Veterans Learning Community: An Arts and Humanities Response to the Military Experience

Arts and Humanities has initiated an academic response to The Ohio GI Promise. The Center for Folklore Studies, in tandem with the Department of Comparative Studies and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, is creating an undergraduate learning community for veterans and students on active duty.

Participating students will take a sequence of two general-education courses: a reading course that looks at representations of the experience of war in art, literature, and film, followed by a second-level writing course that asks students to document their learning community's knowledge and experiences. Students will decide collectively what they want to write about and will develop Web-based projects to communicate their research.

More than 1200 veterans are enrolled as undergraduates on the main campus. According to the Center for Folklore Studies Director Dorothy Noyes, "The curriculum is intended to help these students connect their experiences in the field with academic approaches to learning and provide them with a platform to communicate their experience and research to the public." For more details, visit their Web site.

The two-course curriculum will be piloted during Winter and Spring terms, 2010. The program will include opportunities beyond the classroom for students to extend their research, as well as contribute to and participate in learning-community activities.
For more information, contact Susan Hanson.