Tuesday, October 18, 2011
ELC Updates
Power Your Experience
Many people wonder, what’s exactly the “Experiential
Learning Center (ELC)?” Experiential
Learning activities include academic internships, service-learning and
undergraduate research.
The ELC works closely with students, faculty, employers and community
partners to provide quality experiential learning opportunities that enhance
academic learning, integrate theory and practice, and promote professional
development and active citizenship. Experiential learning includes a variety of
activities with one common goal: to immerse students in hands-on learning
outside the classroom where experience is at the heart of the learning process.
In short, the Experiential Learning Center is the “Go-To” campus
resource for all these activities.
This past year has brought many changes
to the ELC. Under the new leadership of
Director Tony Smith, the ELC has implemented a number of process
improvements. Multiple orientation
workshops have been added, enabling us to increase service by more than 66 students
per week. Learning Agreement submissions, evaluations and assessment processes
have been streamlined, improving efficiency and convenience to students,
employers and faculty engaged in experiential learning activities. Office space has been redesigned, including
workshop space for use by the ELC as well as faculty, community partners and
student groups. A food pantry for CU
Denver students has been created and has served over 270 students thus far. These various process improvements have
enabled us to more efficiently serve all our constituents.
In addition to process improvement, you
may have begun to recognize the large blue symbol around campus, representing
our new “Power Your Experience” brand.
This new brand is symbolic of what we do. This symbol was chosen because the ELC gives
students all the resources they need to “power” their experience; they just
have to hit the button and go!
We’ve also been reaching out to
constituents in new ways by utilizing various social networking sites such as Facebook,
Blogger and YouTube. We’ve been
employing new video marketing techniques to improve campus-wide awareness. These videos were created by students for
students. With this philosophy in mind,
we hope to gain more awareness and showcase the power of student
involvement.
All these improvements have shown
positive results. Just over the past
year, we’ve successfully filled 485 internship placements (translating to just
under 2 internship placements per day), surpassing last year and have recorded
nearly 50,000 student volunteer hours – an increase of 30%. The statistics speak for themselves. We are increasing the quantity and quality of
our experiential learning assistance to students, faculty and ELC partners.
The ELC remains committed to
maintaining an attitude of service. We
go out of our way to help, whether that comes in the form of experiential
assistance or simply walking a lost student down the hall to find an office. Our mantra is: “We are the Experiential
Learning Center and we are here for you!”
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