Nebraska Wesleyan University has been named one of eight colleges and universities in the country to participate in a national initiative to explore signature work for all undergraduate students.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has invited NWU to become a leadership institution for its educational change initiative, called the LEAP Challenge. Institutions involved in the project will examine which of their students currently complete signature work, and investigate plans to scaffold curricula so that all students are well-prepared to engage in significant signature work before they graduate. AAC&U received a $200,000 grant for the project from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
Signature work comes in many forms including capstone research, field-based activity or internships, performances and more. Nebraska Wesleyan requires all of its students to complete an internship, service learning project, research or international study.
"Obviously preparing students for and supporting them while they conduct a significant integrative or culminating project requires time and resources and, perhaps more important, coordination and commitment across the institution," AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider wrote to NWU. "Nebraska Wesleyan has already demonstrated this kind of coordination and commitment in your existing programs. AAC&U wishes to encourage and support you in considering how to expand and improve your work."
Other colleges and universities selected for the two-year project include:
- Augustana College
- Clark University
- College of William and Mary
- Connecticut College
- Elizabethtown College
- Oberlin College
- Stanford University
"As higher education continues to re-imagine the future during a time of profound change, we have an opportunity to benefit from the experience and national leadership of schools like Nebraska Wesleyan," wrote Schneider.