommendations of the white papers into a plan of action that will chart a pathway to achieve the vision in our Growth with Integrity 2.0 strategic plan. To inform everyone’s participation in these campus discussions, a copy of each white paper is attached. Please join me in thanking Dr. Cavalier and the White Paper co-chairs—Bill Wright, Shari Rich, Ann Fulop, Brooke Campbell, Joe Henry, Sarah Jiter and all the members of each white paper working team—for their leadership in producing three remarkable and impressive documents that we will use to define excellence in learning, service, and leadership in the years to come.

What is the College’s Vision? Our Vision Statement comes directly from the core of our Mission Statement that states that Eureka exists to “cultivate excellence in learning, service, and leadership.” The complete Eureka Mission Statement is: Eureka College, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is a liberal arts Eureka College, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is a liberal arts and science institution, and science institution, which also provides professional programs with a liberal arts which also provides professional programs with a liberal arts emphasis. The College exists to cultivate excelemphasis. The College exists to cultivate excellence in learning, service, and leaderlence in learning, service, and leadership. The College fosters the mutual development of intellect and character ship. The College fosters the mutual development of intellect and character so that the so that the members of our community may lead meaningful, productive lives and succeed in their professional members of our community may lead meaningful, productive lives and succeed in their and social roles. professional and social roles. The Vision Statement that was approved by trustees in 2010 as a vital component of the College’s strategic plan—Growth with Integrity 2.0 – is as follows: “Eureka will set the Nation’s standard for cultivating excellence in learning, service, and leadership.”

What is a White Paper? As you know, the term “white paper” is generally understood as a document that provides a non-technical, dare I say jargon-free, summary of a complex topic for a general audience. The term was first used to refer to brief government summary reports in England and is now widely used in many fields, especially in information technology and commercial marketing ventures. For example, one technology website defines a white paper as follows: A white an article states an organization’s or philosophy aboutora itsubject A white paper is anpaper articleisthat states that an organization’s position orposition philosophy about a subject is a notor it is a not-too-detailed explanation of an architecture, framework, or product technology. too-detailed explanation of an architecture, framework, or product technology. Typically, a white paper explains Typically, aor white paper explains thefrom results, conclusions, construction resultingcollaboration from some or the results, conclusions, construction resulting some organized or committee or research 1 organized committee or research collaboration or design and development effort. design and development effort. (This version edited slightly from original ) (This version edited slightly from original1)

For us in higher education, these white papers will summarize relevant research and theoretical literature and come to a reasoned conclusion about which findings are most relevant to Eureka College. There may be great variance in how each white paper is organized; however, each white paper will include the following: • How is excellence in collegiate education defined for each content area? • Which collegiate programs are listed as using best practices or are cited as model programs? • To what extent are there controversies, disagreements, or ambiguities in each area? • Which findings are most relevant to Eureka and why? • A list of suggested readings

What is the “Commission”? The President’s Commission on Excellence in Learning, Service, and Leadership is a group of volunteers comprised of alumni board members, friends of the College, and trustees who volunteered to read the White Papers and if at all possible, to attend one or more of the meetings on each White Paper topic. Thus, the Commission has served as a group of “readers” and “discussants” for each White Paper. Each White Paper was distributed one month before the following Commission meeting dates: • Service: October 11, 2012 • Leadership: February 7, 2013 • Learning: May 9, 2013

How will the White Paper and Commission Findings be used? It is important to note that these white papers are part of our institutional planning record/narrative for both accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission (including the comprehensive self-study) and for future institutional strategic and budget plans. For example, in the Higher Learning Commission’s evaluation of Eureka’s comprehensive self-study and in their subsequent campus visit during the 2015-2016 academic year, they will assess the level and quality of involvement by all College constituents and stakeholders in our institutional planning processes. I expect high marks for Eureka on this HLC criterion as a result of the successful completion of the White Paper and Commission process. Please note that the implementation of any White Paper recommendation(s) would go through the normal governance process and procedures at the College, including the normal role of the Board of Trustees.

What are the next steps? The White Papers and the Commission provided a venue for all stakeholders to be involved with College planning. While the College has an acute need to generate capital through philanthropy, the White Papers and the Commission were preliminary to any future capital campaign. With three completed documents, our task during this academic year will be to sort and prioritize the recommendations as we move forward to a new or revised strategic plan (Growth With Integrity 2.0 is set to ‘expire’ in 2015) and eventually a Higher Learning Accreditation self-study process (which will begin no later than June 2015). 1

Edited definition; Original available http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/white-paper

[1] EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING May 2013

Authors and Committee Members Dr. Jessica Barr Bob Gold Sarah Hall Dr. Joseph Henry (Co-Chair) Sarah Jiter (Co-Chair) Prof. Jim Miller Dr. Erika Quinn Dr. Prabhu Venkataraman Dr. Kathy Whitson Scott Wignall

Executive Summary The White Paper on Learning offers a bold vision for the future of academics at Eureka College. This vision is grounded in research on higher education and the global initiatives developed by prominent national higher education organizations. The white paper lays out a comprehensive set of short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations that will contribute to creating an exceptional educational experience and environment. It offers suggestions for future strategic thinking and planning. The first section of the white paper focuses on curricular and co-curricular revisions:

— — — — — —

General Education Intercultural Competence Applied Learning Common Intellectual Experiences Capstone Courses/Senior Projects E-Portfolio Assessment

The second focuses on high-impact educational practices: — Academic Challenge and High Expectations — High-Quality Interactions — New Pedagogical Approaches — First-Year Experience Programs and Seminars — Diversity Taken as a whole, the research and recommendations in this document offer several possible paths for Eureka College to pursue over the next ten years. The committee’s work has been guided by two national initiatives, both seeking to capture and catalyze a renewal process in higher education. The first is the “Liberal Education and America’s Promise” initiative (LEAP), launched by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) in 2005; the other is the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The LEAP initiative provides a framework for evaluating the curriculum; NSSE helps reveal a set of high-impact practices, curricular and co-curricular, that the College should consider implementing. The conversation about achieving excellence in learning, service, and leadership began in October 2011 and continued earlier this year in the white papers on service and leadership. The white paper on learning extends the conversation. Learning plays the central role in the development of service and leadership. The learning white paper lays the groundwork necessary to integrate the service and leadership white papers into one broad vision for an exemplary college experience at Eureka College.

Learn. Serve. Lead.

Introduction Eureka College is positioned well to provide an exceptional contemporary liberal arts education that prepares students for the challenges of the 21st century and for inquiry into what it means to be human. Our mission as a liberal arts college is clear, and we have a long history of preparing students to become exceptional thinkers, citizens, and servant leaders. By making key strategic choices, the College will transform an already successful educational enterprise into an extraordinary learning experience that will prepare and equip students to respond to new economic, cross-cultural, environmental, and civic challenges. On October 6, 2011, President Arnold convened members of the College’s different constituency groups for the “Achieving the Vision” symposium to begin exploring the means by which the College will achieve excellence in learning, service, and leadership. This Learning White Paper extends the conversation that started that day and continued earlier this year in the white papers on service and leadership. The Learning White Paper offers a bold vision for the future of academics at Eureka College. This vision is grounded in research on higher education and the global initiatives developed by prominent national higher education organizations. The Learning White Paper lays out a comprehensive set of short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations that will contribute to creating an exceptional educational experience and environment. It offers suggestions for future strategic and budgetary planning. Taken as a whole, the research and recommendations in this document offer several possible paths for Eureka College to pursue over the next ten years. Learning at Eureka College has always been defined by the strong interconnection between the traditional liberal arts and the application of knowledge in a range of settings. The College prides itself on offering an education that teaches students to read, think, and write critically, and broadens their horizons. This approach is particularly appropriate for Eureka College’s current student body, which includes a large proportion of first-generation students. Given our student demographics, we must continue to demonstrate the value of our approach, showing students and their parents that a liberal arts education prepares them best to adapt to an unknowable future through the knowledge, skills and dispositions they acquire in college. The committee’s work has been guided by two national initiatives, both seeking to capture and catalyze a renewal process in higher education. The first is the “Liberal Education and America’s Promise” initiative (LEAP), launched by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) in 2005. AAC&U is the pre-eminent association in higher education. Founded in 1915, the organization address issues related to the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Since the 1980s, AAC&U has led the national conversation about general education reform, and their initiatives have focused on areas such as strengthening general education for transfer students and using general education to enhance curricula and pedagogy. The LEAP initiative articulates a set of aims for liberal education, identifies innovative models that improve undergraduate learning, and calls for a comprehensive approach to general education reform (AAC&U, 2002). The AAC&U’s description of the values and enduring aims of a liberal education parallel those espoused by Eureka College: broad knowledge, strong intellectual skills, and a grounded sense of ethical and civic responsibility. As AAC&U’s President Carol Geary Schneider explained it in 2005, the “New Academy” will blend the traditional liberal arts with purposeful engagement in the world. It will more intentionally help students develop empowering intellectual skills; acquire a strong ethical compass; contribute to their communities; and apply what they have learned to challenging, real-world problems. The LEAP vision updates and builds on the enduring aims of a liberal education by giving a more prominent place to various forms of experiential education, thereby amending the longstanding notion that a higher education should focus only on a narrow range of intellectual qualities and should occur almost exclusively in the classroom.

The Pursuit of Excellence

The second initiative is the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). NSSE annually collects information from hundreds of four-year colleges and universities about student engagement in academics, programs, and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development. There are five overarching categories in the NSSE: level of academic challenge; student-faculty interaction; active and collaborative learning; enriching educational environment; and supportive campus environment. The results in these five areas create a snapshot of how successful colleges and universities are at engaging students in learning. They also yield information about which pedagogical practices have the most impact, and which the least. Indeed, the collaborative efforts of AAC&U and NSSE, brought together in a monograph by George Kuh (one of the principal architects of NSSE), have identified a set of educational practices that correlate strongly with positive educational results for students from widely varying backgrounds (Kuh, 2008). In a sense, then, using AAC&U provides a framework that the College can use to evaluate elements of the curriculum, while NSSE reveals a set of high-impact practices, curricular and others. The College currently engages in some of these, such as the firstyear seminar and the honors program, but there are others that the College might consider implementing in the future. The organization of the Learning White Paper reflects these two elements: the first section focuses on Curricular and co-curricular Revisions, and the second on High-Impact Educational Practices. Over the next year, LEAP and NSSE will help the Eureka faculty examine current educational practices at Eureka College and provide a framework for future discussions about what constitutes “essential learning” at Eureka College (see Appendix A). LEAP will also help us use a common language to describe what Eureka College students learn in and out of the classroom. And ultimately, LEAP and NSSE will connect Eureka College to the national conversation about liberal education.

SECTION 1: CURRICULAR AND CO-CURRICULAR REVISIONS 1. GENERAL EDUCATION

Institutions of higher learning have long established common “General Education” curricular requirements for all students. These requirements take different forms. A “core curriculum” generally means that all students take a set of required courses, with little or no choice, in addition to their major and elective courses. A distribution requirement in General Education typically means that students select from a range of courses in different categories, though they may still have to take a few courses required for all. The current general education curriculum at Eureka is structured as a hybrid core-distributional model, reflecting our belief that a student’s learning should be cumulative and broad. Students take four specific courses that require them to connect different ways of knowing and they select from a range of courses that expand the breadth of their studies. Whatever form general education takes, the intention is to ensure that graduates have achieved a set of common educational outcomes that are easily measurable. Eureka College has a set of ten College Goals that articulate what we intend to develop in the student who progresses through four years of our undergraduate experience. In turn, the General Education curriculum has its own set of six General Education Goals (see Figure 1 on following page).

Learn. Serve. Lead.

FIGURE 1.

GENERAL EDUCATION GOALS 2012-2013 Eureka College Catalog (p.54)

1. Our graduates will understand the issues, apply the essential concepts, and engage in the ways of knowing that characterize the natural sciences, the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts.

2. The College expects that its graduates will make connections among these fields of inquiry and demonstrate how those connections serve as the framework of our common cultural heritage.

3. Our graduates will demonstrate foundational expertise in the skills of disciplined reading, effective communication, mathematical analysis, critical and creative thinking, collaborative problem solving, and aesthetic evaluation.

4. The College expects that its graduates will make the connections between and among the skills of critical thinking, creative thinking, and collaborative problem solving and be able to apply these skills in creative and appropriate ways to the demands that they will face in a diverse and changing world.

5. Our graduates will demonstrate a commitment which emphasizes a moral responsibility to self, the local and national community, the global family, and to the environment.

6. The College expects that its graduates will appreciate the relationships inherent in all of life and will accordingly live lives reflective of their moral commitments and characterized by leadership in service to others.

In recent years, higher education institutions have invested a considerable amount of effort in being more accountable for the education and training they provide to students. The emphasis on accountability was driven, in part, by the higher education community itself becoming more self-critical, and in part by external forces, such as the Department of Education and regional accrediting agencies. As a result, learning outcomes that measure the knowledge, skills, and dispositions acquired by students “are rapidly taking center stage as the principal gauge of higher education’s effectiveness” (Albert, 1991; Eaton, 2003; Ruhland & Brewer, 2001, 142). The LEAP learning outcomes reflect the need to create a curriculum that prepares college graduates to participate in “a globally engaged democracy” and a “dynamic, innovation-fueled economy,” to develop their “individual capability” (AAC&U, 2011, 8). These learning outcomes, keyed to work, life and citizenship, are considered important for all students and as such, should be fostered and developed across the entire educational experience, i.e., both curricular and co-curricular programming; through general education and the students’ major disciplines.

The Pursuit of Excellence

FIGURE 2.

LEAP ESSENTIAL LEARNING OUTCOMES

Beginning in school, and continuing at successively higher levels across their college studies, students should prepare for twenty-first-century challenges by gaining:

Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World

Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring

Intellectual and Practical Skills

Including: • Inquiry and analysis • Critical and creative thinking • Written and oral communication • Quantitative literacy • Information literacy • Teamwork and problem solving

Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance

Personal and Social Responsibility

Including: • Civic knowledge and engagement— local and global • Intercultural knowledge and competence • Ethical reasoning and action • Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and realworld challenges

Including: Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies

Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems

Integrative and Applied Learning

Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems

The College will bring its general education goals into sharper focus by adapting all or part of the LEAP learning outcomes. The LEAP outcomes are framed in such a way that they can be easily assessed. By articulating various levels of student achievement based on demonstrated learning, the VALUE rubrics that accompany the LEAP learning outcomes serve as a useful resource for the College to develop the appropriate tools to assess learning, skills and dispositions. Through discussion among the Eureka College faculty, we believe that the LEAP categories and language can be modified to reflect the ethos of Eureka College and serve as the foundation for a re-designed General Education curriculum. A sample Eureka College adaptation of the LEAP student learning outcomes can be found in Appendix B.

Learn. Serve. Lead.

SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 years): a. Adopt the LEAP Initiative’s “Essential Learning Outcomes” (Figure No.2) as a framework to develop a new list (see Appendix B) of assessable Eureka College Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). These SLOs will be used to identify and define the essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions that we believe our students need to acquire and cultivate. In addition, they will serve as a target for student achievement, and provide a foundation for institutional assessment, planning, and development. LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION (5-10 years): a. Director of the General Education Program: Strong general education programs have strong faculty and administrative leadership. To this end, the Eureka College General Education Program will eventually require a Director for program oversight and to lead general education reform. The Director of the General Education Program would preferably be a tenured faculty member who would also teach in his/her discipline. Part of the Director’s load would also be to advance general education reform and work closely with the Gen. Ed. Committee to assure control of quality and integrity of the Gen. Ed. experience at EC. After the process of integrating this white paper, the service white paper, and the leadership white paper into one document, we will determine the best way to structure the leadership of new programming.

2. GLOBAL AWARENESS / INTERCULTURALCOMPETENCE The current General Education curriculum includes an important element, the “Global Awareness” requirement. It is similar in intent to “Intercultural knowledge and competence” in the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes. We think this area should be significantly expanded in future versions of the General Education curriculum. Given the global nature of work and life in the 21st century, we think it is crucial to equip our students to be global citizens. Eureka College graduates, on the whole, have limited exposure to people from cultures different from their own, do not take courses that expose them to different (especially non-European) cultures, and generally do not learn other languages. They graduate underprepared, in other words, to be global citizens. Students can satisfy the current global awareness requirement in one of three ways: by taking six credit hours of foreign language; by taking six credit hours or more of international study; or by taking two courses from a list of twenty. Most students choose the third option, and because the number of courses to choose from is so large, the experience varies significantly from student to student. Our aspirant institutions embrace a range of methods for promoting global awareness in their students; most require language study as well as coursework, including courses in U.S. diversity. Assessable student learning outcomes should include the following: a. Basic knowledge of (and curiosity about) some culture other than mainstream U.S. culture. b. Language proficiency. c. Basic understanding of and/or sensitivity to diversity in the context of more than one different culture— e.g. both a “Western” and a “Non-Western” culture. d. Recognition of how one’s cultural/political/social lens shapes one’s view of the world. e. Ability to recognize, respond sensitively to, and see the value in cultural perspectives other than the student’s own. The committee recommends the following curricular, co-curricular, and non-curricular areas to improve our ability to prepare our graduates as global citizens.

SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 years): a. General Education Requirements:

• Students must demonstrate intercultural competence by completing two courses in intercultural

The Pursuit of Excellence

competence. Studying abroad or participating in an intensive intercultural experience such as an internship can replace one of the courses. • Evaluate the current Global Awareness requirement against the LEAP “intercultural knowledge and competence” learning outcomes to determine how to develop intercultural literacy more effectively in our graduates.

• Call on faculty to submit courses that meaningfully address/assess one or several of the student learning outcomes suggested above. b. Provide support for faculty who would like to include more intercultural content in course content and link that content to co-curricular activities. c. Prioritize activities related to intercultural diversity (films, performances, lectures, artists) in student programming; these should not all come out of the International Club. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATIONS (3-5 Years): a. Create a named, guest artist/performance series that brings artists from diverse cultures to campus. b. Increase study abroad opportunities. LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION (5-10 Years): a. Create a general education foreign language requirement of one year’s study for all students; offer Spanish, Chinese, and French (4 hours a week). We would also like to offer majors and minors in these areas and perhaps an Asian studies major. Ideally, we would also like to add German and Arabic when funding permits.

3. APPLIED LEARNING: STUDY ABROAD Study Abroad is widely recognized for the value it adds to an undergraduate education. Benefits include gaining a new perspective on the world, improving language skills, developing problem-solving skills, and making long-lasting connections with people of different backgrounds. Eureka currently offers two primary study abroad opportunities. Students can attend Sophia University in Japan to take courses over the summer, and they can spend a semester studying at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. Eureka students can also participate in annual mission trips over spring break. In recent years, students have traveled to Costa Rica and Honduras, and planning is underway to take a group of students on a mission trip to Novgorod, Russia in May 2014. According to a 2010 Eureka College NSSE Recommendation report, only 2% of Eureka College seniors have studied abroad while 12% of students in the top 10% of NSSE schools study abroad. Eureka’s student body is especially well placed to benefit from robust study away programs. Because our students are mostly first-generation college attendees and, in most cases, have not traveled far from Illinois, these programs could be the first – or even only -- opportunity for many of our students to encounter significant cultural difference. As Mani (2012) argues in relation to second language instruction, study abroad programs combat the problem of “economically less privileged students [being prevented] from gaining access to new modes of intellectual development and therefore to social mobility” (37-38), as well as to the richer life that such experiences promise. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATIONS (3-5 Years): a. Provide Honors classes with travel components and encourage all Honors students to take at least one of these courses while they are at Eureka College. The National Collegiate Honors Council’s (NCHC) has generated more than twenty full Semesters that feature experiential learning through a combination of interrelated

Learn. Serve. Lead.

courses integrated by a focus on the specific setting of each project. Semesters are offered regularly to invite Honors students nationally into a learning experience away from their own campus to sites abroad and in the United States. Interested participants can examine more information about this program, City as Text™, by following the link http://nchchonors.org/faculty-directors/honors-semesters-and-faculty-institutes/ b. Develop more partnerships and student-exchange programs with universities overseas using our new partnership with Lingnan University in Hong Kong as a possible model. c. Design and teach more semester-long courses with a May-term or Spring Break component, as well as May-term travel courses. Some funding would be required to make all of these initiatives affordable for students. LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (5-10 Years):

a. Introduce semester abroad programs through affiliated organizations. b. Consider a travel requirement for all students (with requisite funding as necessary) which might include Spring Break trips, May-term trips in the U.S. or abroad, summer study abroad opportunities, and semesters abroad. c. Create a Study Abroad Office staffed by a Study Abroad Coordinator and International Student Services resource person to: • Promote the value and benefits of studying-abroad to all students, including transfer students; • Identify and/or design both short-term and long-term study-abroad opportunities for all students; • Work with academic advisors to promote studying-abroad at the advising level; • Seek outside funding opportunities to support a Eureka College Study-Abroad Program; • Explore various approaches to recruiting international students to study at Eureka; • Collaborate with the Director of the Cerf Center and Student Engagement on diversity initiatives; • Coordinate International Student Services including Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) information and respond to the needs of international students. • Oversee the Eureka College International Summer Program

4. APPLIED LEARNING: INTERNSHIPS, PRACTICA, AND UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH Internships and practica are forms of experiential learning and among Kuh’s “High-Impact Educational Practices.” They provide hands-on learning opportunities, allowing students to collaborate closely with faculty and professionals, and strengthen ties between the college and the community (Westerberg, 2011). Eureka College has a strong legacy of supporting quality internship experiences that help students explore career paths and enhance skills, and that provide opportunities to experience the world of work. Eureka College has a strong legacy of supporting quality internship experiences that help students explore career paths and enhance skills, and that provide opportunities to experience the world of work. At Eureka College students may apply up to 16 hours of internship credit toward graduation requirements. Currently, internships are required of graduates in Environmental Studies and Exercise Science, while Communication and English Writing majors may elect to earn credit towards their major for a completed internship. Students in all other majors are encouraged to complete one or more internships, with credit applied as elective hours. In addition, Eureka College has developed a partnership with The Washington Center, which enables students to participate in semester-long internships in a broad range of fields, located in Washington, D.C. and select international locations. The Career Services area supports students who seek and secure internships on a not-for-credit basis Many colleges and universities also provide research experiences for undergraduates in all disciplines (Kuh, 2008). Undergraduates typically engage in scholarly research in one of two ways: they work on a research project that relates, or contributes, to a faculty member’s research; they conduct research with faculty guidance as part of the process of completing a senior thesis. In both cases, undergraduate research gives students the opportunity to engage in mentored work that enables them to explore an issue of interest to them. At Eureka College, Honors students complete an

The Pursuit of Excellence

original research project for their Honors thesis. In addition, other students are engaged in research in various academic disciplines. Eureka College has recently (Spring 2012) created an annual Eureka College Research Symposium to celebrate all undergraduate research and support students who wish to present their research beyond Eureka College, including at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research and other discipline-specific conferences. The committee recognizes and supports the curricular and faculty recommendations as set forth by the service and leadership white papers concerning internships, practica, and undergraduate research. Rather than duplicate their well-reasoned recommendations, we realize that important 2013-2014 conversations will be forthcoming as the three white papers intentionally intersect and are reconciled with each other. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (1-2 years): a. Discover ways to celebrate and promote undergraduate research at Eureka College. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATIONS (3-5 Years): a. Seek funding to create a program through which students may pursue paid internships while doing service

related work through a variety of College programs. Two possible models are: • The Canale Leadership and Service Internship at Sewanee, The University of the South. See http://careers. sewanee.edu/internships/academic0year-internships. • The Bonner Leaders Program: See http://www.bonner.org. b. Create a fund to support students attending professional and academic conferences. LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION (5-10 Years): a. Establish a permanent grant program that would support student-initiated and faculty supervised research. A program that may serve Eureka College as a model is the Currie Scholars Program at Alma College. This program supports scholarly or creative projects in collaboration with a faculty mentor.

5. COMMON INTELLECTUAL EXPERIENCES We think that enhancing common intellectual experiences will help students integrate knowledge, make connections across disciplines, and master critical skills such as writing in a variety of genres, speaking formally and extemporaneously, working collaboratively, and thinking critically. EC students currently take four specific courses that require them to connect different ways of knowing: First-Year Seminar (IDS101), Western Civilization and Culture (IDS261W/262), and Senior Seminar (IDS490W). We think there are opportunities to sharpen the focus on interdisciplinary study by revising IDS 490W and developing new “Inquiry Seminars.” MID-RANGE TO LONG TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (3-10 years): a. Replace IDS261W/262 with two, IQS250W Inquiry Seminars (3 credit hours each): The IDS261W-262 was restructured to be a seminar that was more interdisciplinary in nature than the previous version. The two courses help students understand key historical ideas in fields such as economics, social science, politics, religion, philosophy, and the arts, but it is not as strong at making connections between different fields. We think Inquiry Seminars team-taught by faculty from different disciplines would be a more effective way of illustrating for students what often seem to be disparate and disconnected “ways of knowing” types of information. The cost of shifting to team-taught seminars would have to be determined and considered in conversations about this recommendation. A more through proposal for these Inquiry Seminars can be found in Appendix C. b. Revise IDS490W (Senior Seminar), which needs a better defined focus. Among the things a revised IDS 490W might do: • incorporate senior experiences that demonstrate and build on student knowledge of his/her discipline; • encourage interdisciplinary connections through case studies, interdisciplinary portfolio entries, and exit interview questions that ask the students to identify connections between their major and the liberal arts (see section on

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Capstone Experience below); • require a final portfolio and assess each portfolio to determine whether or not the student demonstrates a clear understanding of the liberal arts and sciences (see section on E-Portfolio Assessment, page 9).

6. CAPSTONE COURSES AND SENIOR PROJECTS A required capstone course has the potential to help students integrate and apply what they have learned across their entire undergraduate experience. Several majors include a capstone course, such as accounting, art, English, environmental studies, theatre, and education. As mentioned above, Senior Seminar (IDS490W) functions broadly as a capstone experience. Several colleges on our aspirant list require their students to complete a practicum or internship and submit a written report of their experiences as part of their capstone experience. Others require students to complete an independent research project that culminates in a thesis. Through these capstone experiences, students can demonstrate specific knowledge within their field of study, make connections across different fields, gain valuable insight into what it might be like to work in their field of their interest, or make themselves stronger candidates for graduate school programs. Eckerd College has been a national leader in refining the senior capstone format and challenging its students to reflect on overall “purpose” and “meaning” before graduation. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 Years): a. Create a committee to evaluate IDS490W. They determine how it can function as effectively as integrative capstone to the General Education Program and potentially create a stronger common experience and set of expectations across all IDS490W sections. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATION (3-5 Years): a. Incorporate senior projects into all majors. Senior projects would serve as the overarching capstone experience for all students. In the senior project, a student would demonstrate and hone her knowledge of the major discipline while also demonstrating an understanding of how major and general education coursework are connected.

7. E-PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT In the 1990s, several colleges and universities began experimenting with e-portfolios as a method for helping students reflect on their own learning and assessing student progress. The e-portfolio is a collection of student work that demonstrates a student’s progress toward and achievement of various student learning outcomes (Lorenzo & Ittleson, 2005). E-portfolios can house a variety of digital artifacts representing student curricular and co-curricular work. In addition to student writing, the artifacts could include examples of performances, demonstrations of achieving a particular learning outcome, documents or artifacts showing personal and academic growth, or students’ reflections on each artifact to clarify why it is included in the portfolio. A well-designed e-portfolio can also enhance academic advising that would help students integrate learning, assess their progress, and become more autonomous learners. Many e-portfolio models are available nationally to help guide design and implementation, including systems at Alverno College, Loyola University-Chicago, St. Olaf College, Kalamazoo College, Clemson University, California Lutheran University, Portland State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Indiana UniversityPurdue University in Indianapolis. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 Years): a. Establish an E-Portfolio Committee: The committee would explore e-portfolio systems and evaluate potential strains on budget, technology, and the Eureka College ITS Staff. Make recommendations on educational, technical, and strategic issues related to e-portfolios, and for implementing electronic portfolio assessment at Eureka College. The committee thinks that the process of exploring e-portfolio systems should be coordinated with conversations about moving to a new student management system in the future.

The Pursuit of Excellence

SECTION 2: HIGH-IMPACT EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES The committee believes that high-impact practices create a learning environment in which students can learn and apply essential knowledge and skills that lead to academic and personal growth. Over the last twenty-five years, a large body of research has focused on identifying high-impact practices that improve student engagement in college. Some key studies include Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education; Kuh’s (2008) High-Impact Educational Practices; Barr and Tagg’s (1995) Learning Paradigm; and Edgerton’s (2001) Pedagogies of Engagement. For a detailed description of high-impact practices, see Appendix D. Kuh (2008) argues that every student should experience at least two high-impact practices. The committee agrees and thinks each Eureka student should participate in a carefully planned sequence that includes a majority of the educational practices presented in the four statements mentioned above. These four descriptions offer Eureka College unique opportunities to fine-tune current practices and adopt new practices that will help the College become more effective, coherent and intentional. Our challenge will be to connect the intended student learning outcomes to the high-impact practices.

1. ACADEMIC CHALLENGE AND HIGH EXPECTATIONS Challenging intellectual and creative work is central to student learning and the quality of the educational experience. According to Chickering and Gamson (1987), high expectations are important for students at every level of academic preparation and motivation. We believe that Eureka College should challenge and develop every student’s talents and skills, regardless of their previous academic preparation and background. To do so, we must provide intensive academic support for our students, both inside and outside the classroom. For less-prepared students, we need to expand our academic support opportunities and processes. For the high achieving students, we need to develop challenging opportunities through the Honors Program that will stretch them academically. Honors should become a centerpiece of the curriculum at Eureka College, attracting attention from high-achieving prospective students throughout Central Illinois and beyond. Students should want to join Eureka’s Honors Program because it offers exciting opportunities and because it will prepare them for the rigors of graduate school or any highly competitive career. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (1-2 Years): a. Establish High Academic Expectations. More intentionally socialize new students to the ethos of Eureka College academic expectations beginning in Welcome Week and extending through the First-Year Seminar. b. Celebrate Academic Excellence. We should celebrate the academic work that demonstrates students meet our high expectations. We recommend creating an annual Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship and Creative Work to supplement the current Honors Award Ceremony. This celebration would include the presentation of honors theses, poster presentations of student research, and presentations representing work in capstone courses for majors. c. Develop an effective diagnostic method to place students into remedial courses. Using multiple measures that assess a broader array of skills (i.e., high school transcripts, total courses taken and credits earned, honors classes, total classes in English and Math, and the number of F grades received) has been shown to more accurately reveal information relevant to effort, persistence, and motivation – all things that will be important to the successful college student. d. Evaluate and increase the impact of ENG095 and MAT098/099. Require students enrolled in these developmental courses to participate in more focused and regular academic support, such as one-on-one tutoring, small group study time with professionals in the College Learning Center and/or regular involvement with computer-based learning resources, such as instructional software and other Web-based learning resources.

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MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATION (3-5 Years): a. Strengthen the Eureka College Honors Program: • Three-credit Honors Seminars. Increasing Honors seminars from 1 to 3 credit hours will provide more challenge for Honors students. As more developed courses, three-credit Seminars will provide students with greater breadth and depth of knowledge. These courses should be designed in such a way that they will count towards the students’ General Education requirements. zweekly throughout the semester, culminating in a 10-day trip in May term. Funding would be provided to make this experience affordable; ideally, all Honors students would take one during their time at Eureka. • International Research Fellowships. This competitive, Sandifer-like fellowship would be open to Honors students who are working on a thesis or other advanced research project and would benefit from traveling abroad—either for field work or to use a renowned library or archive. Interested students would work with a faculty advisor at Eureka to propose a scholarly project and collaborate with the International Studies Coordinator to identify a host institution and on-site faculty contact. Up to two scholarships would be awarded annually. The scholarship could go towards short-term (up to one month) study over the summer, or be applied towards a semester abroad. • Cultural Education Series. Require Honors students to attend three of six cultural opportunities to be offered annually. These opportunities would include the annual banquet, an on-campus film screening, a play, a musical performance, and two additional events (gallery tours, artist talks, literary readings, meals at ethnic restaurants, dance performances, private lectures or receptions with visiting scholars artists, etc.). The aim of this series would be to increase Honors students’ cultural literacy while also giving them the opportunity to have fun and explore the cultural opportunities in surrounding cities. • Academic conference funding. Provide funding for Honors students to travel to academic conferences and encourage students to submit their work to conferences. • Create a dedicated Honors space on campus, which could ideally serve as both a seminar-style classroom and a study lounge. This space would also serve as a place where information (about, for example, conference opportunities) could be easily disseminated to students. • Increase the challenge of Honors-designated courses. Currently, General Education courses that are designated –H are essentially the same as their non-Honors counterparts. Honors classes should, however, have an additional element of intellectual challenge. • Use Honors as a recruiting tool. Make the Honors Program a centerpiece of Reagan Weekend. Because so many Reagan applicants are Honors eligible, but only six can receive the Reagan Leadership fellowship, promoting Honors more actively could be a way of enticing a larger number of academically accomplished students to come to Eureka College. • Thesis workshops. Revise HON301 (Thesis Prospectus Preparation) and HON410W (the first half of the Thesis course) to include bi-weekly workshops that would better prepare students for the rigors of advanced research and support and encourage them through the production of their theses. • Create an Honors Advisory Board composed of faculty who would help the Director to oversee the Honors Program. LONG-TERM RECOMMENDATION (5-10 Years): a. Expand the Eureka College Student Learning Center (LC): The Learning Center should provide more comprehensive student support to encourage academic excellence and help students acquire the skills necessary to become independent learners. With additional professional staff, the LC would pro-

The Pursuit of Excellence

vide Eureka College students with more walk-in tutoring and academic support. Some of the opportunities to explore include: more peer tutors; librarians available for consultation; enhanced audio-visual services; the creation of a writing studio; an academic technology studio; and a quantitative reasoning studio.

