by Jelena Petrovic
High-impact educational practices, mentorship, backward design, inquiry-based learning, student-as-scholar, research-skill scaffold…
Sorting through the concepts that underline contemporary approaches to undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity (URSCA) was not a small task for our Stetson team at the Council on Undergraduate Research Institute on Creative Inquiry in the Arts and Humanities.
Over the course of three work-intensive days, we collaborated with colleagues from Shenandoah University to identify strategies that would promote URSCA at our respective institutions. Our conversations dissected the challenges of implementing ideals of interdisciplinarity across the college and departmental curricula and the need for effective structural and financial support for developing and mentoring URSCA. We also envisioned students’ excitement over themed semesters, cross-departmental collaborations, pilot programs, and university-wide celebrations of their research activity.
In the process, our team arrived at the conclusion that the Stetson model we put into action every day in our classrooms and across two campuses truly brings the abstract language of URSCA philosophy to life. What stands ahead for Stetson is not necessarily an invention. Instead, we are faced with a need to create practical and sustainable practices that will connect the pieces we already have.
- enable institutional re-focusing from research activity to include research experience; and
- provide support for creative efforts and interdisciplinary activity that are currently taking place at Stetson.
About the Author
Jelena Petrovic participated in the Council of Undergraduate Research’s Creative Inquiry in the Arts and Humanities Institute alongside Drs. Melinda Hall, Ethan Greene (deceased), and dean Karen Ryan in Milwaukee in November 2014.
She is assistant professor of Communication and Media Studies at Stetson University and conducts research on new media, identity politics, and national discourses in the context of the EU integration.
Dr. Petrovic earned her Ph.D. in communication from the University of New Mexico. She enjoys The Interventionists, Cats, Pearl Jam, and being around activists at heart.