Place-Based Learning:
The Education and Social Sciences Living-Learning Communities at the Indiana State House and Museum.
March 20, 2024
There are a variety of events and trips that align with the idea of Place-Based Learning and engagement. In the years that I have been doing the work of student and co-curricular engagement, I have found myself continuously fascinated by the simple concept of connecting students who live on campus to their off-campus community. I knew Muncie, IN, takes on an increased charm when you can get off campus and experience some of the significant events and amenities right up the road. Alongside that, the work that I have been doing has always aligned with connecting students to employment and career opportunities within the state of Indiana. However, Indiana as the leading choice was always a convenience factor that made sense to go into Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne to connect students to opportunities for internships and careers within their home state.
This trip is the first of many I hope to take what was happening naturally and do it intentionally. Jeff Eads is a Ball State Alumni and Staff who works in the university’s Industry Engagement sphere. He and I were put into contact a little over a year ago, and it has brought into a conversation about intentional and strategic planning to make a conduit for students to engage with the state-level partners of Indiana through our off-campus trip model. Jeff and his colleagues in Ball State’s Office of Government Relations (big thank you to Emma Legg, our host at the State House) helped create a panel of guides in critical roles in Indiana’s growth and future to talk to the students in my program about their roll in Indiana’s growth and future.
Indiana Industry Development Panel
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David Holt
Chief of Staff and COO
Indiana Destination Development Corporation
Ball State Alumni
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Ellen White
Manager of Strategic Initiatives
Central IndianaCooperate Partnership
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Todd Hurst
Executive Director,
Institute for Workforce Excellence
Indiana Chamber of Commerce
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Victoria Herring
Senior Project Manager
North Region Attractions
Indiana Economic Development Corporation
The Living-Learning Community Program at Ball State is within Housing and Residence Life. A key element in the design of this program is to create clusters of majors (Living-Learning Communities or LLCs) within the Residence Halls. These communities support co-curricular learning and engagement by connecting with Academic Colleges and various partners to center growth through passion, career exploration, and support. We achieve this through the investment in off-campus trip opportunities that engage with businesses and allow students to have conversations and experiences that may help them maintain their passion for their studies and support them as they find their way in the world. These trips and activities are accessible to students of the Living-Learning Community program and provide a pathway to get off campus and experience the wide variety of offerings available in the community and region.
LLC alignment is with Academic Colleges, but some goals and priorities span the communities, tied to Career and Passion exploration and academic skill building.
On March 20, 2024, the Social Sciences and Education Living-Learning took a trip to the Indiana Statehouse and State Museum; it is the product of a more extended conversation about how to leverage the Living-Learning Community Trip model to show students from day one that their success is IN Indiana, and that Indiana is ready to invest in their success while they are at Ball State and beyond. The panel that Jeff Eads and the Ball State Government relations team brought together was four individuals who lead economic and destination development for Indiana. People whose job it is to invest in Indiana’s population so that the people of Indiana want to stay in Indiana.
The twenty-two students in attendance at this panel had the opportunity to hear from the people leading this work on how to get involved and insights on how to position themselves best to make meaningful work while in college. Students want to invest back into the state that they have made a home, and that is where residential programs, such as the LLC Program, can make a difference. Watching students, many of whom are in their first and second year of college, connect and engage in dialog with industry leaders shows that there are places of opportunity with students to illuminate pathways to success in the state.
The curricular structure of a classroom experience did not guide the interactions between students and the professionals on the panel. The trip model of the Ball State LLC program exists, in most places, outside of the classroom and relies on the talent and passion of students who choose to engage with the community as the way it develops conduits of outreach to the region. We invite students to come as themselves and with their experiences into a shared space with the guests that we bring. There is something extraordinary about a space like this; one developed voluntarily without the elements of classroom structure that may otherwise guide the conversation.
Events like these are a testament to the fact that students are prepared and ready to engage meaningfully with the conversations at the state level regarding government and industry. Still, many of them need help figuring out where to start. Even if they know where to start, there is animosity and anxiety connected to finding accurate and unbiased information to inform their choices. These questions came up during our visit, and we looked to the years of experience on the panel to support this conversation. The other direction of conversation is how to give back to a state education structure that has invested in them. The financial assistance extended through programs at the state level helps students succeed in college, and there is an opportunity to invite these same students into the conversation.
I seek to make space for these conversations so that students and professionals can give their time to engage and connect in a space that allows for dialog. Professionals and students could stand to learn from one another. The students in my communities are more than able and willing to understand that they do not need to agree with every choice that a state leader or policymaker makes to listen and learn from the years of experience that got that person to where they are today.