2. SUPPORT FOR INCORPORATING NEW PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES Over the last two decades, many new pedagogical approaches have emerged to engage student more successfully in their learning. The concept of active learning has been the guiding principal for many of the new approaches. According to Bonwell & Eison (1991), active learning strategies such as cooperative learning, problem-based learning, guided inquiry, and service learning share involve students in thinking about and applying the ideas and concepts they are learning. Although there are times when lecturing is appropriate, there are also alternatives to the lecture as a primary means of teaching. Many factors determine whether a student persists in college to graduate or departs early, but one of the crucial pieces is the effectiveness of teaching and learning. The past two decades have witnessed a discernible shift from a focus on teaching to focus on student learning, leading to several reform initiatives based in pedagogy and content delivery. Some of these initiatives have focused on revising course content while others seek more effective ways of engaging students in active learning. Active learning is the umbrella under which other closely related types of pedagogy can be found, e.g., cooperative learning, problem-based learning, and service-learning (Garner, 2012). Pedagogies of active learning include a wide range of activities that seem to echo the research and basic principles of effective teaching found in Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles, Barr and Tagg’s Learning Paradigm, and Edgerton’s Pedagogies of Engagement. In 2011-12, the College’s Curriculum Committee initiated a series of faculty-led workshops focused on areas of pedagogy, advising, and assessment. The topics for the workshops so far have included: incorporating service-learning into the classroom; improving academic advising; developing course objectives on syllabi; incorporating writing into courses throughout the curriculum; and process-oriented guided inquiry learning. We believe that the College would benefit from more on-campus development opportunities for faculty and staff to learn about new approaches to teaching. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 Years): a. Expand the Eureka College Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETaL): Seek funding to expand the current TES program at Eureka College. By supporting scholarship, classroom research, attendance at annual pedagogy conferences, and year-round events, the CETaL would help faculty explore new pedagogical approaches to teaching. CETaL would also serve faculty in the area of assessment. The Center of Advancement of Teaching and Learning at Elon University offers one model for such a center. (http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/teaching/cat|Home.xhtml).

3. HIGH-QUALITY STUDENT-FACULTY INTERACTIONS Research on the effects of student-faculty interaction outside the classroom has consistently demonstrated that informal contact between professors and their students has a significant positive impact on students’ personal, social, and intellectual growth, and their overall satisfaction with their college experience (Pascarella, 1980; Endo and Harpel, 1982; Fusani,1994; Myers, Martin, and Knapp, 2005; Halawah, 2006). Both the nature and frequency of student-faculty interactions matter (Pascarella and Terenzini 2005). Surveys of students indicate that faculty “caring for students personally and being approachable outside the classroom” are the two most important criteria in their perceptions of high-quality student-faculty interactions (Alderman, 2008, p.60). Students at Eureka College are taught by a talented faculty who are engaged in their roles as teachers as much outside the classroom as they are in their disciplines. The majority of Eureka College faculty members

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serve as academic advisors; some serve as advisors for student organizations. Students participate on faculty and College-wide committees. Faculty members understand that engaging students inside and outside the classroom contributes significantly to student academic growth and success. Eureka’s NSSE scores for student-faculty interaction reflect the faculty’s commitment to mentoring. On the 2012 NSSE for both first-year and senior respondents, Eureka scored higher than private colleges in the Great Lakes region, and those scores placed us firmly in the top 50% of all colleges and universities participating in the survey. These are outstanding results. We think the scores will increase as we build on the FYE foundation now in place for students. The following practices, many of which can easily be adapted for implementation in a wide range of learning contexts, may be helpful in promoting more opportunities for all Eureka College students (not just first-year students) and faculty to interact outside the classroom. SHORT TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (1-2 Years): a. Expand the First-Year Forum and Cultural Engagement Program (FCE) for all EC students: We created FCE for first-year students, but all undergraduate students would benefit from additional opportunities to interact and engage with faculty in out-of-class discussions prompted by Forum programming. b. Lunch and Learn Series: Faculty would lecture on current research or a relevant topic in the East Commons,one of the Terrill Rooms, a Residence Hall Lounge, or other campus location. c. Out-to-Lunch Program: This student-faculty interaction program encourages students to dine with faculty members at the College Commons. Students select a faculty member of their choice and secure a meal voucher for the faculty member’s meal. d. Issue Dinners (Model from Coe College): An issue dinner is an opportunity to join fellow students, faculty and community members for dinner and conversation with a presenter on a controversial topic. All first-year students would attend one issue dinner in the fall term. After the presentation, a discussion would follow at each table with the opportunity to formulate, articulate and defend views in a civil conversation. e. Mutual Expectations Workshops: Create bi-annual workshops designed to help bridge the gap in communication between faculty and students regarding their expectations of each other. Potential topics might include academic integrity, expectations and standards in a community of learning, supplemental instructors and professors, developing skills and the disposition to advance servant-leadership, technology in the classroom, syllabus structures, creative learning environments, what instructors expect of students, what students expect of instructors, etc. The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (recommendation on p. 15), the Student Senate, the Faculty Cabinet, and the Academic Standards and Policies Committee could form partnerships to sponsor these workshops. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATION (3-5 Years): a. Faculty Incentives: Eureka College could provide specific faculty incentives for becoming involved with students outside the classroom (e.g., stipends for taking students to lunch/dinner or cultural/athletic events; credit toward promotion and tenure; student-service awards to publicly recognize outstanding faculty contributions to students outside the classroom; incentive grants for faculty who involve students as partners in teaching or research).

4. HIGH-QUALITY STUDENT INTERACTIONS WITH PROFESSIONAL STAFF Creating learning environments and learning experiences for students has also been at the very heart of student affairs work. In 1994, the American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Student Learning Imperative (http://www.acpa.nche.edu/sli/sli.htm) asked Student Affairs personnel to reaffirm their commitment to student learning and development. Lacking comparable statements of good educational practice similar to those

The Pursuit of Excellence

developed by Chickering and Gamson (1987), the ACPA, in 1996, in collaboration with the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) drafted Principles of Good Practice for Student Affairs. These principles work to offer unambiguous, yet adaptable, guidelines for productive use of resources for learning. These statements can be found in full context at http://www.acpa.nche.edu/pgp/principle.htm. SHORT TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (1-2 Years): a. Expand the current FYE Professional Staff Mentor Program to reach all residential students. b. Develop a Commuter Outreach Program. Sponsor events such as “Lunch & Learns” and “Good Morning Commuter” (the equivalent to our “Late Night Breakfast” held for residential students). c. Utilize Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) Standards within the Student Program and Services Office to assess current programs and learning outcomes.

5. HIGH-QUALITY STUDENT-PEER MENTOR INTERACTIONS According to Wawrzynski & Beverly (2012), college undergraduate peers are the single most potent source of influence on undergraduate student affective and cognitive growth and development during college. At Eureka College, peer mentors continue to play a pivotal role within the First Generation Program and the First-year Experience Program, providing leadership is such events as Jump Start, TRANSFERmation, Welcome Week, First-Year Seminar (IDS101), and serving as tutors in the College Learning Center, advisors through Leadership Ambassadors, and peer educators through our Health & Wellness program, S.P.R.U.C.E. (Students Promoting Responsibility, Understanding, and Care, Everyday). These intentional mentorship roles are in addition to the mentoring relationships that naturally develop in Eureka College’s 40+ registered student organizations. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATION (1-2 Years): a. Develop a “Transfer Mentoring Program” similar to the FYE and/or First Generation Mentor Program. The Eureka College Transfer Student Peer Mentor Program would provide new transfer students with upper class mentors, most of whom will have transferred to Eureka College in a previous year. Peer Mentors would assist incoming transfer students as they make the transition to Eureka College and help them navigate and make the most of the many opportunities and resources at Eureka College. In addition, the program would foster community and camaraderie among transfer students throughout the college.

6. FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE PROGRAMS AND SEMINARS Eureka College has invested considerable effort since 2009 in developing and implementing a comprehensive First-Year Experience Program (FYE) to help first-year students persist and excel both academically and socially. Funding the FYS programs will be necessary to sustain them in the future. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATION (3-5 Years): a. Create a First-Year Experience Program Endowment: the endowment would cover recurring expenses for FYS components including, the First-Generation College Success Program, the First-Year Seminar, and the FirstYear Forum and Cultural Engagement Program.

7. DIVERSITY We seek to create a diverse academic community at Eureka College that includes and supports individuals from different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, as well as individuals with different sexual orientations, socio-economic status, political views, educational backgrounds, and family circumstances. A growing body of empirical evidence has established that diversity enhances learning outcomes for students (Milem, Chang & Antonio, 2005). Students in richly diverse communities show greater gains in intercultural development, as well

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as greater interest in reading. They think in more complex ways and are more likely to believe that diversity is essential to learning and understanding (Goodman, Magolda, Seifort, Tricia, and King, 2011). Many colleges and universities have developed courses and programs that help students explore various cultures, life experiences, and worldviews different from their own. Many schools demonstrate their commitment to diversity by socializing newcomers to this value. The reality of the College community right now is that the Eureka College faculty, staff, and student body are predominantly white, and there is little religious diversity on the College campus. The recommendations below offer ways to create a more diverse community at Eureka College. SHORT-TERM RECOMMENDATIONS (1-2 Years): a. Socialize new students to the educational value of diversity and the acceptable standards of behavior at both the advising level and in IDS101 (First-Year Seminar) via activities ranging from informal interactions with diverse others to highly structured class discussions following First-Year Forum and Cultural Events Programming focused on issues of diversity. b. Link First-Year Forum and Cultural Events programming to courses throughout the General Education curriculum as a means to encourage upper-class student attendance and ensuing discussion at selected campus events relevant to diversity. MID-RANGE RECOMMENDATIONS (3-5 Years): a. Target and recruit international students to campus, promoting greater diversity and cultural learning opportunities on campus. b. Target and recruit a more diverse body of US-born students. Continuing efforts in Chicago and expanding to other large urban areas, beginning in the Midwest and eventually extending nationally. c. Explore linkage to foundations that support college access to exceptionally promising students who, because of financial needs, otherwise might not be able to attend college. Possible foundations include: The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, The Posse Foundation, and the Pathways to College Network.

References Albert, L. S. (1991). “Reclaiming the public trust: An interview with Kay McClenney and Frank Newman, of the education commission of the states.” American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 44, 3-8. Alderman, R.V. (2008) Faculty and Student Out-Of-Classroom Interaction: Student Perceptions of Quality of Interaction. Dissertation submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University. repository.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/85919/Alderman.pdf Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Association of American Colleges and Universities (2002). Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College. Washington, DC: National Panel Report. http://www.aacu.org/gex/index.cfm Association of American Colleges and Universities (2007). College Learning for the New Global Century. A Report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America’s Promise. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Association of American Colleges and Universities (2011). The LEAP Vision for Learning: Outcomes, Practices, Impact and Employers’ Views. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Barefoot, Betsy O., et al. (2005) Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. Barr, R.B., & Tag, J. (1995). “From teaching to learning – A new paradigm for undergraduate education.” Change, 27(6), 12-25. Bonwell, C., Eison, J. (1991). “Active Learning: Creating excitement in the classroom.” George Washington University, Washington D.C. ERIC Digest ED 340272, Bouton, C. and Garth, R.Y. 1983. Learning in Groups. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Chickering, A.W., & Gamson, Z.F. (1987). “Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education.” AAHE Bulletin, 29(7), 3-7.

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Eaton, J. S. (2003). “Before you bash accreditation, consider the alternative.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved February 25, 2013, from http://chronicle.com/article/Before-You-Bash-Accreditation/12854 Edgerton, R. (2001, March 6). White paper on higher education. Washington, DC: Pew Forum on Undergraduate Education. Retrieved on February 25, 2013 from www.faculty.umb.edu/.../... Endo, J. & Harpel, R. (1982), “The Effect of Student-Faculty Interaction on Students’ Educational Outcomes” Research in Higher Education, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 115-138. Freeland, Richard M. (2009) “Liberal Education and Effective Practice: The Necessary Revolution in Undergraduate Education.” Liberal Education, Vol.95, No.1. Association of American Colleges and Universities: Washington, DC. Fusani, D. (1994), “Extra-Class Communication: Frequency, Immediacy, Self-disclosure, and Satisfaction in Student-Faculty Interaction Outside the Classroom.” Journal of Applied Communication Research, Vol. 22, pp. 232-255. Garner, B. (2012). “The first-year seminar: Designing, implementing, and assessing courses to support student learning and success.” Vol. III. Teaching in the seminar. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. Goodman, Kathleen M. Magolda, Marcia Baxter, Seifort, Tricia, & Patricia M. King. (2011). Good Practices for Student Learning: Mixed-Method Evidence from the Wabash National Study. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) Halawah, I. (2006), “The Impact of Student-faculty Informal Interpersonal Relationships on Intellectual and Personal Development.” College Student Journal, Retrieved, February 20, 2013 http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/22468657/impact-student-faculty-informal-interpersonal-relationships-intellectual-personal-development Hanstedt, Paul (2012). General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty. Association of American Colleges and Universities. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Hart Research Associates (2009). Trends and Emerging Practices in General Education. Based On A Survey Among Members of the AAC&U and conducted by Hart Research Associates. Hart Research Associates, Washington, DC 20009. Kuh, George D. (2008) High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter, Association of American Colleges & Universities. Washington DC. Kuh, George D., Kinzie, Jullian, Schuh, John H., Whitt, Elizabeth J, & Associates, Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter, Jossey-Bass, (2005, 2010). Lorenzo, George & Ittelson, John. (2005). “Demonstrating and Assessing Student Learning with E-Portfolios.” Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) Paper 3: October, 2005. Mani, B. Venkat. (2012).”Dreaming in foreign tongues.” Profession, 31-40. Milem, Jeffrey F., Chang, Mitchell J., & Antonio, Anthony Lising. (2005). Making Diversity Work on Campus: A Research-Based Perspective. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Myers, S., Martin, M., & Knapp , J. (2005), “Perceived Instructor In-class Communicative Behaviors As a Predictor of Student Participation in Out of Class Communication.” Communication Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 437–450. O’Brien, J.G, Millis, B., & Cohen, M. (2008). (Second edition). The course syllabus. A learning-centered approach. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Pascarella, E. T. (1980), “Student-Faculty Informal Contact and College Outcomes.” Review of Educational Research, Vol. 50, pp. 545-595. Pascarella, ,E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research (Vol.2). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pascarella, E. T., Cruce, T., Umbach, P. D., Wolniak, G. C., Kuh, G. D., Carini, R. M., Hayek, J. C., et al. (2006). “Institutional selectivity and good practices in undergraduate education: How strong is the link?” Journal of Higher Education, 77(2), 251–285. Pascarella, E.T., Blaich, C., Martin, G., & Hanson, J. (2011). “How robust are the findings from Academically Adrift?” Change, 43(3), 20-24. Ruhland, S. K., & Brewer, J. A. (2001). “Implementing an assessment plan to document student learning in a two-year technical college.” Journal of Vocational Education Research, 26, 141-171. Schneider, Carol Geary. (2005). “Making Excellence Inclusive: Liberal Education & America’s Promise.” Liberal Education, Volume 91, No.2. Association of American Colleges and Universities: Washington, DC. Scott-Clayton, Judith & Rodriguez, Olga. (August, 2012). Development, Discouragement, or Diversion? New Evidence on the Effects of College Remediation. NBER Working Paper No. 18328 (National Bureau of Economic Research).

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Sparks, Sarah D. (2013). “Many Students Don’t Need Remediation, Studies Say.” Education Week. (Retrieved on March 1, 2013 from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/20/21remediation_ep.h32.html Westerberg, Charles (2011). “Internships Have Value, Whether or Not Students Are Paid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. (On-line article at http://chronicle.com/article/Internships-Have-Value/127231/)

APPENDIX A

Principles of Excellence www.aacu.org/leap/principles_of_excellence.cfm Aim High— and Make Excellence Inclusive Give Students a Compass

Make the Essential Learning Outcomes a framework for the entire educational experience, connecting school, college, work, and life Focus each student’s plan of study on achieving the essential

learning outcomes—and assess progress

Teach the Arts of Inquiry and Innovation

Immerse all students in analysis, discovery, problem solving, and

Engage the Big Questions

communication, beginning in school and advancing in college.

Teach through the Curriculum to Far-Reaching Issues - Contemporary and Enduring - in Science and Society, Cultures and Values, Global Interdependence, the Changing Economy, and Human Dignity and Freedom.

Connect Knowledge with Choices and Action

Prepare students for citizenship and work through engaged and guided learning on “real-world” problems.

Foster Civic, Intercultural, and Ethical Learning

Emphasize personal and social responsibility, in every field

Assess Students’ Ability to Apply Learning to Complex Problems

Use assessment to deepen learning and to establish a culture

of study.

of shared purpose and continuous improvement.

