US Department of Education gives Grand Valley State University grant funding to create career education opportunities
GVSU’s Center for Experiential Learning will serve as a hub for programming that will be created with the grant funding.
Grand Valley State University has received a $2.2 million grant from the Department of Education that will go to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Center for Experiential Learning, a new hub supporting the Voyage program.
The grant is awarded to institutions that are creating opportunities for students to receive equitable education. The Voyage program is going to do just that by giving students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences opportunities to engage in research projects, internships, and other career-related educational experiences.
Some of the grant funding will go toward hiring faculty members to carry out these experiences, creating an endowed fund to be matched by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to provide paid internships to students, and developing new curriculum, among other items, including carrying out ideas and projects that did not have the funding to begin or continue.
According to an article on Grand Valley State University’s website, Jennifer Drake, who is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said of taking on these efforts, "We are building on strengths and assets in the college and the core values of our faculty to embed high-impact practices into courses, and what we know is that is intense work. In order for us to meet our goals around equitable access for all students to experiential learning, we need to build structures to support our faculty and our departments so they can provide those experiences. This is a critical investment in faculty work that centers our students."
Kris Pachla, who is the director of the Center for Experiential Learning, added, "We recognized there was a lot of work that has happened at the institution that led us to this point. This has really given us the opportunity to advance a lot of the great ideas that our faculty and staff have come up with over the course of many years, and to fund them in a way that accelerates us toward our goal of launching the Voyage in 2025."
The Voyage program will impact not only the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ 9,000 students, but the entire student population. A new data dashboard will be implemented that will help faculty track their students’ progress and develop plans, a peer tutoring pilot will help determine the best ways to help students succeed academically, and a new curriculum will be designed to cater to equitable education opportunities.
The Voyage program is set to launch in 2025.
For more information about Grand Valley State University, visit the school’s website.