CIP program offers interdisciplinary learning experience

C I P

PROGRAM OFFERS INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING EXPERIENCE

STUDENT COMMUNITY

FACULTY

When Dr. Charles Pibel came to Georgia Gwinnett, he saw an opportunity to create an innovative, interdisciplinary learning experience for students.

The Community Innovations Projects (CIP) program creates a collaboration between student/faculty teams and community organizations around a question or a challenge. The teams develop research activities designed to solve or increase understanding about the problem, conduct research and report their findings.

“CIP activities are usually found at schools with engineering and science programs,” said Pibel, who spent his undergraduate years at an institution where a CIP-like program has run for about 60 years. “Here at GGC, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has worked to adapt the concept into a pilot interdisciplinary activity that provides outstanding learning opportunities for students in a wide range of majors.”

The initiative also expands the college’s ability to provide students with holistic, high-impact, real-world experiences.

“Relatively few students are able to obtain internships because there just are

Political science majors Santessa Young and Max Doster prepare standard solutions for analysis of hazardous air pollutants. Photos courtesy of Drs. Charles Pibel and Kathryn Zimmermann.

not enough positions available,” said Pibel. “However, the CIP program provides rich, internship-like learning experiences and involves many more students, helping participating students enhance their skills and become more competitive for the job market after graduation.”

This is an important benefit of the program, considering employer preferences for applied experiences (see figure below).

In addition, the CIP initiative promotes and reinforces GGC’s interdisciplinary culture. It provides more diverse scholarship opportunities for faculty, and offers another way for the college to build collaborations with businesses and other constituents.

“By engaging with Gwinnett and surrounding communities to provide learning outside the confines of traditional classrooms and meet the economic development needs of the region, this program is perfectly aligned with GGC’s mission and vision,” Pibel said.

Georgia Gwinnett’s CIP program also may be a first for an access institution.

The initiative’s pilot year was launched by the CTE, with support from the schools of Liberal Arts and Science and Technology, and coordination by Dr. Kelsey Woodard, experiential learning specialist in the CTE.

The pilot CIP program selected two student/faculty teams and each team included both science and liberal arts majors who received research credit for their projects. Faculty team leaders also represented both science and liberal arts disciplines.

Working with GreenLaw, an Atlanta environmental law firm, one team researched levels of two types of air pollutants in several Georgia locations. The team sought to shed light on whether higher rates of these pollutants were associated with areas of lower socio-economic status. Some correlation was found with middle- to low-income areas.

The other team was charged with looking at ways to improve the connectivity between the college and its local community. This three-student team conducted a qualitative survey of community stakeholders regarding the planned corridor between campus and downtown Lawrenceville. The second team’s community collaborator was Lawrenceville Mayor Judy Jordan Johnson.

The CIP initiative’s second year supports two projects. One focuses on enriching the lives of individuals with special needs in collaboration with The Next Stop in Suwanee. A second project involves reintegration of former prisoners into society, in collaboration with the Greater Gwinnett Reentry Alliance in Lawrenceville.

Pibel said he looks forward to the initiative’s continued expansion to include a larger number of faculty and students.

According to U.S. employers:

88% say: It is important for colleges to prepare all students with the skills/ knowledge needed to complete a significant applied learning project. However, only 14 percent think most college students are so prepared.

80% say: It is very important for recent graduates to demonstrate the ability to apply learning in real-world settings. However, only 23 percent of employers think recent college graduates are so prepared.

60% say: All college students should be expected to complete a significant applied learning project before graduating.

Students who have done collaborative research projects with peers have an 82 percent likelihood of hire.

Above: Santessa Young, political science, Dr. Kathryn Zimmermann, Drasti Patel, biology, and Max Doster, political science, with a passive air sampler they mounted at the Elachee Nature Science Center in an area under study. Below: GGC student Drasti Patel, biology, describes her CIP group’s research poster at an American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, California, this spring. The group’s project involved measuring air pollutant levels in various Georgia locations.