The Pursuit of Excellence

High-Impact Educational Practices www.aacu.org/leap/hip.cfm

First-Year Seminars and Experiences: Many schools now build into the curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. The highest-quality first-year experiences place a strong emphasis on critical inquiry, frequent writing, information literacy, collaborative learning, and other skills that develop students’ intellectual and practical competencies. First-year seminars can also involve students with cutting-edge questions in scholarship and with faculty members’ own research. Common Intellectual Experiences: The older idea of a “core” curriculum has evolved into a variety of modern forms, such as a set of required common courses or a vertically organized general education program that includes advanced integrative studies and/or required participation in a learning community. These programs often combine broad themes—e.g., technology and society, global interdependence— with a variety of curricular and cocurricular options for students. Learning Communities: The key goals for learning communities are to encourage integration of learning across courses and to involve students with “big questions” that matter beyond the classroom. Students take two or more linked courses as a group and work closely with one another and with their professors. Many learning communities explore a common topic and/or common readings through the lenses of different disciplines. Some deliberately link “liberal arts” and “professional courses”; others feature service learning. Writing-Intensive Courses: These courses emphasize writing at all levels of instruction and across the curriculum, including final-year projects. Students are encouraged to produce and revise various forms of writing for different audiences in different disciplines. The effectiveness of this repeated practice “across the curriculum” has led to parallel efforts in such areas as quantitative reasoning, oral communication, information literacy, and, on some campuses, ethical inquiry. Collaborative Assignments and Projects: Collaborative learning combines two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences. Approaches range from study groups within a course, to team-based assignments and writing, to cooperative projects and research. Undergraduate Research: Many colleges and universities are now providing research experiences for students in all disciplines. Undergraduate research, however, has been most prominently used in science disciplines. With strong support from the National Science Foundation and the research community, scientists are reshaping their courses to connect key concepts and questions with students’ early and active involvement in systematic investigation and research. The goal is to involve students with actively contested questions, empirical observation, cutting-edge technologies, and the sense of excitement that comes from working to answer important questions.

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Undergraduate Research: Many colleges and universities are now providing research experiences for students in all disciplines. Undergraduate research, however, has been most prominently used in science disciplines. With strong support from the National Science Foundation and the research community, scientists are reshaping their courses to connect key concepts and questions with students’ early and active involvement in systematic investigation and research. The goal is to involve students with actively contested questions, empirical observation, cutting-edge technologies, and the sense of excitement that comes from working to answer important questions. Diversity/Global Learning: Many colleges and universities now emphasize courses and programs that help students explore cultures, life experiences, and worldviews different from their own. These studies— which may address U.S. diversity, world cultures, or both—often explore “difficult differences” such as racial, ethnic, and gender inequality, or continuing struggles around the globe for human rights, freedom, and power. Frequently, intercultural studies are augmented by experiential learning in the community and/or by study abroad. Service Learning, Community-Based Learning: In these programs, field-based “experiential learning” with community partners is an instructional strategy—and often a required part of the course. The idea is to give students direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum and with ongoing efforts to analyze and solve problems in the community. A key element in these programs is the opportunity students have to both apply what they are learning in real-world settings and reflect in a classroom setting on their service experiences. These programs model the idea that giving something back to the community is an important college outcome, and that working with community partners is good preparation for citizenship, work, and life. Internships: Internships are another increasingly common form of experiential learning. The idea is to provide students with direct experience in a work setting—usually related to their career interests—and to give them the benefit of supervision and coaching from professionals in the field. If the internship is taken for course credit, students complete a project or paper that is approved by a faculty member. Capstone Courses and Projects: Whether they’re called “senior capstones” or some other name, these culminating experiences require students nearing the end of their college years to create a project of some sort that integrates and applies what they’ve learned. The project might be a research paper, a performance, a portfolio of “best work,” or an exhibit of artwork. Capstones are offered both in departmental programs and, increasingly, in general education as well.

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Diversity/Global Learning: Many colleges and universities now emphasize courses and programs that help students explore cultures, life experiences, and worldviews different from their own. These studies— which may address U.S. diversity, world cultures, or both—often explore “difficult differences” such as racial, ethnic, and gender inequality, or continuing struggles around the globe for human rights, freedom, and power. Frequently, intercultural studies are augmented by experiential learning in the community and/or by study abroad. Service Learning, Community-Based Learning: In these programs, field-based “experiential learning” with community partners is an instructional strategy—and often a required part of the course. The idea is to give students direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum and with ongoing efforts to analyze and solve problems in the community. A key element in these programs is the opportunity students have to both apply what they are learning in real-world settings and reflect in a classroom setting on their service experiences. These programs model the idea that giving something back to the community is an important college outcome, and that working with community partners is good preparation for citizenship, work, and life. Internships: Internships are another increasingly common form of experiential learning. The idea is to provide students with direct experience in a work setting—usually related to their career interests—and to give them the benefit of supervision and coaching from professionals in the field. If the internship is taken for course credit, students complete a project or paper that is approved by a faculty member. Capstone Courses and Projects: Whether they’re called “senior capstones” or some other name, these culminating experiences require students nearing the end of their college years to create a project of some sort that integrates and applies what they’ve learned. The project might be a research paper, a performance, a portfolio of “best work,” or an exhibit of artwork. Capstones are offered both in departmental programs and, increasingly, in general education as well.

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APPENDIX B REVISED EUREKA COLLEGE STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (Adapted from the LEAP Initiative’s Essential Learning Outcomes at http://aacu.org/leap/vision/cfm)

General and Specialized Knowledge General Education – General Education is the part of a liberal education curriculum shared by all students. To be an effective and prepared citizen, capable of understanding and responding to the diverse challenges present in the modern world, students must be conversant with the core concepts of in the liberal arts and science disciplines as they form the basis for developing important intellectual, civic, and practical capacities. Disciplinary Expertise –Just as breadth of knowledge is a cornerstone of a liberal education, so too is expertise in a particular disciplinary area or major. The major provides the context for intellectual development in a focused are of study. Students should be able to use their disciplinary knowledge and skills to understand their world and to participate in civil society. To this end, students at Eureka College will gain mastery at a baccalaureate level in a defined body of knowledge through attainment of their program’s objectives, student learning outcomes, and completion of their major.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) 1. KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATURAL WORLD AND HUMAN CULTURES AND SOCIETIES – the outcomes in this category include foundational disciplinary knowledge and the ability to employ different ways of knowing the world in its many dimensions. This knowledge will be acquired with big questions, both contemporary and enduring, and will be demonstrated in concepts and modes of inquiry that are basic to the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts. Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students should be able to:

A. Natural Sciences • Demonstrate understanding of how scientific inquiry is based on investigation of evidence from the natural world, and that scientific knowledge and understanding evolves based on new evidence and differs from personal and cultural beliefs. • Evaluate scientific information to assess validity, and articulate the relationship between the natural sciences and society and the application of science to societal challenges (e.g.., health, sustainability, energy, natural disasters, etc. • Participate in scientific inquiry and communicate the elements of the process, including (a) making careful and systematic observations, (b) developing and texting a hypothesis, (c) analyzing evidence, and (d) interpreting results.

Note: Lab courses must meet all three of the SLOs. Non-lab courses must meet SLO #s 1 & 2.

B. Social Sciences and Behavioral Sciences: Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students will be able to: • Demonstrate understanding of key concepts, terminology, principles or theories within the fields and methodological approaches appropriate to the field.

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• Explain how individuals, groups or institutions are influenced by contextual factors as appropriate to the field. • Use appropriate methods to apply social and/or behavioral science concepts, terminology, principles, or theories to significant issues.

C. Humanities Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students will be able to: • Read for comprehension, detail and nuance. • Demonstrate clarity and precision in both speaking and writing. • Identify and evaluate the contribution of the social, political, historical, aesthetic, and cultural contexts in which a text is produced and read. • Evaluate a critical argument in others’ writing as well as one’s own.

D. Fine and Performing Arts (The Aesthetic Experience) Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students will be able to: • Identify and analyze the formal elements of a particular art form using vocabulary appropriate to that form. • Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between artistic technique and the expression of an artworks’ underlying concept. • Analyze cultural productions using standards appropriate to the firm and cultural context. • Engage in the artistic process, including conception, creation, and ongoing critical analysis.

2. INTELLECTIAL AND PRACTICAL SKILLS FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNING — The intellectual and practical skills included in this category are necessary to engage in learning throughout life in personal, academic, and professional contexts. These skills will be practice, achieved and demonstrated through learning across both the curriculum and co-curriculum in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards of performance. Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students should be able to:

A. Communication: • Interpret various types of written, visual and verbal information • Communicate effectively in multiple forms of expression, such as logical, mathematical, visual, spatial, or musical. • Demonstrate proficiency in written and oral communication and presentation. B. Critical Thinking and Information Literacy: • Employ critical and creative modes of inquiry to solve problems, explore innovative alternatives, and made decisions. • Critically evaluate information, identifying potentials sources of appropriate and credible information using appropriate reasoning skills. C. Quantitative Reasoning: Identify, access, and use quantitative information effectively, including information from formulas, graphs, tables, schematics, simulations, and/or visualizations. D. Problem-Solving: Generate solutions for problems through original, imaginative, innovative, and/or artistic effort. E. Collaborative Engagement and Teamwork:

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• Function effectively as member of a team by demonstrating the ability to engage in learning that is based on reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationships. • Engage others into action by guiding or influencing a group to achieve its goals. 3. CIVIC LEARNING, ENGAGEMENT, PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY — this category describes the knowledge and skills a student should have and demonstrate in response to diverse social, environmental and economic challenges at regional, national and global levels. Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students will be able to: A. Ethical Reasoning • Demonstrate the ability to recognize ethical issues when presented in a complex, multilayered (gray) context while also recognize cross-relationships among the issues. B. Intercultural understanding and Competence • Demonstrate the ability to respond sensitively to and see the value in cultural perspectives other than their own. • Recognize and explain how one’s cultural, political, and social lenses shape one’s view of the world, and how this principle applies in their own cases.

C. Civic Knowledge and Engagement • Take an active role in a service-learning project in which academic study is brought to bear on a problem of local, national, or global significance. D. Self-Reflection and Learning • Articulate an understanding of the concepts of “leadership,” “service,” and civic engagement” that is supported by current theory and reflect on its relationship to the student’s curricular and/or co-curricular experience. • Review and reflect on prior learning (past experiences inside and outside the classroom) in depth to reveal changed perspectives about educational and life experiences, which provide foundation for expanded knowledge and growth and maturity over time. 4. Integrative and Applied Learning — The outcomes in this category demonstrate that students can integrate learning from broad fields of general study and make sense of the connections among different academic disciplines and multiple perspectives. In this this category students demonstrate synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies, bridging disciplinary and interdisciplinary thinking, and connecting the classroom and the world through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems. Upon completion of their undergraduate degree program at Eureka College, students will be able to: A. Connect co-curricular experiences and academic (curricular) knowledge. B. See (make) connects across disciplines and perspectives C. Adapt and apply skills, abilities, theories, or methodologies gained on one situation to new situations.

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APPENDIX C

INQUIRY SEMINARS PROPOSAL FOR A NEW COURSE Course: IQS 250 Inquiry Seminar (3 credit hours) Description: An Inquiry Seminar would be a team-taught course that would be open to students who have completed at least two semesters at a 2-year or a 4-year college or university. The topic of each seminar would be up to the instructors, but would be taught from an interdisciplinary perspective. To this end, the two instructors must necessarily be from different disciplines. While the specific topic would be left to the instructors, the course must address one of the following guiding themes to ensure a common educational approach that draws in as many disciplinary perspectives as possible. Guiding Themes:

• On Religious Experience • The Problem of Equality • Capitalism and Critique • The Examined Life • The Value of the Arts • How We Know

Each seminar will address, in depth, one of these questions through a specific topic. Students will be required to take two Inquiry Seminars (for a total of 6 hours) as part of their graduation requirements; the requirements must also list that the two seminars should have been taught by different pairs of instructors and have addressed different guiding questions. This would give students diverse interdisciplinary educational experiences, while addressing two different important themes. Ideally, a student would take one seminar their sophomore year, and one during their junior year. These inquiry seminars would count as ‘W’ (i.e. writing) courses, and in order to allow ample opportunity for instructor feedback to the student, would be capped at 18 students. To ensure that the topic and structure of a proposed seminar does address one of the identified areas in a substantive way, proposals should be submitted for approval to either the Curriculum Committee or another committee created for this purpose, during the spring semester of the year prior to the academic year in which the instructors wish to offer their course. This would be similar to the process currently in place for offering honors seminars to students. Some examples of possible seminar topics are:

• A Multidisciplinary Approach to Consciousness (How We Know) • Three Modernist Cities: Vienna, Paris, Harlem (How We Know, The Value of the Arts) • Inequality and Opportunity in America (The Problem of Equality) • Cosmology from Ancient Greece to the Modern Era (How We Know) • Criminal Investigation through Mathematical Examination (How We Know) • Intersection of Politics and Religion (On Religious Experience, Political Systems and Critique) • The Aftermath of World War II: History, Film, and Literature (How We Know, The Value of the Arts) • Sustainability: Energy Materials and the Environment (How We Know, The Examined Life, Capitalism and Critique)

Each course would include a term paper, due at the end of the semester, in which the student would address a question (formulated by the student him/herself) on the course topic in the context of the larger guiding question. This paper could be included in the student’s portfolio, should we decide to move towards an e-portfolio requirement of some kind.

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STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES OF AN INQUIRY SEMINAR These courses will enable students to do the following: 1. Demonstrate the development of their critical reading, thinking, and writing abilities; 2. Demonstrate their ability to use the skills needed to meaningfully pursue their interests and curiosities; Demonstrate ability in the art of posing good questions, and in formulating a topic for further study or research; 3. Observe meaningful interdisciplinary communication through the instructorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; participation in the class, and engage in such communication themselves; and 4. Study a topic from multiple perspectives, and in the process, to critically examine their own ideas and beliefs and articulate how they have grown/learned. Rationale for the Course: The requirement of two Inquiry Seminars for students (with the conditions outlined above) would replace the current IDS 261-262 graduation requirement. We believe that the proposed model of inquiry seminars would lead to better student learning outcomes. The stated goal of the IDS 261-262 course sequence is to facilitate an appreciation of western civilization and culture, and to teach students to make connections between various disciplines in a liberal arts and sciences curriculum, and to accomplish these objectives through an examination of primary sources (i.e. original texts and other cultural artifacts). The goals of the course are noble, and should be one of the objectives of any good liberal arts curriculum. However, the experience of faculty in teaching this course has been mixed (to put it mildly). Some faculty see the course content as fundamental to any liberal arts curriculum worthy of the name. Other faculty place more emphasis on the way of thinking that is the product of a liberal arts education, and as such, are more open (and eager) to change the existing content or replace the course with special topics courses that would be teamtaught by faculty members who share interests--this would showcase the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of learning that is so characteristic of the liberal arts. Most of our aspirant colleges do not have a course along the lines of IDS 261-262 (Ursinus College is an exception). Instead, some aspirants offer seminar topics courses, and students are required to take a certain number of them; others offer a two-semester first year course, of which the second semester is a topics course. The main impetus for us to rethink the structure of IDS 261-262 comes from students. Students often find the readings very tough to follow, and often simply lack the maturity to fully appreciate the ideas involved. This leads to a sense of frustration from students for having to read a large amount of material that they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really follow, and frustration for (some) instructors when students are unable to contribute to a meaningful classroom discussion. For all of these reasons, a seminar-topics format, as adopted by many of our aspirants, would appear to be a good direction for us to take. The topics of the inquiry seminars would play to the strengths of the faculty who are offering the course, and would allow for greater participation from faculty in teaching such a course, as opposed to the IDS 261-262 courses, which are rotated within a small subset of the faculty. In addition, as we all know, instructor enthusiasm plays a major role in the success of a course, and instructors frequently enjoy teaching courses on topics that they find engaging and challenging. Team-taught seminars provide faculty with precisely this opportunity--to teach a class on a topic of interest while participating in the challenges of studying a topic from perspective of another discipline. And finally, depending on the specific guiding question that an inquiry seminar addresses, the general education requirements of the students could be reduced, allowing them to take more courses within their area of concentration. For these reasons, we propose piloting Inquiry Seminars, in the format described above, in place of IDS 261-262.

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APPENDIX D

Five Characteristics of a Learning Paradigm College (Barr & Tagg, 1995) (Summarized by Alan Bender, http://centerforfacultydevelopment.wordpress.com/ 2012/03/06/john-taggs-the-learning-paradigm-college/) 1. A Learning Paradigm college should support students in pursuing their own goals. But if we simply take the personal goals that most late adolescents or young adults bring with them to college, we will be raising up a generation of video-game mavens—or even worse, a generation committed to the narrow and shallow pursuit of material wealth. 2. A Learning Paradigm college should require frequent student performance. But student performances done for their own sake will quickly deteriorate into a dismal and uninspiring ritual of pointless display. 3. A Learning Paradigm college should provide frequent and ongoing feedback. But feedback that is not understood by the performer in a larger context of intrinsic goals and publicly accessible standards often degenerates into trivial grading. 4. A Learning Paradigm college should assure a long time horizon for learning. But a long time horizon without intrinsic motivation and effective feedback will discourage students and lead to lower persistence. 5. A Learning Paradigm college should provide for stable communities of practice. But communities that do not incorporate intrinsic motivation and continual feedback over a long period of time usually provide cover for declining standards rather than scaffolding for raising standards.”

