Collaboration between UWindsor faculty and staff to deliver experiential learning options to students pursuing doctoral studies in argumentation has been featured in University Affairs, the national magazine published by Universities Canada.

The article notes that the program’s interdisciplinarity attracts students with backgrounds as diverse as art history, psychology, journalism, business, and computer science. It’s director, philosophy professor Catherine Hundleby, wanted to help her students find where their skills could be applied, so she consulted career advisor Stephanie Dupley.

Together, they developed an approach that allows students to either complete a paper or participate in an experiential learning project, volunteering their skills to serve a not-for-profit organization.

Rather than having opportunities handed to them, candidates must engage their research and networking skills to find organizations that could use their talents. They expand their networks and maintain professional communications with their contacts, plan and ideally implement these projects. This real-world work becomes evidence of workplace experience and skills that students can then reference in resumés, cover letters, and interviews.

The students have found it so fruitful that it has become a larger part of the course, now involving 20 to 35 hours of work, up from the original 10 to 20 hours.

Read the full article, “Incorporating experiential learning in a PhD program,” in University Affairs.