On December 8, 2005, the College Faculty approved a new General Education Program. One element of this program is the Active Learning Experience, or ALE. ALEs are defined as opportunities for students to explore interconnections among various venues for learning- courses, labor service, research, internships, etc. All ALEs must include (a) learning through sustained continual engagement in, reflection on, and assessment of experiences; (b) the use of knowledge, imagination, and judgment to address questions in a novel context; and (c) the exploration of connections between theory and practice, and between learning in courses and from experiences outside the classroom.

Certain experiences have been identified as automatically meeting the ALE requirement. Among those are internships, Independent and Team-Initiated Studies, certain international and domestic travel experiences, Service-Learning courses, and student research programs. Many students will participate in an Active Learning Experience through their normal course of study, but the new program establishes at least one of these experiences as a requirement for all students.

Students may propose an Active Learning Experience through the Labor Program. Working with a faculty sponsor and labor supervisor co-sponsor, a student may develop a special project or experience that enriches his/her work and the work of the labor department. General criteria have been defined for all ALEs and include sustained and substantial engagement, regular and rigorous reflection, and a summary product (presentation, paper, performance, etc.). The Labor Program has defined specific criteria for completion of an ALE within a labor department, which include: combination of student interest and department need, ability of the department to temporarily reconfigure an existing labor position, and stipulation that reflection and summary activity take place outside of work hours.

Interested students must develop a project, prepare a proposal, and secure the approval of the sponsoring faculty member, co-sponsoring labor supervisor, and the Labor Program Office. Completion of the ALE will result in a non-credit designation of LAB 010 on the student’s academic transcript and a grade of pass or fail upon completion; if academic credit is desired, students have the option of pursuing the experience through the Office of Internships. If you are interested in this experience, please contact in the Labor Program Office, or refer to the Active Learning Experience: Labor Proposal form.