Edgerton’s Pedagogies of Engagement (Smith, Sheppard, Johnson, & Johnson, 2005) 1. Level of academic challenge: Schools encourage achievement by setting high expectations and emphasizing importance of student effort (e.g., hours spent in preparation for class, the length of papers written, nature of tasks that require making judgments, applying theory, synthesis and organization). 2. Active and collaborative learning: Students learn more when intensely involved in educational process and are encouraged to apply their knowledge in many situations (e.g., asking questions, making presentations, collaborating with other students, tutoring or teaching others, discussions on assigned readings.) 3. Student-faculty interaction: Students able to learn from experts and faculty serve as role models and mentors (e.g., advising, discussing grades with the instructor, talking about career plans, and collaborative work with a faculty member). 4. Enriching educational experiences: Learning opportunities inside and outside classroom (diversity, technology, collaboration, internships, community service, and capstones) enhance learning. 5. Supportive campus environment: Students are motivated and satisfied at schools that actively promote learning, stimulate social interaction, and provide academic resources to succeed.

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering and Gamson (1987) http://teaching.uncc.edu/articles-books/best-practice-articles/instructional-methods/7-principles 1. Encourages Contact between Students and Faculty: Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of classes is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students’ intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and future plans. 2. Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation among Students: Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort that a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and

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isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one’s own ideas and responding to others’ reactions sharpens thinking and deepens understanding. 3. Encourages Active Learning: Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves. 4. Gives Prompt Feedback: Knowing what you know and don’t know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses. When getting started, students need help in assessing existing knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. At various points during college, and at the end, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves. 5. Emphasizes Time on Task: Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use one’s time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis of high performance for all. 6. Communicates High Expectations: Expect more and you will get more. High expectations are important for everyone — for the poorly prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well-motivated. Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high expectations for themselves and make extra efforts. 7. Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning: There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college. Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learn in new ways that do not come so easily.

APPENDIX E

Remedial Courses at Eureka College Recent research shows that half of all college students take at least one remedial course, despite mixed evidence about the effectiveness of remedial courses (Scott-Clayton & Rodriguez, 2012). A recent article in Education Week (Sparks, 2013) suggests that many students who test into remedial classes don’t actually need them. Eureka College offers three remedial courses, two in mathematics (MAT098 – Elementary Algebra, and MAT099 – Intermediate Algebra), and one in English (ENG095 – Developmental Writing). MAT099 has been offered since 2002, and MAT098 since 2003. ENG095 was added only in 2011 as part of a larger student success and retention effort. Limiting the use of remedial courses is a fundamental goal, and analysis of its effectiveness at Eureka College is ongoing. While no analysis of student success rates in mathematics before and after the advent of the MAT courses has been done recently, early analysis of ENG095 suggest it is effective in decreasing the DFWI rates in ENG103W. Prior to the implementation of ENG095, first year students with ACT English subscores below 18 had a DFWI rate of 46% (2009 and 2010 cohorts) in ENG103W. For such students in the 2011 cohort who passed ENG095, however, the DFWI rate in ENG103W was only 20%, an encouraging sign. One resource that is currently available is the Eureka College Learning Center. A critical resource for academic support, it provides significant assistance to students who struggle to master particular skills or who simply wish to maximize their academic success. Currently located on the residential side of campus in Alumni court, the Eureka College Learning Center offers assistance in writing and math, provides peer consultants in most areas, and offers other programs designed to bring faculty, staff and students together.

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In addition to the Learning Center, Eureka College has recently created and implemented several programs in an attempt to support student learning in the first-year, e.g., First-Generation Program, a comprehensive FirstYear Experience Program which serves as a home for the First-Year Seminar, the First-Year Forum and Cultural Engagement Program, the First-Year Academic Advising Program, and the Summer Common Reading Program. Collectively, the First-Year Experience (FYE) Program provides students with a focused program of study, advising, and campus engagement that introduces them to the liberal arts, academic opportunities and support systems, a community of learners, and the history and traditions of Eureka College.

Notes Kuh, George D. (2008) High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter, Association of American Colleges &Universities. Washington DC. i

The hybrid brings together elements of two general education models: the Distribution Model and the Integrative Model. ii

As part of the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project, teams of faculty and other academic and student affairs professionals developed rubrics for fifteen of the AAC&U Essential Learning Outcomes, creating this set of VALUE rubrics for use in any institutional context. The VALUE rubrics emerged from analysis and synthesis of existing campus rubrics, organizational statements on outcomes, input from experts in the respective fields, and faculty feedback from campuses. Each VALUE rubric contains the most common and broadly shared criteria or core characteristics considered critical for judging the quality of student work in that outcome area. Thus, the VALUE rubrics reflect faculty expectations for essential learning across the nation, regardless of institution type, size, location, or mission. The rubrics are available free of charge after users respond to a brief, one time only questionnaire. This information is used strictly to allow AAC&U better to understand the utility and extent of use of the rubrics on campuses. No individual information will be released or published under any circumstances. iii

Pedagogies of active learning include a wide range of activities that draw on the research and basic principles of effective teaching found in Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles; Barr’s and Tagg’s Learning Paradigm; and Edgerton’s Pedagogies of Engagement. iv ¡

[2] EXCELLENCE IN SERVICE October 2012

Authors and Committee Members Shari Rich (Co-Chair) Dr. Bill Wright (Co-Chair) Erin Bline Bruce Fowlkes Dr. Duce McCune Dr. Codrin Nedita Zane Ridings

I. Introduction A culture of service has been a vital force at Eureka College since its founding in 1855 by Disciples of Christ abolitionists from Kentucky. Throughout the College’s long history, service has always been at the center of the College’s liberal arts mission. Many generations of faculty and staff have committed themselves to teaching students the value of service to others and the community. This proud legacy is evident in the many Eureka alumni who have served their communities and the world as teachers, ministers, business people, and civic leaders, among them John Darst, Emma DeVoe, Durward Sandifer, W. E. Garrison, Emik Amakian, and Ronald Reagan. Often in the College’s history, however, the process of educating students about the value of service proceeded without programmatic direction. It was left to the initiative of individual faculty and staff members, and service itself was often relegated to activity outside of the classroom. Nevertheless, service has indeed been cultivated outside of the classroom with verve and success. Over the last five years, Eureka College has made a coordinated effort to expand the culture of service among students and develop an intentional campus-wide approach to service education. In their first weeks on campus, new students learn that service is a fundamental part of the ethos of Eureka College, and throughout the year faculty and staff members invite and encourage them to join service organizations and participate in service projects. The success of our efforts is reflected by our inclusion, in 2011, on the President’s National Community Service Honor Roll, and again in 2012, on the President’s National Community Service Honor Roll of Distinction. Only four other colleges or universities in the state of Illinois received this recognition. We have a dynamic and healthy culture of service at Eureka College today. From 2009 to 2011, approximately 55% of the full-time students at Eureka College participated in at least one service project. In five years, the student organization “Up ‘Til Dawn” has raised more than $123,000 for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Over that same period, many new service projects have started, including the Angel Tree Program; Maroon & Golden Rule Day of Service Project; MLK Day of Service; Bearded Men Knitting Hats; and Reading Buddies program. Several of these were initiated and developed by students. The Greek organizations on campus have re-emphasized the centrality of service with their members. This year, they have set a goal to have every member of each Greek organization participate in at least one service project. The women’s basketball team has completed more than 600 hours of community service at Davenport Elementary School in town—and the list goes on. Eureka College has a strong foundation of service, and we are ready to pursue excellence in service over the next five years. This vibrant culture of service at Eureka reminds students every day of the value of serving others; but it has another important benefit as well. A strong commitment to service improves the quality of the academic experi-

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ence for our students. Recent scholars of higher education have concluded that by incorporating service into classroom learning, colleges not only instill a spirit of service in students, but create a better overall learning experience for students. A vast body of research now is available on the benefits of and most effective techniques for what is called service-learning (hereafter, SL). Having reviewed this research, we think Eureka College would benefit significantly from expanding SL in the curriculum. The faculty has already experimented with incorporating SL into the curriculum, especially in a decade’s worth of First-Year Seminar (FYS) courses. The revised FYS, introduced last fall, expanded the SL component of the course significantly. We believe the College has the opportunity to use the FYS experience to build SL opportunities into other parts of the curriculum.

II. Definition of Excellence in Service and Service-Learning Students encounter several kinds of service in college. One kind is professional service, and many students develop an understanding of professional service through their major studies. Since we are a college offering “professional programs with a liberal arts emphasis” (Mission Statement), Eureka prides itself in preparing graduates to serve in a range of professional contexts. A second kind is “community service.” When we teach students about community service, we encourage them to recognize that the purpose of their education is not only to bring them personal benefit and profit, but to prepare them to contribute to a larger common good. Community service can be an essential way to instill civic virtue, and even virtue as such. Community service at colleges is often organized and fostered by student groups or campus organizations. A college that is exemplary in service will integrate community service intentionally into a student’s overall education. The third sense of service incorporates elements of the previous two. Service-learning promises to integrate elements of professional and community service, while providing a superior learning experience for the student. By incorporating community service projects into disciplinary college education, SL—when done with excellence—allows students to experience the virtue and intellectual excitement that come from applying specialized, theoretical knowledge and training (from, say, a biology, history, or art theory course) to a matter of concrete human concern. We offer some recommendations for effective SL pedagogy based on current research in Appendix II. A basic and useful definition of SL is offered by The National Service-learning Clearinghouse: “Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” Excellence in SL is a multi-faceted achievement that requires students to combine texts, skills, and concepts to complete a concrete project built on community relations. Structured reflection is essential to evaluate whether “meaningful community service” has occurred as well as to promote civic responsibility and a coherent learning experience. For the student, when all these elements come together, the educational benefit is extraordinary. But there is another aspect of excellence in service that goes beyond the student experience. For Eureka College to achieve excellence in service, we must establish and nurture mutually beneficial relationships with community partners. Berea College’s Center for Excellence in Learning explains it this way: “Service-learning is an educational experience based upon a collaborative partnership between college and community.” Achieving

The Pursuit of Excellence

excellence in SL thus involves a mutual exchange: “The service-learning project should be relevant and beneficial to both the college and the community and should result from shared dialogue and negotiation” (www.berea. edu/celts/servicelearning/). To develop and sustain excellence in service at Eureka College, we must foster and maintain well-coordinated relations with community partners and demonstrate the benefit of our service initiatives to them. Like the concept of service learning, “civic engagement” offers another way to articulate how service, learning, and leadership can be integrated. Civic engagement, as used in SL literature, means “promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes. In addition, civic engagement encompasses actions wherein individuals participate in activities of personal and public concern that are both individually life enriching and socially beneficial to the community” (Thomas Ehrlich, as cited by http://www.aacu.org/ value/rubrics/pdf/civicengagement.pdf). The concept of “civic engagement” can connect the leadership values of organizational guidance with the goals of service-learning. At the same time, “civic engagement” avoids the popular association of “leadership” with top-down or hierarchical models. “Civic engagement” identifies a localizable but also expansive sense of the common good. And because responsible discourse is inevitably a part of civic engagement in a democratic society, excellence in learning is also implicit in this concept. We believe that the concepts of service-learning and civic engagement are crucial for articulating the integration of excellence in all three areas: service, learning, and leadership. At the same time, each of these areas will continue to retain its own distinctive mark of excellence.

III. Summary of Research (a.) Review of the Literature: The research on service and service learning in higher education is extensive; what follows is a summary of major findings. A complete list of the research materials is included at the end of this document. Benefits of SL: A well-designed service learning experience: • improves content mastery when used in the place of traditional research projects, particularly in women; (Casile, Hoover, and O’Neil) • improves students’ ability to engage in critical thinking, problem solving, data collection, analysis, and writing; • draws on students’ direct experiences to create, test, and reflect upon new ideas; • improves interpersonal communication and organizational planning; • helps students learn to adapt independently to a changing world; • raises student awareness of community needs, as well as the level of response of local organizations to those needs; • increases racial, religious, intergenerational, and inter-class understanding and tolerance; • has a positive impact on moral development; • promotes a stronger commitment to social responsibility and future volunteering; • reduces the tendency to blame social servant clients for their troubles; • fosters a broader understanding of the beneficiaries of the service; • brings greater relevance of coursework to career clarification;

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• promotes an institution’s mission and values to the community; • increases a sense of social responsibility and personal efficacy; • is valuable to local organizations; • connects community stakeholders to the college and to one another; • increases student interaction with faculty and peers; • produces higher student satisfaction with courses and the learning experience; Potential Drawbacks of SL: • Possible saturation of local service sites; • Problems with student schedules and varying lifestyles (parents, professionals); • Transportation and other logistical problems (e.g., background checks); • Creates the need for reliable evaluations from site supervisors; • Possible conflicts between students and on-site supervisors can emerge; • Bad experiences can “burn bridges” with community partners; • Could create unmanageable workload for faculty and staff; • It can create liability in the form of harm to students or detriment to community organizations. Incorporating SL into the Curriculum: Enos and Troppe surveyed the range of options for incorporating service learning into the curriculum: • add an optional fourth credit SL component to a course; • create SL in introductory courses in majors; • include SL in the core curriculum; • require students to complete SL hours for graduation versus making SL experiences optional for students; • link two or more courses that would share an SL component; • add a capstone SL project in the disciplines; • create SL majors or minors; • connect SL courses with leadership (working with local leaders); • develop SL internships; • design research-intensive SL courses. Faculty Support: Morton explains that faculty members hesitate to adopt SL because of the additional effort involved, especially in managing logistics. He puts the different kinds of support and resources needed by faculty members into three categories: • those that address immediate needs, such as workshops or library resources to help faculty get started; • those that address potential on-going issues, such as dealing with conflicts between students and their service site, processing of background checks, etc.; • those that help guarantee the long-term role of service learning, such as specifying faculty participation requirements, particularly as related to tenure or promotion.

Pedagogy: See the Appendix II for a summary of pedagogical guidelines from current research (b.) Review of SL Implementation at Peer and Aspirant Institutions: Our committee collectively reviewed information about service and SL programming at 21 peer and

The Pursuit of Excellence

aspirant colleges and universities (a complete list of institutions is included at the end of the document). After reviewing the institutions, the committee concluded that Eureka College has an opportunity to excel among this group and nationally in service and SL. We accessed the information primarily through each respective institution’s website and discovered that the web presence of SL and service activities varied widely. Many colleges included service and/or civic engagement in their mission and values statements, but provided few illustrations of how they were “living their mission” through their curricular and co-curricular offerings. Some institutions substantiated their commitment to SL and service by dedicating impressive resources, including professional development offerings and specialized staffing. The programs that stood out to our committee are those that integrate service and leadership, and those that incorporate SL activities into a commitment to civic engagement. These campuses frequently had dedicated offices that supported service, leadership, SL and civic engagement activities and offerings. Examples include: the Service Learning Office connected to Center for Responsible Leadership at Alma College; the Office of Community Service & Civic Engagement at Transylvania University; the Office of Community-Based Learning at Beloit College; the Leadership Program Office at Illinois College, which houses curricular and co-curricular SL programs; and the Office of Service-Learning and Campus Engagement at Coe College. Our review of peer and aspirant institutions was limited by a heavy dependence on web presence; yet that is a dependence shared by most prospective students and community partners. Since service requires connecting with community partners and establishing a reputation of reliability with them, publicizing excellence in service is not a matter of self-promotion; it is mandated by our commitment to service. The opportunity exists for Eureka College to improve significantly the visibility of service and SL on the website, highlighting initially the SL projects completed in FYS and the extensive community service our students have completed. We propose some steps in Section IV towards improvement.

IV. Recommendations for Achieving Excellence in Service The October 6, 2011 collaborative session on excellence produced an impressive list of recommendations for excellence in service, as well as in learning and leadership. With this list as a starting point, and the added benefit of a review of current literature in service and the programming of peer and aspirant institutions, we generated the below list of recommendations. An asterisk (*) indicates a recommendation that we believe incorporates or develops prominent ideas from the collaborative session; but our list includes ideas borrowed from our review as well as some innovative proposals. Each recommendation also includes a suggested time-frame (short, medium, or long-range) for implementation. Because the recommendations are organized by themes or categories, some of our suggestions may be included in more than one section. Integrative/Collaborative Initiatives • Ensure the work of the Commission on the Future continues to integrate service with learning and leadership. (Short-Term) • Continue to collect innovative ideas for service excellence via an internal web page on service, learning, and leadership. (Short-Term) • Adopt the Service Release Policy as modeled by Westminster College which allows employees to take paid leave for service involvement purposes. (Mid-Range)

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http://www.westminster-mo.edu/studentlife/leadership/service/Pages/ServiceReleasePolicy.aspx • Create an e-Portfolio for service in which students would describe and reflect on their service and service learning experiences. Some type of incentive to encourage across the board participation by students will be necessary. (Mid-Range) • Implement the Eureka College Service-Learning Pro-seminar – an annual task force to research one issue of importance to the College and propose changes. The task force would consist of several f aculty and staff members, and approximately 10 students who apply and receive credit. (Mid-Range) • Develop stronger, targeted relations with service partners: public schools, religious bodies, City of Eureka (which would include commercial enterprises), local non-profits, arts organizations, public health organizations. Coordination between specific faculty and staff would take advantage of faculty contacts in specialized areas.* (Long-Term) • Develop a Eureka Center for Faith and Public Life is an example of a center that would both coordinate and develop service opportunities in a specialized area (local churches and religious bodies). Other such centers are possible.* (Mid-Range) • Establish the necessary dedicated resources (staffing, support, professional development) to effectively manage and promote SL activities and offerings. This should be collaborative in nature(curricular and co-curricular).* (Mid-Range)

Curricular and Faculty Initiatives • Create an FYS-equivalent for transfer students to ensure all students complete a minimum experience in SL.* (Mid-Range) • Offer additional SL courses in majors and Gen Ed courses, with a common designation.* (Options include adding a fourth credit hour for some courses; for others see the summary of Enos and Troppe.) (Mid-Range) • Design option of student-designed independent SL courses, advised by a faculty member. These could be proposed in 2nd or 3rd year and could compete for a funding award or scholarship.* (Mid-Range) • Update the catalog description of IDS 101 (First Year Seminar) to include a reference and description of the SL component of the course. * (Short-Term) • Develop a faculty honor given for excellence in curricular Service Learning.* (Short- Term) • Make available workshops and course releases to facilitate faculty in developing SL courses.* (Short-Term) • Create an e-Portfolio for service in which students would describe and reflect on their service and service learning experiences. Some type of incentive to encourage across the board participation by students will be necessary. (Mid-Range) • Offer student transcript designation for coursework achieved in SL.* (Short-Range)

Evaluation/Assessment Processes • Survey faculty, staff, and students (separate processes) on current SL activities and awareness of them, as well as support for and concerns over enhancing those activities. (Short-Term) • Conduct focus groups as new and enhanced program offerings are reviewed for possible implementation. (Short-Term) • Develop a faculty honor given for excellence in curricular Service Learning.* (Short- Term) • Develop a web portal open to the public that would allow any community organization to post service needs.* (Short-Term) • Conduct site visits to Illinois College and Knox College, aspirant colleges that have excellent service/service-learning programs. (Short-Term)

The Pursuit of Excellence

• Develop web-based resources for tracking and assessing service learning and civic engagement. (Mid-Range) • Encourage and integrate service and leadership involvement through programs such as Campus Labs. http://www.campuslabs.com/products/collegiatelink/ * (Mid-Range) • Create an e-Portfolio for service in which students would describe and reflect on their service and service learning experiences. Some type of incentive to encourage across the board participation by students will be necessary. (Mid-Range) • Assess the effectiveness of SL courses and other service initiatives in achieving desired learning outcomes. (Mid-Range) • Use the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) for assessment purposes. (See the references section for a document which includes seven outcomes of SL that are tied to NSSE benchmarks.) (Mid-Range)

Resources • Make available workshops and course releases to facilitate faculty in developing SL courses.* (Short-Term) • Develop web-based resources for tracking and assessing service learning and civic engagement. (Mid-Range) • Encourage and integrate service and leadership involvement through programs such as Campus Labs. http://www.campuslabs.com/products/collegiatelink/ * (Mid-Range) • Establish the necessary dedicated resources (staffing, support, professional development) to support and promote SL activities and offerings. * (Mid-Range) • Explore how to better use the Community Service Federal Work Study program to promote service and SL. Alma College and Coe College provide possible models for consideration. (Mid-Range) • Explore funding sources for SL mentorships/practical learning experiences. Middlebury College is utilizing an interesting funding strategy which could be adapted here. http://chronicle.com/article/Middlebury-College-Draws-Young/128427/ (Mid-Range) • Develop a Eureka Center for Faith and Public Life is an example of a center that would both coordinate and develop service opportunities in a specialized area (local churches and religious bodies). Other such centers are possible.* (Mid-Range) • Expand funded mentorship opportunities for students seeking specific service experiences.* Austin College and Westminster both provide models for consideration. (Mid-Range)

Technology and Web-based Initiatives • Create a web presence which reflects our current service and service-learning activities and accomplishments.* (Short-Term) • Develop a web portal open to the public that would allow any community organization to post service needs.* (Short-Term) • Develop web-based resources for tracking and assessing service learning and civic engagement. (Mid-Range) • Encourage and integrate service and leadership involvement through programs such as Campus Labs. http://www.campuslabs.com/products/collegiatelink/ * (Mid-Range) • Continue to collect innovative ideas for service excellence via an internal web page on service, learning, and leadership. (Short-Term) • Create an e-Portfolio for service in which students would describe and reflect on their service and service learning experiences. Some type of incentive to encourage across the board participation by students will be necessary. (Mid-Range)

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V. Critical and Unresolved Issues for Further Discussion DEFINITIONS • Does Berea’s statement that SL should provide mutual benefit to students and community partners go far enough, or is it a baseline definition that needs to be expanded? • Do we need a more nuanced sense of the common good to which service should be directed, a sense rooted in our distinctive Eureka values? • Should service, for instance, apply above all to helping those in need and those suffering from injustice? If not, is there any difference, for instance, between an independent student service project for a homeless shelter and an internship with a local business? • How much service? • How extensive should service be in the curriculum? Every course? That seemed extreme to us. In every major? Or should service be restricted to the general education curriculum? • How much service in co-curricular activities is essential to an excellent education? • What is the best way to ensure that co-curricular service works with the curriculum, rather than the two competing for time and effort among students? • Assessment: What kind of assessment of SL do we need to do? Our research produced incomplete guidance on this question. There are many resources available to help us fully explore implementation of assessment practices, which is essential part of this process. • Resources • How can we provide incentive to faculty to incorporate more SL? Does this mean the college must commit resources? The article by Morton is particularly attuned to this issue. • What institutional support do we need? A coordinator, a center? • What next steps should be taken to help us determine our needs? • Terminology: Do we need to change the way we articulate service in our literature? When and where should the various terms be stressed (“Service-learning,” “community service,” “civic engagement”)? Can we use “civic engagement” in some places where we now use “leadership” or “servant-leadership?” • Competing goals: Some of the literature emphasizes the benefits of SL for pre-professional experience. In other places, studies note the benefits that SL brings in introducing students to diverse populations and challenging their preconceptions. These seem like different goals of SL that call for different pedagogies— one stressing student initiative, the other emphasizing student reflection—although they may coalesce in rare instances. (This reflects also the first controversy about mutual benefit vs. common good approaches to defining excellence.) Are both of equal importance, and how do we address both? • Location: One challenge area for Eureka College is our geographic location and the level of organizations/community partners within close proximity to campus with critical need. If SL were more fully integrated throughout the curriculum, support for travel and outreach to area communities would be a necessity. This is another reason for employing a broader definition of Civic Engagement/Civic Learning in our efforts.

VI. Questions to be taken up by the Learning and Leadership Committees • Should we pursue the possibility of May term courses, a format that would be ideal for some SL courses? • Should the concept of “civic engagement” supplement how we understand and discuss “leadership” at Eureka College? • To what extent can excellence in leadership be integrated into SL courses? • Should SL be incorporated into 100-level general education courses or not? We have recommended increasing the presence of SL courses in the Gen Ed curriculum. But the nature of some introductory courses in the disciplines seems to be geared to introducing the discipline as a “way of knowing;” that

The Pursuit of Excellence

is, some introductory courses serve as a gateway into upper-level courses in that discipline. Is that the appropriate goal for a Gen Ed 100 level course? The answer to this question will greatly affect how SL is incorporated into these courses. • If we begin to add more senior-level research opportunities in the majors, do we also want to consider adding at SL components or options at the same time? • What would the effects on the curriculum be if we create a broader SL requirement for graduation? • How would our recommendations related to curriculum, such as the Service-Learning Proseminar, fit in with the recommendations of the Learning white paper committee?

VII. Conclusions “Integration” emerged repeatedly when our committee researched and discussed excellence in service. Without losing the distinctive contribution of each to excellence at Eureka College, service, learning, and leadership must be integrated at Eureka wherever possible. Service-learning that develops leadership skills will continue to be a crucial integrative opportunity. Articulating service and leadership alike in terms of “civic engagement” is another opportunity. Integrating the classroom with our surrounding community is critical to success in SL and demands excellent communication: we must hear and seek out community needs, as well as publicize the service we do in a way that demonstrates our reliability as a partner. These efforts require integration also among all those who contribute to Eureka College: administration, faculty, staff, students, community partners, Trustees, alumni, friends, and potential supporters who value service. Service is already a part of Eureka culture, but needs to be brought out and allowed to flourish through intentional, collaborative planning.

VIII. Biblography, Recommended Readings & Websites for Reference Biblography: Highly recommended reading Eyler, J. and D.E. Giles. “Understanding and Applying Knowledge.” Where is the Learning in Service Learning? San Francisco, California: Jossey Bass, 1999. 57 – 82. Print. Enos, Sandra and Marie Troppe. “Service-Learning in the Curriculum.” Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. Ed. B. Jacoby and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996. Hatcher, Julie, Robert Bringle, and Richard Muthiah “Designing Effective Reflection: What Matters to Service-Learning?” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 11.1 (2004): 38-46. Web.

Bibliography: Other Works Used Brooks, Christopher. “Why Should I Care? Introducing Service-Learning and Political Engagement to Computer Science Students.” Democratic Dilemmas of Teaching Service—Learning: Curricular Strategies for Success. Eds. Christine Cress and David Donahue. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2011. 139-141. Butin, Dan. “Service-Learning as an Intellectual Movement: The Need for an ‘Academic Home’ and Critique for the Community Engagement Movement.” Problematizing Service-Learning: Critical Reflections for Development and Action. Eds. Trae Stewart and Nicole Webster. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2010. 19-35. Casile, Maureen, Kristine Hoover, and Deborah O’Neil. “Both-and, not Either-Or: Knowledge and Service Learning.”Education and Training. 53.2-3: 129-39. Collins, Patrick. “Understanding Service at the Service of Understanding: An Exploration of Service-Learning in the Arts.” Service Learning in the Liberal Arts: How and Why It Works. Ed. Craig Rimmerman. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. 41-59. Cress, Christine. “Assessment of Expected and Unexpected Service-Learning Outcomes.” Democratic Dilemmas of Teaching Service— Learning: Curricular Strategies for Success. Eds. Christine Cress and David Donahue. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2011. 169-78.

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Davis, Oren and Jennifer Dodge. “Liberationist Theology through Community Service-Learning at Trinity College in Vermont.” To Serve and Learn: The Spirit of Community in Liberal Education. Eds. J. DeVitis, R. Johns, and D. Simpson. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. 92-101. Duke, Johnny. “Service Learning: Taking Mathematics into the Real World.” Mathematics Teacher. 92.9 (1999): 794-6. Ehrlich, Tom. “Service-Learning in Undergraduate Education: Where is It Going?” Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/ Aug. 12, 2012. Fairbanks, Rick and Tim Foss. “The Global Perspective at St. Olaf: Study/Service Indonesia.” To Serve and Learn: The Spirit of Community in Liberal Education. Eds. J. DeVitis, R. Johns, and D. Simpson. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. 154-174. Jacoby, Barbara. “Facing the Unsettled Questions about Service-Learning.” The Future of Service-Learning: New Solutions for Sustaining and Improving Practice. Eds. J. Strait and M. Lima. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2009. 90-105. Jacoby, Barbara. “Service-Learning in Today’s Higher Education.” Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. Ed. B. Jacoby and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996. www.servicelearning.org/library/resource/2675 Lee, Steven. “Service-Learning in an Ethics Course.” Service-Learning and the Liberal Arts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. 7-20. Rosen, Ralph. “Classical Studies and the Search for Community.” Connecting Past and Present: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in History. 173-87. Saltmarsh, John. “Emerson’s Prophecy.” Connecting Past and Present: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in History. Ed. I. Harkavy and B. Donovan. Washington: American Association for Higher Education, 2000. Seider, Scott and Jason Taylor. “Broadening College Student Interest in Philosophical Education through Community Service Learning.” Teaching Philosophy. 34.2 (2011): 197-217. Valentine, Eugene. “Service-Learning as a Vehicle for Teaching Philosophy.” Beyond the Tower: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Philosophy. 2000. 139-161. Zlotkowski, Edward. “Academic and Civic Engagement.” Higher Education and Democracy. Eds. J. Saltmarsh and E. Zlotlowski. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. 120-130. Zuckerman, Michael. “The Turnerian Frontier: A New Approach to the Study of the American Character.” Connecting Past and Present. 183-202.

Recommended Web-Sites http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/EssentialOutcomes_Chart.pdf

This document is published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and provides descriptions of 4 essential learning outcomes tied to the LEAP study (Liberal Education America’s Promise) which may be a valuable tool to references as opportunities for integration across all three areas (learning, service, and leadership) are considered.

http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/PrinciplesExcellence_chart.pdf

This is another document published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities which, along with the Essential Outcomes, could provide a good framework of reference for all of our working groups when considering new program offerings in our aspiration for excellence.

http://www.diversityweb.org/DiversityDemocracy/vol14no3/vol14no3.pdf

Diversity & Democracy - Civic Learning for Shared Futures. This volume of this quarterly journal provides valuable evidence and perspectivies which reinforce our shared educational responsibilities to prepare students for citzenship in a democratic society and references the role of SL and other practical learning experiences.

http://www.mncampuscompact.org/vertical/Sites/%7BE34AF879-F177-472C-9EB0-D811F247058B%7D/ uploads/SCSU_Eyler.Giles.NSSE.pdf

Provides an outline of Seven SL outcomes based on research and work of Eyler and Giles (1999), Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? and aligned well with the desired goals and outcomes of a liberal education as reflected in the AACU documents.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Peer and Aspirant Institutions Studied: Sweet Briar College Wartburg College Austin College Barton College Alma College Warren Wilson College William Woods College Ursinus College Westminster College Earlham College Knox College

Earlham College Greenville College Hiram College Beloit College Culver-Stockton College Bethany College Transylvania University Illinois College Cornell College Coe College

Additional Recommended Reading Simonet, D. (2008, May), Service-Learning and Academic Success: The Links to Retention Research. Retreived from: http://www.mncampuscompact.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={EC45921B-E6BB-4B80 AA16-DD7860E10A79} In addition to the beneficial learning outcomes that may be realized through meaningful SL experiences, it is important to also note the potential impact these types of offerings may also have on retention. The article provides an overview of related research which addresses strategies for improving retention with SL. Lima, M. & Strait J. (Eds.). (2009) “The Future of Service Learning: New Solutions for Sustaining and Improving Practice.” Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Appendix A: Service at Eureka College in the 21st Century Over the last five years, Eureka College has made a concerted effort to expand the culture of service among students and across campus. In their first weeks on campus, new students learn that service is a fundamental part of the ethos of Eureka College, and throughout the year faculty and staff members invite and encourage them to join service organizations and participate in service projects. The success of our efforts is reflected by our inclusion, in 2011, on the President’s National Community Service Honor Roll, and again in 2012, on the President’s National Community Service Honor Roll of Distinction. Only four other colleges or universities in the state of Illinois received this recognition. We have laid a strong foundation for pursuing excellence in service at Eureka College. What follows is a short summary of some of the ways in which service is integrated into Eureka College at different levels. Campus-wide Service Opportunities • Since fall 2001, all first-year students have participated in a service project on the Monday of our fall new student orientation, “Welcome Week.” • Since fall 2007, the Up ‘til Dawn student organization has raised over $123,000 for St. Jude Children’s R search Hospital. • In fall 2010, teacher education students began working as tutors with students at Quest Charter Academy in Peoria. • The College offers opportunities for student to serve through week-long spring break mission trips, both domestic and international. In recent years, students have traveled to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and San Antonio.

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• The number of service and outreach opportunities has increased significantly over the last five years. The recently-added projects include the Angel Tree Program; Maroon & Golden Rule Day of Service Project; MLK Day of Service, Bearded Men Knitting Hats, and Reading Buddies. • The College has increased the number of campus organizations whose mission focuses primarily on service, including Student Foundation; the International Health Care Development Program; Circle K; Habitat for Humanity; and Up ‘til Dawn. A new organization, Alpha Phi Omega, is currently applying for official recognition as a campus organization. • The majority of our campus Greek organizations require their members to complete a certain number of community service hours and set benchmarks/goals each year based upon their past performance. • In 2011-12, the College participated in the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Challenge led by Chaplain Bruce Fowlkes. We plan to continue our involvement and build upon what was offered last year. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ofbnp/interfaithservice • The College continues to utilize Federal Work Study funds to employ a student who manages the America Reads/Math Counts tutoring program, which serves the elementary and middle schools in the local Eureka Community. Scholarships & Programs with Required Service Documentation • Reagan Fellows complete an annual service plan and project is required that involves a minimum of 40 hours of service along with a reflection component. • Students selected for the Disciples Leadership Program (formerly the Eureka College Ministry Fellowship) commit significant amounts of time to serving in the faith life of the College. • The Sandifer Program, introduced in fall 2004, provides a select group of students with funding to pursue international mentorships. To be eligible, students must document at least 80 hours of service by the end of the sophomore year. • In fall 2007, the College created a new Service Award, a one-time service scholarship for new students based on their prior community service. • In fall of 2008, a new position was created, Director of Applied Learning, to support community service initiatives as well as the Reagan and Sandifer programs. Service Learning Opportunities • Since fall 2000, the First-Year Seminar (FYS) course has included a SL experience. • An SL experience exists in a few courses other than FYS. This also includes courses that encompass problem & community-based learning offerings (e.g. Environmental Science). Student participation data Number of Students with Documented Service Involvement 2009-2010 • 393 students participated in some form of community service through Eureka College; • Overall, students invested 2,700 hours in community service and service learning projects. 2010-2011 • 373 students participated in some form of community service through Eureka College; • Overall, students invested 3,950 hours in community service and service learning projects. (Note: in 2010-11, a full-time AmeriCorps Vista volunteer enabled us to gather more complete data on service hours across all campus).

