Campus Snapshots

Snapshots are short stories of about specific interesting or innovative initiatives within general education at a campus. Examples of a Snapshot might be best practices in administration, specific elements of a GenEd program, or intriguing courses. Snapshots are not to be descriptions of full scale program or curriculum revisions, or about how an entire GenEd program works.
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July 2019

University of the District of Columbia

One thematic track of the 2018 conference of the Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS) was “General Education through Engaged Learning and Engaged Citizenship.” Presenters were asked how their general education programs served multiple purposes on their campuses. The General Education program at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), in addition to educating students for successful employment and the responsibilities of democratic citizenship, is also charged with developing “transformative ethical leaders” who can create solutions to urban challenges (University of the District of Columbia, 2018). Our school motto is, “Aspire, Accomplish, Take on the World.” Before UDC students graduate, they are challenged to “Take on the World” in a team-based, experiential, interdisciplinary Capstone Course.

The Capital Capstone Course is the last class in UDC’s developmentally sequenced 36-credit General Education Program. Through this program, UDC strives to help our graduates develop the “soft skills” that employers report  university graduates lack—the ability to work in diverse teams,  to write and speak effectively, to think critically, and to  apply knowledge and skills to real-world challenges (American Student Assistance, 2017; Hart Research, 2018). They hone these skills while working in teams to create researched-based solutions to address challenges or problems supplied by partners from the Washington Metropolitan Area.

At the beginning of the two-semester course, students are divided into diverse teams (usually 5 students each) with whom they work for the duration of the course. A variety of strategies are employed to make effective teams, help students use and develop their strengths, and to stimulate creative, research-based solutions. We begin with a student profile form and a personality assessment. The personality assessment helps students understand how they interact, are motivated, process information, make decisions, and learn. The personality scores are used along with other attributes—age, major, race, ethnicity, gender, life experiences, geographic origin, among others—to develop diverse teams. During the course, students also learn to make decisions as a team, work collaboratively, value diversity, manage conflict, and effectively evaluate their peers.

Ideally students learn to work in teams with a high level of interdependency and develop and implement a solution that surpasses their expectations. During their projects, students are required to prepare an annotated bibliography where they validate academic and non-academic resources, collaborate on the development of a proposal, implement a project, and present their findings to the partner, the University Community, and others. As they develop their proposals and pitches, they learn to use research to develop and present persuasive written documents and oral communiques. They use reports, surveys, and other quantitative information to validate their recommendations, think critically, and propose solutions to real challenges in the community. Students, individually or collectively, take the lead in these efforts and learn how they can be civically engaged to make changes in their community and use their power—as citizens within their communities and the world.

I, as the Assistant Director of the General Education Program at the University of the District of Columbia, along with Wynn Yarbrough, Director, have worked to redesign the course to address the goals identified above and help students learn to “Take on the World.“ In the early development phase of the revised Capital Capstone Course, we had not yet engaged external partners so we allowed students to select their own challenges. They addressed concerns on the UDC campus, in their communities, or worked on projects being implemented from our Land-Grant Centers. Through these experiential learning opportunities students have come to understand that they can affect change, while also learning that affecting change is not straightforward or easy.

At the end of Fall 2018 we are celebrated the completion and presentation of some of the solutions recommended by Capstone students to address perceived problems on the UDC campus. Team “Stability over Silence,” which consists of students from multiple semesters, will see the installation of their auxiliary affirmation wall which will promote mental health mindfulness and increase awareness of the counseling services available at UDC. Two other teams have presented white papers to campus officials: 1) Team “Lifesavers” proposed that UDC install Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) and first aid kits on campus to comply with American Red Cross recommendations; and 2) A second set of Capstone teams will present recommendations to the Campus police with the goal of increasing awareness of campus safety resources and adoption of the Live Safe App, a risk mitigation tool.

UDC’s General Education program has a set of 12 characteristics that we aspire for our graduates. Oftentimes students do not value the effort that we instructors spend developing classroom activities that will help them attain the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we know they need to be competent citizens and leaders. But sometimes in the Capstone class I hear, read, or see evidence that what we are doing is working. Last week in class, I heard spontaneous applause for a solution presented by one team to improve the image of the University. In his end-of-capstone reflection, a student wrote about being annoyed by the amount of time spent on the personality assessment and associated activities; however, in he also acknowledged the value of understanding differences in personalities and indicated that he should probably take more notice of personality types. Finally, when learning that the mental health affirmation wall was being installed in a few weeks, psychology major and aspiring clinical psychologist, Tsahai Jenkins smiled broadly and said, “…because of Capstone, I will leave my university knowing that the work my team members and I did will benefit other students for years to come!”

Please share your experiences with your interdisciplinary Capstone courses. We would especially like to learn about successful experiences with community partners as we are still developing the guidelines for our partnerships.