Engaged Projects (CSPL/CGST480) are 1.0-credit, semi-independent educational endeavors.
Students start with a topic or question that has some connection to their academic pursuits and/or to the world at large. They recruit a “Sponsor” who has personal or professional experience with their topic, and later they are matched with two other Engaged Projects students (their “Cohort”) who provide peer advising and accountability.
Over the course of one semester, Engaged Projects students research and analyze their topic, produce a project intended for a public (not academic) audience, and complete reflection essays to document and deepen their learning along the way.
EPs are intended to:
- Encourage students to connect their academic studies to the complex world outside Wesleyan and to test their capacity to engage with and find meaning in public life
- Nurture personal connections through relationships with Sponsors and Cohorts
- Endow students with the skills, confidence, and intellectual flexibility to shape a safe and better future
- Provide academic space to practice research methods, meta analysis, problem-solving, cross-cultural communication, public writing, comfort with ambiguity, self-awareness, agency, and other competencies that are fundamental to a Wesleyan education