Experiential Learning is heading into its sixth year at MTSU, and the program is flourishing as a model of hands-on learning through practical application and public service.
It began in 2003 as a mandate by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to develop a Quality Enhancement Plan that would improve and enhance student learning at MTSU.
Planning-committee members broke into small groups and bounced around QEP ideas.
“Every group came back with an idea that had something to do with service-learning,” said Chairperson Jill Austin, who led the larger body and has led the EXL initiative from the start. “So, experiential learning became our focus. We had marketing students develop logo ideas, and people voted. We came up with ‘EXL — Make It Happen!’”
A subcommittee developed the QEP plan and submitted it in March 2006.
The EXL program began that fall.
Today, every college at MTSU is now involved in EXL, and more than 100 EXL courses have been approved, Austin said.
“We started out with 122 EXL (course) sections, and we’ve added to that every year,” she said. “Last year we had 314 sections. We started with 54 faculty members, and we now have 168 professors participating. The first academic year of EXL classes we enrolled 1,700 students. Last academic year, we had nearly 5200 students.”
Students can become EXL scholars and have the EXL designation printed on their transcript if they take 16 to 18 EXL credit hours and complete a 4000-level course that requires them to do an e-portfolio of their EXL activities, Austin said.
“The second year of EXL we had 15 EXL scholars,” she noted. “Last year, we had 148.”
There have been more than 3,000 EXL projects that extended to the greater community comprising approximately 194,000 hours of public-service work, Austin said.
Austin started calculating a dollar value to that.
Based on $8 an hour for every hour students spent, the impact on Middle Tennessee was just more than $1 million in 2007-2008.
By 2010-2011, it was $1.5 million.
EXL is making a huge economic impact on the community while the students earn class credit.
Sharon Smith, a professor in the department of speech and theatre, said that one of her students wants to work “somewhere where she can make a difference,” because she performed volunteer work as part of her EXL course.
Another student discovered that she had a passion for philanthropy and one day wants to operate her own nonprofit organization.
EXL students have worked with several organizations, including Room in the Inn, Domestic Violence, Make a Wish Foundation and Habitat for Humanity.
Fay Parham, director of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, said the survey graduating seniors take every year asks them to name three things that need to be improved at MTSU.
For the past two or three years, Parham said students have asked for more EXL classes.
EXL is probably among the Top 5 quality programs in the SACS quality-enhancement plans.
And Parham has seen a lot of them, she noted.
MTSU Senior Lindsey Rose is double majoring in organizational communication and global studies.
She said EXL creates a good balance of education and experience, especially when applying for a job in a tough economy.
Leah Mattix, a senior in the College of Liberal Arts, commented that the EXL program enriched both her resume and her time in class because it provided her with real-world experience in communication analysis, event planning and volunteer coordination, rather than just textbook and lecture material.
Other EXL students are involved in producing documentaries and oral histories and applying hands-on learning in other areas, such as civic engagement and international studies.
For more information about the program, contact Austin at 898-2736 or jaustin@mtsu.edu. |
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