2.4 Michael Sharp, University of Cincinnati

Topics discussed in this episode include:

The history of Experience Magazine, focusing on the point where he became editor in 2017 and the influences on him that brought that about.The importance of adding to the magazine’s title, the additional tagline of Practice + Theory + Podcast.When asked about a favorite story in Experience Magazine, Michael responded with an article entitled “What you can learn from 2000 sticky notes” about employing participatory action research to study women in engineering.  Another favorite is the currently hot topic of experiential education and entrepreneurship.  These are all integrative and he talks about the magazine as creating that “fuzzy place where people can come and learn from each other.”Michael talks about his personal transition from a struggling college student to becoming on fire through service learning, and then taking on graduate level work and eventually starting to teach.He discusses how he used experiential education to transform his class exercise in communications on speech day from something he dreaded to something that was awesome through involving the students in stories they wanted to tell – another form of experiential education. He goes on to make the point about how service learning is really transformational, perhaps even more purely given its service focus. Co-op experiences can be transformational too but they also can be more transactional, focusing on the job and career.A brief discussion follows on what it is like to be immersed in a co-op school which then turns to how these experiential programs operate in a world with a pandemic unfolding and Michael points out that 2400 planned co-ops at work-sites were cancelled this summer and they, like everyone, are scrambling to find substitute experiences, including in non-profit and service learning.At the end, he discusses the reason for the name of Tapioca radio and again we are not going to tell you, but the time of this conversation is just before the 31st minute prompted by a question from Mary Churchill.  Listen in as we draw to a conclusion and sign off.

Resources Discussed in this Episode:

Experience Magazine: Practice + Theory + Podcasthttps://www.uc.edu/https://www.ceiainc.org/Tapioca Radio ShowService-Learning at the University of CincinnatiNational Society for Experiential EducationService-Learning Co-op programDivision of Experience-Based Learning and Career EducationCommunication DepartmentService Learning CollaboratoryDean’s Award for Innovative InstructionJack Twyman Award for Service LearningCritical Curriculum and Just Community: Making sense of Service Learning in Cincinnati dissertation of the yearGreater Cincinnati Service-Learning Network 

Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg