»The Collaborate Initiative

Educational scholars and practitioners have found that learning in higher education today is in need of collaborative processes. This shift would ensure the progress of the central aims of higher education: opportunities for students to explore and discover who they are, realize their interests and potential, gain necessary skills and knowledge, and begin to understand and appreciate the plurality of our society. Essentially, students should leave the ivory tower transformed for the next leg of their journey having experienced learning as a process, not just a product.

As such, the Collaborate Initiative aims to re-conceptualize meanings of higher education by helping students make meaningful connections between college education and their lives. Students who participate in the Collaborate Initiative will engage in student-led and student-centered internship research projects. Through strategic collaborations among students, faculty, educational institutions, businesses, and community-based organizations, students will become life-long learners and more engaged, reflective and proactive professionals and citizens.