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The Nexus program provides funding to support faculty course development and new initiatives. This year, Nexus funded 20 courses.
The Nexus program provides funding to support faculty course development and new initiatives. This year, Nexus funded 20 courses.
Previously Funded Nexus Courses
A light thread that runs through our liberal arts curriculum, Nexus helps to align faculty work in teaching and advising with student experiences in internships and research experiences. Nexus offers cross-cutting academic pathways with a focus on careers after graduation.
The first Nexus tracks originated in a series of sponsored faculty seminars funded under the 2008 Mellon Centers for Excellence grant. Themes for these faculty seminars were defined within the strategic planning process of the time and others emerged at the intersection of student interests and faculty affinity groups. Nexus proposals were submitted to APC for review and then proposed to the full faculty for a vote. Students first made Nexus declarations in 2012. Since 2012, some of the original tracks have been renamed or closed, and new tracks have been initiated. While renaming and closing has generally occurred as an in-house APC process, new tracks always go to the full faculty for a vote and are usually the result of a faculty consultation process, like a faculty seminar. In this way, Nexus has provided a way to experiment and to assess the sustainability of tracks before they become fully fledged APC proposals.
Between 40 and 50 students declare a Nexus each year, and since the inception of the Lynk internship program in 2014, between 100 and 200 students present at LEAP Symposium each Fall and between 30 and 50 each Spring (the number was higher in pre-pandemic years).
A New Nexus Track in Native American & Indigenous Studies
This Nexus departs from traditional approaches to career tracks, offering instead a decolonial approach to career opportunities informed by Indigenous perspectives on knowledge, work, and community. It allows students to gain experience with collaborative endeavors, informed by the insights of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), in preparation for work in STEM fields, the arts, education, public administration, social service, law, food systems, health care, media, and more. It can prepare students for future work with organizations and initiatives addressing, among other things, Indigenous rights, governance and sovereignty, cultural and language revitalization, entrepreneurship, environmental stewardship, and epidemics of violence, on Turtle Island and in global Indigenous contexts. And it will prepare students to approach their work as collaborative members of a community with a strong foundation in Indigenous ethics.
Since it began in 2012, College 211 has seen 3,000 students connect their academic coursework to hands-on experiences, and speak about their summer internships or research projects with confidence and clarity.
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