Bringing Theory to Practice

St. Lawrence is entering the third year of its "Bringing Theory to Practice Demonstration Project," which is focused on fostering pedagogies of engagement within our First-Year Program (FYP) and facilitating more in-depth study of the connections between student engagement, student civic development and student well-being. Funded by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in partnership with the Charles Engelhard Foundation of New York, the St. Lawrence project is one of only two "Intensive Site" grants (the other grant is held by Georgetown University) and is titled "Transforming Pedagogy, Transforming Lives: Engaged Learning as a Source of Student Civic Development and Well-Being." By focusing on our FYP, Project Director Catherine Crosby-Currie and her project team are able to work with an entire cohort of students to implement engaged learning pedagogies designed to increase student intentionality and empowerment and then examine in a meaningful and systematic way whether those pedagogies have been effective.

Thus far, the grant has made it possible to provide an intensive program of faculty and staff development within the FYP and to create a set of useful techniques, strategies, and guidelines to help faculty and staff employ pedagogies of engagement effectively within their classrooms. The faculty work in teams centered around four areas of engaged pedagogy: community-based learning (CBL), advocacy and activism, de-centered and democratic classrooms, and reflective learning journals. The primary goals of this work, according to Project Director Crosby-Currie, are to renew the University's approach to the purposes of liberal education, with specific attention to the integration of learning and discovery, and to help our students develop into citizens committed to the greater good of our society, both on a local and global level.