Appendix B: Pedagogical Guidelines for Service Learning

Guidelines for SL Pedagogy: • The service project must be coordinated carefully with the learning goals of the course (Enos & Troppe, others). • The conception of the service project should build on texts for the course. • Reflection and analysis during and after the project are essential. This can include in-class reflection. Journaling is a popular option, but should be carefully thought out. Some suggestions from Hatcher, Bringle, and Muthiah indicate that journals should include: • A description of the service experience • An analysis of the service experience, connecting the service to course content • Application of the experience to the student’s values and attitudes • Key-word journals using a list of terms taken from course content in student reflections on service activities. • Directed readings journals where students relate texts with SL activities • Reflections that clarify personal values • Hatcher et al. found that “service-learning had a positive outcome on values and attitudes when students…” • contributed 15-20 hours of service. • had frequent contact with the beneficiaries. • participated in weekly in-class reflection. • completed ongoing and summative written reflection activities. • discussed their service experience with the instructor and community supervisor. ###

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[3] Excellence in Leadership Education February 2013

Authors and Committee Members Dave Adams Brooke Campbell, co-chair Amanda Coutre Prof. Amanda Frioli Dr. Ann Fulop, co-chair John Morris Dr. Mike Thurwanger Dr. William Staudenmeier

The Pursuit of Excellence

Executive Summary Leadership has been a central precept forming the foundation of Eureka College culture since the school’s inception. Our most visible graduate, Ronald Reagan, acknowledged that his own leadership journey began here on this campus. He first discovered the vision and voice that would one day propel him to the office of the President of the United States, and enable him to play a pivotal role in ending the Cold War. At Eureka College, we believe each and every student has leadership potential. Therefore, we teach the knowledge and skills leadership requires within Greenleaf’s servant leadership framework. Eureka College currently offers to students the following curricular and co-curricular leadership development opportunities:

— — — — — — —

B.S. degree in Organizational Leadership Leadership minor Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program and scholarship Durward Sandifer mentorship program Leadership Ambassadors program Undergraduate and Alumni Leadership Conferences Executive in Residence Program

These programs incorporate best practices in leadership education: study abroad, writing personal leadership philosophy statements and practical leadership experience. Eureka College’s unique small environment affords students an abundance of leadership opportunities in a supportive atmosphere that tolerates a leadership learning curve. To achieve national excellence in leadership education, we propose recommendations in three broad areas that would leverage our unique culture and our strong legacy of developing leaders. 1. We recommend expanding leadership offerings in the curriculum by adding a required leadership course to the general education program, and a leadership certificate program for student leaders that would combine course and co-curricular work. 2. We recommend creating a new Institute for Leadership that would coordinate leadership education, design new programs and events on leadership, and advance the reputation of Eureka College as a national leader in leadership education. 3. We recommend expanding recognition of exemplary student leaders, including a leadership scholarship for seniors, a student organization award, and an expanded peer mentorship program.

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Excellence in Leadership Education Throughout the history of Eureka College, servant leadership has been at the center of our culture and our mission. Our graduates have served as leaders within the church, in the highest levels of academia, in business, and in government. They have also served as missionaries sharing their faith and leading others to seek a just and equitable global society. For more than 150 years, Eureka College has developed leaders who played significant roles shaping the region, the nation, and the world. The College founders presented a bold vision for the future of American society in 1855 when they decided to admit women and African-American students on an equal basis with white male students. The decision required the moral perseverance and persuasive skills to lead others to accept and support that vision. At the start of the Civil War, the young men of Eureka College who rallied under an elm tree and volunteered to fight to preserve the union demonstrated their selflessness. They put aside personal aspirations for the sake of a larger purpose: creating a society freed from the evils of slavery. In the Women’s Suffrage movement, Eureka College women emerged as leaders demanding the right to vote for women. Eureka College alumnus Durward Sandifer developed the vision for an international body that became the United Nations. And our most visible graduate, Ronald Reagan, began his leadership journey at Eureka College, where he first discovered the vision and voice that eventually led him to serve as President of the United States and play a pivotal role in ending the Cold War. With a rich history of educating and developing servant leaders, our challenge is to enhance the role of leadership development and make leadership development a signature feature of a Eureka College education.

Educating servant leaders Some say leadership cannot be taught (Parks, 2005). They subscribe to the adage “leaders are born not made.” At Eureka College, we believe each and every student has leadership potential, and we teach the knowledge and skills leadership requires. We provide students with the situations and the environment that enable them to develop leadership abilities. Because we believe that humility and a willingness to serve others are cornerstones of effective leadership, we have adopted Greenleaf’s servant leadership philosophy. In the Servant Leadership model, leaders are servants first (Greenleaf, 1977). Servant leaders influence others by responding to the needs of the people they serve instead of pursuing their personal goals. They cultivate in others a sense of autonomy and power. Many students enter Eureka College with the mindset that leadership serves them: they get to be the boss, they get awards and honors and they put titles on their resume. During their time at Eureka, they learn the servant leadership model, and graduate with a new understanding of their roles as servant leaders. Informed by the idea of servant leadership, Eureka College’s working definition of leadership “is a social process through which an individual intentionally influences others to structure their actions and relationships in order to achieve a common goal for the common good” (adapted from Northouse, 2013). The definition aligns with our mission “to cultivate excellence in learning, service, and leadership… so that members of our community may lead meaningful, productive lives and succeed in their professional and social roles.” This definition guides us in our current leadership development programming, and will continue to guide us as we expand and enhance those programs in the future. The literature on leadership education identifies a small number of practices that contribute significantly to developing leadership qualities in students. Two of these are opportunities that invite students to apply the knowledge they have gained in their classes: studying in a foreign country, and doing an internship or practicum. Research also indicates that reflecting on leadership by developing and writing a personal philosophy also benefits students. In various ways, Eureka College engages in each of these practices through course work, the Reagan scholar program and the Sandifer program. Nevertheless, not as many students benefit from these practices as they could if they were required in the curriculum or co-curricular activities. This is an area of opportunity for the College to improve leadership education so it reaches every student.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Eureka College offers the following curricular and co-curricular leadership development opportunities to students:

— Minor in Leadership — Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program and scholarship — Durward Sandifer mentorship program — Executive in Residence Program — Leadership Ambassadors program — Undergraduate and Alumni Leadership Conferences — Student participation in college committees and governance — B.S. degree in Organizational Leadership

While most leadership offerings at colleges and universities have typically been limited in duration and co-curricular in nature, there has been a significant expansion of for-credit academic programs nationally in recent years. We distinguish between not-for-academic credit leadership training and for- academic credit leadership education in the next two sections. Our current leadership offerings compare favorably to leadership programs at larger schools, such as Marietta College, Bradley University, Southern Illinois University, and Northern Illinois University. Ultimately, our goal is to surpass these and other schools in leadership programming, and this is the guiding principle behind the recommendations we describe later in this document.

For-credit leadership education Nationally, for-credit leadership courses are commonly found, at the undergraduate level, within leadership majors and minors, or leadership certificate programs. Our research indicates that approximately 195 colleges and universities in the United States have leadership majors and/or minors. In our research, we found examples where students in particular fields of study were required to take leadership courses. At the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, for example, undergraduate students are required to take MGMT 100: Leadership and Communication in Groups, but this is not a required course for all students at the University of Pennsylvania students. Only at the service academies, however, are all students required to complete a leadership course as part of their general education program. At West Point, by contract, the basic course emphasizes the integration of leadership theory and practice. Cadets study individual and group leadership psychology and learn how leaders directly influence individual motivation and group processes. They also study how leaders indirectly influence the development of organizational systems and procedures, organizational culture, and an ethical climate. At Eureka, the largest for-credit leadership program is the Organizational Leadership weekend cohort program, created in 2006. To date, 64 students have graduated from the program with degrees in leadership. Courses in this program include: Leadership theories; Philosophy of Leadership; Ethics; and Practice of Leadership. The program requires students to complete group and individual practicum courses. The curriculum also includes courses in Communication, Psychology and Business. In 2012, the faculty created a leadership minor for traditional day students. The minor includes courses in ethics, philosophy, and theories of leadership. Eureka College has an opportunity to achieve excellence in leadership education by creating a course on leadership that all students would be required to take in their general education curriculum.

Not-for-credit leadership development We have a number of solid not-for-credit leadership development programs, but as we indicate in our recommendations, we think there many more opportunities that we should pursue in the next five years. We have a good foundation upon which to build.

Learn. Serve. Lead.

Our premier scholarship program, the Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program, focuses on leadership training as a key part of the distinctive four-year experience. This leadership training is coordinated through the Director and Assistant Director of the Reagan Leadership program. The Sandifer Mentorship Program provides funding for a limited number of mentorship opportunities for students who have demonstrated that they are exceptional scholars and leaders. The benefits of both programs are limited, however, to a small number of students. For the rest of the students, Student Programs and Services Office (SPS) offers several voluntary and required not-for-credit leadership training programs for students, especially in groups such as the residential advisors and peer mentors. The Leadership Ambassadors program, for example, consists of student leaders who mentor students and organizations on topics related to leadership. They also sponsor an annual leadership conference on campus. SPS staff members actively recruit students to participate in other opportunities provided by the College for leadership training.

Foundation for excellence in leadership at Eureka College Eureka College is uniquely suited to be the expert in leadership development because of its unusual combination of three important characteristics: 1. Our Eureka culture reflects and enacts our philosophy and beliefs about leadership 2. The number of leadership opportunities afforded to students. 3. Our highly supportive noncompetitive community

I. Leadership Philosophy Eureka College is unique among colleges and universities in that we provide equal opportunity for leadership learning to all of our students. Some institutions limit participation in leadership programs to certain majors; others limit enrollment in leadership programs to students with the highest grade point averages. Research shows that for students to establish leadership identity, both psychosocial and cognitive development elements must work together (Komives, et al., 2006). To accomplish this at Eureka, curricular and co-curricular learning use the same Leadership Development Model (see Appendix A). This model outlines knowledge, skills and abilities at three levels; individual, group and community. Individual abilities focus upon awareness of self, leadership theories and foundations, and ethics and integrity. Group abilities focus upon team building, communication, and problem-solving and decision making. The third level, community, focuses upon inclusion and engagement with diverse communities and connection to the larger community of central Illinois and beyond. We have had success in the past addressing these levels. For example, on average over 75% of our students participate in at least one co-curricular opportunity each year; those who are involved in more than three have higher grade point averages (Eureka College assessment metrics). In 2011, Eureka College participated in the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership survey (http://leadershipstudy.net/), which examines student growth and maturity in a number of leadership competency areas. The survey results suggest that Eureka students grow in all the areas measured during their four years at Eureka at levels equal to the survey’s national benchmark levels. In the “citizenship” category, for instance, Eureka scored a 3.82; the national benchmark was 3.79. For the “collaboration” category, Eureka scored a 4.00, while the national benchmark was 4.04. Results were similar in each of the nine categories measured in the survey: Eureka College scores within .05 of the national benchmark. What these data suggest is that, in leadership development, Eureka College is currently performing at a level that is around the average. While we have programs that address each of these psychosocial and cognitive levels in different ways, we believe that there is an excellent opportunity here to significantly improve leadership development for every student.

The Pursuit of Excellence

II. Leadership Opportunities for Students Eureka College has more than 50 student organizations with over 200 officer and leadership positions available for students each year on campus. The number of leadership positions means that a large percentage of our students hold a leadership position every year. In their leadership roles, students can try out different leadership approaches, explore different conflict management techniques, and continually improve their communication skills. Students also have the opportunity to participate on faculty, search, and College committees. Through their participation, students observe faculty members, staff members, and administrators leading. Student representatives also attend faculty meetings and observe the complexity of dealing with issues when multiple viewpoints are considered.

III. Supportive, non-competitive community Eureka College offers “the personal touch of people who care.” We refer to it as the Eureka Spirit – a strong sense of community, a feeling of family at Eureka College. This is not a cut throat academic environment in which students horde library resources, refuse to share notes, and exclude each other from study groups. Rather, ours is a culture in which students tutor one another, help each other in the classroom, mentor first-year students and routinely offer tips and suggestions to one another. Our supportive culture does not mean that we mollycoddle students, but rather the opposite. Our students take responsifrom campus; they are constructed to allow students to learn from and recover from mistakes. This culture serves our students by enabling them to develop their value systems and act as responsible autonomous individuals. The social atmosphere at Eureka College expects students to be responsible for themselves and each other. This White Paper offers recommendations to keep our culture alive and thriving for future classes.

Recommendations The committee’s recommendations address three major objectives: 1) expand the leadership curriculum; 2) create Eureka College Leadership Institute; and 3) enhance leadership opportunities and incentives for students. The recommendations complement and supplement each other.

Leadership Curriculum 1. Create a leadership course as part of the General Education curriculum. We recommend designing and implementing a required course on leadership that would reflect in the curriculum the College’s emphasis on leadership development. Our preliminary research suggests that a leadership course would be a unique general education requirement among liberal arts institutions. We propose for the general education curriculum to create “A Leadership and Public Speaking Course.” This integrated course would focus on the ethics and practice of leadership and public speaking. The course would accomplish several things:

— Leadership and communication are closely connected. We lead through communication; — Students would have the opportunity to apply leadership through opportunities to communicate: as a public speaker in individual and group contexts and through discussion and activities; — Students would have ample opportunities to practice followership: in group activities and speeches, as audience participants and in discussion; — Public speaking is a required general education course under the Illinois Articulation Initiative and is required at most colleges and universities around the nation.

We recommend using three central questions, identified by Jenkins (2011), to guide us as we develop the course:

Learn. Serve. Lead.

— What are the most frequently employed instructional strategies used by instructors teaching undergraduate leadership studies courses? — Are there identifiable signature pedagogies in the leadership discipline? — What learning goals are most important to instructors teaching undergraduate leadership studies courses?

We also suggest, in developing the course, we use leadership course development resources from the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs and sample syllabi available from the International Leadership Association and the University of Maryland clearinghouse.

2. Create a leadership certificate program for student leaders. We recommend creating a certificate program that would require students to apply theories of leadership learned in required leadership courses to their own work as campus leaders, and recognize their accomplishments. Students in the certificate program would create an electronic portfolio of leadership, which would demonstrate the lessons they learned as leaders and students of leadership studies. We propose to track student leadership experience in student organizations and give academic credit to those students by assessing their achievement of the learning outcomes of the Leadership Development Model.

The certificate program might include the following components:

a. We recommend that the Leadership Development Model (see Appendix A) be adopted by both faculty and staff so that course learning objectives and co-curricular activity learning objectives reinforce student learning and that the objectives may be assessed in both areas. Students will have the same expectations for servant leadership within and outside of the classroom during their four years at Eureka. Leadership has to be practiced. One can’t just read about it.

b. We recommend that the College join the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. The Center’s programs would increase the number and kinds of leadership development opportunities for students in the certificate program. Through the Center, students can take courses in servant leadership, attend workshops at the Center, and participate in their annual conference. The Greenleaf Center Scholars Program provides partial funding for doctoral candidates or new faculty to conduct research in leadership. Through partnership with the Greenleaf Center, we could bring leadership scholars to campus to discuss their work with students, or potentially for a semester or academic year to teach leadership courses as visiting professors.

c. We recommend using Campus Lab’s Collegiate Link software program as an e-portfolio system that would enable students to create individual portfolios that would enable them to describe and reflect on their leadership experiences across their entire time in the certificate program. Collegiate Link would also track student participation and progress through the program, and provide administrators with program assessment metrics. It would also provide support for retention and assessment efforts at the College.

d. We recommend selecting a current faculty/staff member to serve as leadership certificate program coordinator responsible for coordinating learning across courses and co-curricular activities in the program; assessing the effectiveness of the program and guiding the revision process as needed; and providing support and resources for faculty and staff advisors of student organizations.

The Pursuit of Excellence

e. We recommend eventually hiring a diversity/multicultural affairs officer who would work with the leadership certificate coordinator. In addition to creating diversity programs on campus, the diversity officer would also partner with the leadership coordinator to design methods for achieving learning outcomes related to inclusion and collaboration in the leadership certificate program. The diversity officer would organize workshops in which student leaders deepen their understanding of issues related to diversity and globalization and assist faculty members in incorporating diversity education and global awareness issues into the classroom.

