The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

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Engaged Learning goes beyond the classroom

Meredith Tavallaee and Dylan Smith are two students who received Engaged Learning grants, Tavallaee will be traveling to Paris and Smith wrote a novel.
Rebecca Keay / The Daily Campus
Meredith Tavallaee and Dylan Smith are two students who received Engaged Learning grants, Tavallaee will be traveling to Paris and Smith wrote a novel.

Meredith Tavallaee and Dylan Smith are two students who received Engaged Learning grants, Tavallaee will be traveling to Paris and Smith wrote a novel. (Rebecca Keay / The Daily Campus)

Engaged Learning provides a learning experience through student-driven, goal-orientated project anywhere in the world. This year 65 students were approved for Engaged Learning projects for the 2013 to 2014 year. Fifty-five projects are brand new and 10 are continuing from last year.

“The Engaged Learning project supports the students providing solutions to problems in the world,” Meleah Chriss, the assistant director of Engaged Learning, said.

Some students will be doing research projects while others will engage in internships.

Dylan Smith, a graduating senior, worked on an Engaged Learning project during summer 2012. The English major spent his summer at SMU’s campus in Taos writing his first novel, “Home and Again.” The story follows a son who returns to his childhood home to take care of his father, who has Alzheimer’s. With the help of his mentor David Haynes, Smith hopes to get the novel published.

Engaged Learning allowed him to use the real world as a classroom, Smith said.

“Too often students forget that most learning happens outside of a classroom,” Smith said. “Engaged Learning makes that outside learning possible.”

With Engaged Learning, juniors and sophomores have the chance to craft a project, find a mentor and propose his or her idea during the application cycle (Nov. 15 to Feb. 15).

Students who are approved receive up to a $2000 grant to do independent research abroad, internships and even change the student experience here at SMU.

Students then work on the project until their semester of graduation where they present the results as well as write up a report.

The reports are published in the Engaged Learning Collections and students receive a notation of the project on their transcript.

“SMU alum, including myself, really wish that Engaged Learning existed when we were students,” Chriss said. “It is for all students, it recognizes the work that most of us did and there is funding.”

Meredith Tavallaee, a junior art history and French double major, will be going to Paris next semester to intern at the Musee du Lourve. Along with her internship, she will be researching two Gothic sculptures that the Lourve recently acquired.

“I think engaged learning is important because it gives students like me an opportunity to pursue something that they might not have been able to do otherwise,” Tavallaee said.

Ashley Wali, another student participating in Engaged Learning, is continuing her project from last year. The sophomore’s project involved the concept of the Nari Kit, which provides battered women with basic necessities.

Wali has already implemented the project in Bangladesh and plans to partner with Dallas’ Genesis Women’s Shelter to tailor a new version of the kit for the women in North Texas.

“An exciting aspect of the project is the encouraging results, as it shows that I made a positive impact on someone’s life,”Wali said.

“All it takes is one person, and it is a truly heart-warming feeling.”

She plans to compare her research on the effects of the kit in a developing country versus a developed country and then measure the overall effectiveness of the project.

“As a freshman with a huge idea, and little support, Engaged Learning truly helped me achieve something I never thought I could,” Wali said. “Engaged Learning is really putting SMU on the map as an institution that harbors philanthropy as a fundamental part of a student’s journey. 

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