University of Arizona
IN-25: Innovation B

The University of Arizona has made student engagement one of four pillars of its strategic plan. As part of that plan, UA has a goal that 100% of undergraduates complete an intensive experiential learning activity at some point in their time at UA. To accomplish this goal, UA intends to create a large culture shift around teaching and learning, and has made strategic central investments in developing a program to incentivize more experiential learning opportunities for students and to connect students to these opportunities. Creating this broad-based campaign within UA is a substantial innovation in and of itself, but it has also UA has gone to great efforts to ensure the campaign is also an expression of its values as an institution. To that end, all experiential learning opportunities that are recognized under this program must reflect one of seven key competency themes. Sustainability is one of these themes. Whether through a course, or outside the classroom, these experiences must be approved by the Office of Student Engagement as having substantial learning outcomes, processes of reflection by the student on what they have learned, and a theory of learning. They must go well beyond mere volunteer activities, and must rise to the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy of learning. The inclusion of sustainability, diversity, global understanding, and other themes as core areas of competency within the 100% Engagement goal creates a platform for recognizing and elevating an array of highly successful sustainability programs for students at UA. But it also creates a platform for development of new programs and opportunities, which the Office of Sustainability and other partners are actively exploring and developing. This is an example of embedding sustainability in the core pillars and programs of the UA strategic plan - something that the higher education sustainability community often talks about as a key need, but rarely sees major progress. Hopefully this innovation can be an example and potential model for others in integrating sustainability efforts with their institutional efforts toward expanding experiential and applied learning. The main website for the 100% Engagement initiative can be found here: http://ose.arizona.edu/

Latest update: Oct 2016