Signature work represents one of higher education’s most innovative approaches to deep, integrative learning. As defined by the American Association of Colleges and Universities  (AAC&U 2015), signature work consists of student-driven, integrative projects that address complex, real-world problems by synthesizing…

“No idea is fully formed until it can be communicated.”   The Boyer Commission 1998 As we near the end of the academic year, many undergraduate research students and their mentors are planning to present research posters showcasing their accomplishments. In…

Making College “Worth It” – Season 2, Episode 7 In this episode, Amanda Sturgill shares insights from her ongoing exploration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and engaged learning in higher education. Dr. Sturgill is the 2024-2026 Center for Engaged Learning…

Throughout this series, we have touched on the research behind undergraduate student leadership and its impact on students post-college, along with some critiques. Before we conclude, we would like to offer some additional benefits undergraduate student leadership offers.  Undergraduate student…

The past few blog posts in this student leadership series have explained what leadership is and provided some insights into the research behind it so far, but what does leadership look like through the eyes of a student leader? A…

Educators aren’t the only ones thinking about the relationship between generative AI and critical thinking. A recent study by Lee et al. (2025) from Carnegie Mellon University and others from Microsoft Research surveyed 319 knowledge workers about their experiences using…

Leadership development in higher education is not a topic that has been extensively studied, but existing research highlights the impact of precollege leadership experiences and campus-based training programs on student leadership growth. Students who engage in leadership roles before entering…

In Mentoring Matters, we introduce a definition of mentoring relationships and explore the mentoring constellation model in higher education. Here we consider the important question, how do mentoring constellations operate in practice? From our comprehensive analyses of multiple data sources,…

Part 1, Student Perspectives | Limed: Teaching with a Twist – Season 3, Episode 7 The use of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT has become the topic of serious discussion in higher education. Ryan Mattfeld, associate professor of computer science at…

Peer leadership opportunities are not formally recognized as a High Impact Practice (HIP) by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); however, peer leadership has been described as a candidate for a next-generation HIP (Kuh 2017). In a previous…