Leadership Institute 1. Create a new Institute for Leadership intended to develop programs that will establish Eureka College’s position as the focal point for the national conversation on leadership education. The primary function of the Institute for Leadership will be to advance the national dialogue and debate about leadership and service through academic and co-curricular programming, networking, and public relations. The non-partisan Institute will conceive, plan, and host conferences, lecture series, and other events that focus on leadership studies and servant leadership. The events will bring nationally recognized scholars of leadership and exemplary leaders to campus. The Institute would also offer leadership workshops to service groups, non-profit organizations, and companies in the region. The Institute’s programming will build on leadership programs already in place at Eureka College and be on the leading edge of innovations in leadership development. The Institute would support several existing leadership programs: the Executive-in Residence program, the Ronald W. Reagan Leadership Program, the Durward Sandifer Mentorships, the Leadership Ambassadors program, the Organizational Leadership program, and the Leadership minor.

2. Create a Director of the Institute for Leadership position. The Director would be an academic who would run the Institute’s programs; teach courses in leadership; and pursue grants and donations to support and expand Institute programs. Institute Director would initiate and coordinate new leadership initiatives as they are developed. The coordinator of the Leadership certificate program and a multicultural affairs/diversity officer would report to the Institute Director.

3. Create leadership development programs for administrators, faculty, and staff from colleges across the nation. We wanted to create programs for community leaders, not other faculty from other colleges. We wanted our leaders to attend leadership institutes. I’ve included the original recommendations below. The Harvard Graduate School of Education offers leadership institutes for College Presidents, Provosts and Deans. In a similar vein, we think the Institute can create workshops that will help staff, faculty, and administrators develop their leadership skills and bring those skills back to their campuses. We believe this kind of programming will establish Eureka College’s reputation as a national leadership development in higher education. Conferences, workshops, lectures, and other event programming will be a major way in which this Institute will be an important regional and national resource. Our Student Programs and Services Office has several programs in place grounded in student development theory to support leadership identity development. In January 2008, members of the SPS team designed and implemented a leadership conference open to all students to support leadership development. Faculty, staff, and community members are asked each year to present on leadership topics needed within our student body. With core leadership skills and competencies embedded in its structure, the leadership conference offers students an opportunity to reflect and grow in their knowledge about leadership

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and their abilities as leaders. Each year the number of students who attend this annual event has grown. For the 2012 conference, approximately 15% of the entire student body was in attendance. We will continue offering this opportunity to our student body as it is an important piece of our culture and mission. To further expand and emphasize community service and engagement, we recommend providing leadership workshops to service groups in the Central Illinois area. If community volunteers recognize that Eureka College is a resource for them, it may boost community activism. Faculty or staff members who provide workshops should receive a stipend. The Institute and Director will also serve as a resource for staff, faculty and administration. To ensure effective role modeling we recommend developing leadership coaching skills in administration, faculty and staff. The ability to engage with an adult who offers a combination of challenge and support and who models more complex ways of thinking about leadership can facilitate a shift in studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; level of consciousness (Komives, et al., 2006). Harvard Graduate School of Education offers leadership institutes specifically for College Presidents, Provosts and Deans. We believe this will strengthen the quality of role modeling for students and enhance our institutional reputation as a regional and national leader. In addition, we recommend that faculty and staff attends and/or present at Association of Leadership Programs (ALP) conferences in order to improve student coaching and to increase national recognition for Eureka College. Furthermore, we should encourage our key leaders in leadership education and training to be active in the NASPA Knowledge Community for Student Leadership Programs, the ILA, and the NCLP for our understanding of best practices, awareness of educational innovation, and in order to enhance our institutional reputation as a regional and national leader.

4. Create a student leadership development committee, co-led by faculty and staff that focuses on applying the servant leadership model in all aspects of campus life. The committee would review student policies to ensure that they are consistent with servant leadership and balance the requirements of the college and the goals of maturing students effectively. Serving on the committee will enable students to be mentored as they practice this aspect of leadership. This committee should address questions such as whether students, with mentoring from faculty and staff members, should handle academic integrity and social discipline issues; or whether or not the Student Senate should draft student policies. Similarly, we recommend that a committee review contract and employment policies for alignment to principles of servant leadership.

5. Send faculty and staff members to national leadership conferences and other development programs.

We recommend that the College encourage faculty and staff members to attend conferences such as those hosted by the Association of Leadership Programs (ALP). We also recommend that faculty and staff members who serve as leadership mentors participate in programs such as the NASPA Knowledge Community for Student Leadership Programs. Participation in these kinds of programs will enhance their knowledge of best practices in leadership studies and keep them informed about innovations in leadership education.

6. House the Institute in a new multipurpose academic building with capacity to host conferences, lectures, and other Institute workshops and programs. The academic building would have a medium sized lecture hall (capacity around 150), three conference breakout rooms (seated capacity 40), a seminar/meeting room with large/long center table (seated capacity 20 that can be used as a fourth breakout room), sufficient offices for faculty, staff, and guest faculty/leaders affiliated with the Institute. All meeting spaces would be equipped with the latest technology for teleconferencing and virtual classroom. The lobby would be flexibly designed to serve as exhibition space for work connected with conferences or other presentations, as well as travelling exhibitions.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Student Recognition 1. Create a peer mentor program in leadership from the existing Leadership Ambassador program. In the peer mentor program in leadership, experienced student leaders would serve as peer mentor for new student leaders. The peer mentors would be students who have demonstrated their knowledge of leadership theory and exhibit excellent leadership abilities. The peer mentors would help student leaders navigate the leadership challenges they face in their student organizations. The leadership peers, with the Reagan Fellows, would be our “campus leaders.” Our research on leadership education at other colleges suggests that a peer mentor program in leadership would make Eureka College unique among liberal arts colleges.

2. Create a leadership scholarship to recognize outstanding leadership development. The leadership scholarship would recognize students who have matured and grown as leaders during their college career. We think the scholarship should be awarded to juniors (to be applied to senior year tuition) in any major, who have demonstrated growth in leadership.

3. Create a student organization award to recognize organizations that exhibit outstanding leadership qualities. The award would recognize organizations whose members, collectively, exemplify servant leadership. The “award” could be a traveling trophy and include a donation to a charitable organization of their choice.

4. Create a professional mentor program. The professional mentor program would match students with alumni and friends of the College to provide students with the opportunity to learn about leadership from successful practitioners. This program can be modeled from the extant Reagan Scholarship mentorship program.

Measuring Excellence in Leadership Education To date, Eureka College has not engaged in a comprehensive assessment of our current leadership education programs. Much of the assessment work that has been done has focused on the self-reflective writing our students are often required to complete as part of various leadership roles on campus. We have also focused, in the last few years, on developing complete data on student involvement in student organizations as leaders, and assessing the impact of those leadership experiences on academic performance. The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership discussed earlier, and the student evaluation of our Organizational Leadership program, are currently the primary assessment methods that Eureka College uses to evaluate and improve leadership education. Jenkins’ (2011) research and evaluation of undergraduate leadership programs highlighted the absence of evaluation methods for programs. Our Leadership Development Model (found in Appendix A) includes learning outcomes and is an important first step in creating a more complete leadership development assessment method. As the College community explores further the recommendations we have laid out here, we will develop a broader assessment process that will measure the extent to which our curricular or co-curricular programs have been effective in helping our students achieve the leadership learning outcomes we design. Each time we design and implement a new part of the program, we will identify clear learning outcomes and the methods for assessing these. There are a number of methods by which we can assess leadership learning outcomes, but the e-portfolio system would be a very valuable mechanism for helping us with assessment. How will we know when we have achieved the level of excellence that we intend? When our students demonstrate at the end of their Eureka careers that they have met all the learning outcomes in leadership.

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References Babson College (2012). Undergraduate Leadership programs. Retrieved from http://www.babson.edu/undergraduate/academics/leadership-programs/Pages/home.aspx Bradley University (2012). http://www.bradley.edu/academic/cio/ipl/minor/ Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. New York/Mahwah, N.J: Paulist Press International Leadership Association (2012). Retrieved from http://www.ila-net.org/Resources/LPD/index.htm Jenkins D.M. (2011). Exploring Instructional Strategies and Learning Goals in Undergraduate Leadership Education (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from http://gradworks.umi.com/3460118.pdf Judge, T., Colbert, A., & Ilies R. (2004). Intelligence and Leadership: A Quantitative Review and Test of Theoretical Propositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 542-552. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.542 Komives, S.R., Longerbeam, S.D., Owen, J.E., Mainella, F. C., & Osteen, L. (2006). A Leadership Development Model: Applications from a Grounded Theory. Journal of College Student Development, 49, 401-418. Marquette University Division of Student Affairs. (2012) Leadership Development Model. Retrieved from http://www.marquette.edu/dsa/leadership/ docs/Marquette_DSA_Leadership_Model.pdf Multi institutional Study of Leadership (2011). Retrieved from http://leadershipstudy.net/ NASPA Student Leadership programs (2012). Retrieved from http://www.naspa.org/kc/kcslp/default.cfm Northern Illinois University Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management (2012). Retrieved from http://www.niu.edu/studentinvolvement/ leadership/academy.shtml Northouse, P.G (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications,, Inc. Parks, S.D. (2005). Leadership Can Be Taught A Bold Approach for a Complex World. Boston: Harvard Business Press Books. Pennsylvania State University SMEAL College of Business (2012). Sapphire Leadership Program. Retrieved from http://www.smeal.psu.edu/uge/sapphire Southern Illinois University (2011). Leadership Development Program. Retrieved from http://ldp.rso.siuc.edu United State Military Academy West Point (2012). Leader Development Science Retrieved from http://www.usma.edu/bsl/SitePages/Leader%20Development%20Science.aspx University of Maryland National Clearinghouse for Leadership (2012). Retrieved from http://www.nclp.umd.edu/ University of Pennsylvania Wharton School (2012). Retrieved from http://wlp.wharton.upenn.edu/core-curriculum.cfm University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership (2012). Retrieved from http://jepson.richmond.edu/

Additional references Battistoni, R. M. (2002). Beyond Conceptual Frameworks: The Practical Skills of Engaged Citizenship. In Civic Engagement across the Curriculum: A Resource Book for Service-Learning Faculty in All Disciplines (pp.31-39). Providence: Campus Compact. Bass, B.M. & R. Bass (Eds.). (2008). The Bass Handbook of Leadership. NY: Free Press. Bass, B.M., & B.J. Avolio (Eds.). (1994). Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bryman, A., D. Collinson, K. Grint, B. J, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.). (2011). Sage Handbook of Leadership. London: Sage. Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. NY: Harper & Row. Checkoway, B. N., Guarasci R., & Levine P.L. (2012). Renewing the Civic Purpose of Liberal Education. In D. W. Harward (Ed.), Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed (pp. 109-123). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Ciulla, J. B. (2011). The Jepson School: liberal arts as leadership studies. In Harvey & Riggio (Eds), Leadership Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines, New Horizons in Leadership Studies (pp. 20-35). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Colby, A. (2007). The Role of Higher Education in Preparing Citizens. In Colby, E., Ehrlich B.T., & Corngold J... Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political Engagement. (pp. 44-59).San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Collinson, D., Grint,K. & Jackson, B. (Eds.). (2011). Major Works in Leadership (Vols. 1-4). London: Sage.

The Pursuit of Excellence

Elshtain, J.B. (2009). Leadership and the Humanities. In Wren, Riggio, & Genovese (Eds.), Leadership and the Liberal Arts: Achieving the Promise of a Liberal Education (pp. 117-125). NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Gardner, J.W. (1978). Leadership. NY: Harper & Row Genovese, M. A., & Tritle L.A. (2011). Leadership and the Classics. In Harvey & Riggio (Eds.), Leadership Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines. New Horizons in Leadership Studies (pp. 39-53). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Goethals, G. R., & L. Hoyt C.L. (2011). What makes leadership necessary, possible and effective: the psychological dimensions. In Harvey and Riggio, (Eds.), Leadership Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines. New Horizons in Leadership Studies. (pp. 101-118). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Goethals, G.R., Sorenson, G.J. & Burns, J.M. (2004). Encyclopedia of Leadership (Vol. 1-4). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Grint, G. (2005). Leadership: Limits and Possibilities NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Harter, N. (2006). Clearings in the Forest: On the Study of Leadership. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP. Harward, D. W. (Ed.). (2012). Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership Without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. Hughes, R.L., R.C. Ginnett, & G.J. Curphy (2009). Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience. (6 ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Jackson, B., & Parry, K. (2011). Cultural Perspectives on Leadership. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership. (2 ed., pp. 68-111). Los Angeles: Sage. Keith, B. (2012). Building the Capacity to Lead: Lessons Learned in the Evolution of the Leader Development Systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;United States Military Academy at West Point (New York). In Harward (Ed.), Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed (349354). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Kezar, A.J. & Reich A.N. (2012). Fostering Faculty Leadership for Sustainable Change in the Academy. In Harward (Ed.), Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed (pp. 173-188). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (2007). The Leadership Challenge (4 ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Khurana, R., and Nohria, N. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice. Boston: HBS Publishing. Ladkin, D. (2010). Rethinking Leadership: A New Look at Old Leadership Questions. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Longo, N. V. & Shaffer M.S. (2009). Leadership Education and the Revitalization of Public Life. In Jacoby (Ed.), Civic Education in Higher Education: Concepts and Practice (pp. 154-173). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Marrietta College (2010). Retrieved from http://webapps.marietta.edu/~lead/ Marturano, A., & Gosling J. (Eds.). (2007). Leadership: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Routledge. Muhlenfeld, E. (2009). Learning Leadership Discipline by Discipline: Cultivating Metaphors for Leadership through the Study of the Liberal Arts. In Wren, Riggio, & Genovese (Eds.), Leadership and the Liberal Arts: Achieving the Promise of a Liberal Education (pp. 81-96). NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Perruci, G. (2009). General Education as the Nexus between the Liberal Arts and Leadership Studies. In Wren, Riggio, & Genovese (Eds.). Leadership and the Liberal Arts: Achieving the Promise of a Liberal Education (pp. 67-80). NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Riggio, R. E. (2009). Assessing the Impact of Liberal Arts-based Leadership Education. In Wren, Riggio, & Genovese (Eds.). Leadership and the Liberal Arts: Achieving the Promise of a Liberal Education (pp. 203-212). NY: Palgrave Macmillan.. Riggio, R. E. (2011). Is leadership studies a discipline? In Harvey & Riggio (Eds.). Leadership Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines. New Horizons in Leadership Studies (pp.9-19). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Sessa, V. I. (2012). Attempting Organizational Transformational Learning from the Ground Up: Lessons Learnedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Montclair State University (New Jersey). In Harward (Ed.). Transforming Undergraduate Education: Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed (pp. 325-329.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Sinclair, A. (2007). Leadership for the Disillusioned. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Wren, J. Thomas. (2009). Reinventing the Liberal Arts through Leadership. In J.T. Wren, R. E. Riggio, & M. A. Genovese (Eds.). Leadership and the Liberal Arts: Achieving the Promise of a Liberal Education (pp. 13-36). NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Wren, J. Thomas. (2011). Of history and leadership: the discipline of history and the understanding of leadership. In Harvey & Riggio, eds., Leader-

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ship Studies: The Dialogue of Disciplines. New Horizons in Leadership Studies (pp. 66-81). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Yukl, G. (2009). Leadership in Organizations. (7 ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

➡ Appendix A

Leadership Development Model / Eureka College

Guided by the mission of Eureka College, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), we strive to foster the mutual development of intellect and character so that the members of our community may lead meaningful, productive lives and succeed in their professional and social roles. With leadership being one of our goals of the college, we encourage the development of leadership and create the opportunities for all members of our community to be positive agents for change.

Individual

— Self Awareness — — Experience and Fundamentals — — Ethics and Integrity —

Individual Outcomes

Awareness of Self Aware of personal strengths and areas of challenges; shows desire for feedback and is open to change and growth

Ethics and Integrity Identifies ethical principles; exemplifies authenticity, genuineness, and honesty; demonstrates personal responsibility

Experience and Fundamentals Ability to analyze, compare, evaluate, and reason within our professional discipline; Understanding of basic leadership skills such as time management, planning, developing relations, etc. Knowledge of leadership theories

Group

Community

— Teambuilding — — Communication — — Problem Solving and Decision Making —

— Inclusion and Collaboration — — Agent of Change —

Group Outcomes

Community Outcomes

Teambuilding Fosters team work; empowers and motivates others; develops trust; cultivates leadership of others through mentoring and role modeling; understands group dynamics

Inclusion and Collaboration Embraces others; cultural awareness through knowledge of the events and personalities of the community at large

Communication Provides effective written, verbal expression; demonstrates effective listening; articulates a well-rounded perspective/response ; identifies common purpose and vision; initiates action

Problem Solving & Decision Making Understands that there are multiple views on any given situation; is respectful to all perspectives; critical thinker; information gatherer; ability to work with abstract concepts

Agent of Change Draws on individual skills to positively impact others; provides service to further the welfare of humanity