A Letter from Dr. Jake Bucher
“The Both-And of Experience/Expertise”
The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) principle of “experience” focuses on providing intellectual and affective learning opportunities. Regis certainly excels in fulfilling this principle through our teaching and student support, and I would like to also encourage us to embrace and utilize the intellectual and affective experiences our students bring.
Regarding the experiences we provide, across the University, we are committed to and successful at providing high-impact experiences. Starting this year, all three Colleges have efforts towards service-learning. Colleagues in Career and Professional Development, along with Quinn Waller (Regis College Internships), all the clinical work in RHCHP, and Geoffrey Bateman’s (Regis College) work with NetVue (network for vocation in undergraduate education), we are providing career-readiness experiences. Gena Nichols (Regis College) is now leading U-RISE’s work to provide research opportunities for students, and is considering ways to engage graduate students, and graduate students already work closely with faculty on research projects. Jeanine Coleman and her team are providing experiences for both neurodivergent and neurotypical students via the Global Inclusive program, Erin Trumble and J’Lyn Chapman are working with those on the inside and outside of correctional facilities, Sherri Montagne is battling tricky budgets to enable study abroad opportunities, and a number of individual faculty and staff are creating the very intellectual and affective learning opportunities the IPP inspires. The Community for Global Commitment enables collaboration, synergy, and expansion of these great experiences – and we are considering these efforts for our Higher Learning Commission Quality Initiative.
Regarding embracing the lived experiences of our students, Regis has a wonderful diversity of students – including many that may not own the cultural capital typically attributed to “good students” (I promise to not drift into a thesis on Freire – at least not here!). But, instead of focusing on what students coming from low-income communities/high schools may lack in academic preparation, we should focus on what their experiences bring to our learning environment. Rather than lamenting that online students are tougher to connect with, we can benefit from the new community we can create for/with them. Bi/multi-lingual students may struggle with the expression of thoughts in English, but they excel in the depth of those thoughts. International students may have a growth curve in understanding norms of American higher-education, but they bring new norms for how we can deliver education. A simple shift from a deficit mindset to a strengths-based approach allows us to challenge and disrupt the defining of success through pre-determined ideas of student quality, and allows us to serve, nurture, and maximize the incredibly rich resources that our students bring and inherently are.