Cortland Applied Learning Practitioners / Democracy Engagement Fellows
Through the Galpin Institute's Cortland Applied Learning Practitioners (CALP) Fellowships, faculty incorporate applied (experiential) learning into a new or existing syllabus.
The program began in 2018 with start-up grants from SUNY Cortland's Institutional Planning and Assessment Committee and from a SUNY Implementation Grant. In 2024, the Institute received a generous grant from Barbara A. Galpin '68, '74 for this and related programs.
In spring 2024, the CALP program began emphasizing democracy engagement, which is applied learning that involves partnering with government to address an issue. This is important because government has resources that can help in the design of long-term solutions to challenges. Those resources include regulations, policies, and laws. Students learn reasons for, and ways of, participating in civic decision-making between elections.
This professional development program emphasizes the importance of viewpoint diversity by building on active listening skills for faculty and for students. Those skills are central to -
- Fostering mutual respect and understanding between people who have different opinions.
- Using a wide range of evidence to design solutions to issues.
- Valuing experience as an important kind of evidence.
As the examples below show, this kind of work is important, regardless of the subject matter. It helps students' career readiness and their civic readiness.
- Education 331, Integrated Curriculum Development for Young Children. Future teachers create three lesson plans for their participation in Early Head Start classes. One of those lessons must be in the Social Studies domain so that children get an early start on civics education. Toward the end of the semester, students collect their Social Studies lessons and present them to their Early Head Start host teachers for their use.
- Geography 301, Climate Change and Society. Students work in teams to develop Climate Smart Community Summary Reports for a municipal government partner. Students identify key stakeholders, city infrastructure, and city amenities needed to build a climate resilient community. Students determine which civic decision-making processes to follow to best implement their climate resistance designs.
- Recreation 293, Recreation Revolution: Strategies for Social Change. Students interview the manager of their hometown park or park system, then they compare information from their interviews with classmates. After learning about differences in their parks, they write to an appropriate hometown elected official to advocate for a particular park improvement.