Stonehill Faculty Focus 2009
knowl•edge (nol´ij) n. 1. The fact or state of knowing. 2. Understanding acquired through experience. 3. The total or range of what has been perceived or learned. 4. Acquaintance with or theoretical or practical understanding of some branch of science, art, learning, or other area involving study, research, or practice and the acquisition of skills. 5. Erudition.
Something remarkable is happening in programs of liberal education all over the country. The longstanding notion that learning should occur almost exclusively in classrooms is being amended to give a much more prominent place to various forms of experiential education. The belief that liberal education should focus on a narrow range of intellectual qualities is being revised to include an emphasis on connecting ideas with action. These developments constitute a profoundly important, indeed revolutionary, challenge to
the version of liberal education that has dominated American higher education since the early years of the twentieth century.
- Richard Freeland
President, Massachusetts
Board of Higher Education
Stonehill's Experiential Record
You say you want a revolution? At Stonehill the experiential learning movement that Freeland touts looks more like an evolution than a radical change. The College has an international internship program that's more than 25 years old, a history of offering domestic internships for students of every major, and a strong record of connecting service with learning.
At Stonehill today, the experiential learning evolution increasingly focuses on engaged learning, an approach revolutionary in its premise. Specifically, it gives students power over their own learning and encourages them to explore questions inside the classroom in ways that prepare them to be creative and effective problem solvers outside the classroom - and eventually in their professional and civic lives.