EDGE (Educating for Diversity and Global Engagement) Program
Initiated in 2009, the EDGE program is a vision of liberal arts education with these guiding principles. Beginning in 2020, the new College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences will continue an expanded EDGE program. Our EDGE program will enable students to:
- Become citizens of the world through an education that expands cross-cultural competency; an education that prepares for participation in a diverse and global world.
- Develop their intellectual and emotional capacities through an education in the arts of inquiry: critical thinking, historical research, analysis of data, and creative production and discovery.
- Understand the American heritage and democratic principles and practices within a globally interdependent and diverse world.
- Learn through participating in at least one ‘hands-on’ learning experience. Such activities are vital for connecting education to life and profession.
The EDGE program focuses on five areas: Internships, Undergraduate Research Partnerships, Service-Learning, Study Abroad (and domestic Study-Away) and a rich and diverse Global Curriculum. In what follows we summarize our progress over the last ten years, from 2010 to fall 2020.
1) A Diverse and Global Curriculum
The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences has the most diverse and global curriculum of any college at UCA. Many Core courses and upper division classes are multicultural focusing on a diversity of countries and cultures.
2) Professional Experience: Internships
All of our degree programs now offer internship opportunities, and all have internship coordinators. Since 2010 more the 400 students have participated in internships.
3) Scholarly Experience: Undergraduate Research Partnerships
We hold an annual College Student Research Symposium to provide more opportunities for students to present their research and receive feedback. Since 2010 we have supervised over 300 research projects, many of which have been presented at conferences and published in undergraduate journals.
4) Community Experience: Service-Learning
The former College of Liberal Arts initiated our university-wide service-learning program. Since 2010, College faculty have delivered more than 100 different courses with a service-learning component. Under the new College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences we expect exponential growth in our ability to offer service-learning experiences to students of all disciplines throughout our College.
5) Cultural Experience: Study Abroad
Faculty in the College have partnered with International Engagement, and provided, since 2010, opportunities for over 200 students to study abroad. More recently a number of domestic study away trips to the Southwest for Native American cultural studies have been offered.
The College has provided funding for many students to participate in these hands-on learning activities over the last decade. Thanks to faculty, staff, and alumni, the EDGE Fund has provided over $73,000 in assistance for over 600 students.
Please continue to help us make the EDGE program a reality for our students by choosing to donate to support our students learning objectives. If you have any questions on how to give to the EDGE program please reach out to Greg Weber at (501) 852-2606 or gweber@uca.edu.