Matt Childs is an associate professor of history, but he knows that, out of the more than 270 students who take each of his survey courses, it’s possible that none of them will be history majors. So, as senior faculty associate for the Center of Integrative and Experiential Learning, Childs has spent the past eight years honing his ability to cater the specifics of colonialism in Latin American and the Caribbean to an audience of students who may never take another history class.

It's just one of the skills Childs has learned from his time with the CIEL’s Graduation with Leadership Distinction program, observing his own students as they reflect on how apparently unconnected academic and extracurricular experiences have come together to contribute to their growth and learning as part of the GLD capstone program, University 401.

UNIV 401 provides a transformative semester-long opportunity for students to grow in self-awareness, learn to articulate their experiences and goals, and showcase accomplishments as they prepare e-portfolios summarizing their undergraduate experiences. But the impacts on the faculty and staff instructors are just as profound.

“Students put their entire undergraduate experience together and show how it relates to their beyond-the-classroom experiential learning,” Childs says. “It’s helped me to become a much clearer, more competent instructor because I’m always thinking about how I’m explaining something and how students are going to use that information to illuminate or explore something else.”

The experience is not unique to Childs. Asheley Schryer, current director of retention and student success at USC Lancaster, was tapped from her role in the Office of Undergraduate Research at the Columbia campus to teach UNIV 401 back in the course’s pilot year, thanks to her office’s connection to the research GLD pathway. Schryer’s teaching experience has been personally and professionally rewarding throughout almost a decade of facilitating UNIV 401 sessions, but there’s something particularly meaningful in being able to provide this opportunity to Lancaster students.

The two-year branch campus caters to students earning their associate degree, so there is a much shorter window of time to get involved in beyond-the-classroom engagement before earning their degrees. The impetus for students to get involved early is greater — something that resonates with Schryer.

“I personally have benefited from experiential learning, so I know there’s value in it,” she says. Schryer, however, was not very engaged in her campus community until late in her college career, so she knows it’s important for students to get connected to opportunities early. “Let’s get them involved in their first semester. I saw what it was to wait until my last year. Don’t wait.”

The course has also provided her with a strong framework for her own professional success. “When I’m looking at our retention numbers, I can think, ‘OK, what happened this semester? What does this mean?’” Schryer says. “I reflect constantly. The same questions I pose to my students, I pose to myself in my job. I try to live by this and be mindful and present.”

For Nina Moreno, who serves as associate department chair, undergraduate director and a professor of Spanish for the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, teaching UNIV 401 is an exercise in better understanding her students’ experiences and reviewing her approach to pedagogy.

Raised in Ecuador, Moreno’s own educational journey did not heavily incorporate experiential learning. “I never had the experience of being an undergrad in the U.S., so this gave me a window into what it’s like, all the opportunities students have in terms of extracurricular activities, internship opportunities, study abroad, on-campus life, what goes on behind being a leader in clubs,” she says.

It also raised her awareness of how these beyond-the-classroom experiences had such a powerful impact on student learning and confidence. Moreno’s training is in second-language acquisition, so she has years of experience facilitating learner-centered classrooms. Integrating reflection on beyond-the-classroom experiences, though, has become a new staple of her courses.

“It forces you to see the student as a complex individual, someone who will interpret the content differently because of their own experiences. Depending on who you have in your class, you will work towards making it relevant,” says Moreno. “I want students to see the connection between anything we do in class and what surrounds them, their specialization, their major, their lives.”

And students are making the connections. From reflection-fueled realizations about postgraduate decisions to job interview success stories, those who teach UNIV 401 bear witness to countless instances of students flourishing and growing.

“It’s really revealing how much we can get out of students if we only push them a little more to reflect on their journey, make connections and figure out where they’re going. If that’s an exercise an undergrad doesn’t go through, we’re really robbing them of one of the greatest benefits of undergrad education,” says Moreno.

For many faculty and staff members across the university, teaching UNIV 401 has played a similarly integral role in shaping their work and energizing them to transform student experiences. Much of the success of the program comes down to the efforts CIEL puts into empowering its instructors.

“The support that the office gives has to be mentioned,” says Schryer. “Teaching this class is not easy, but I’ve never called that office and not had somebody help or somebody able to give advice, and that’s been a constant from the first time I taught in 2015 to now. There’s always someone willing to help along the way, and I think that that is a true mark of the success of the program: how they treat the people who are training to teach it.”