5.2 Norah McRae, Associate Provost, Co-operative and Experiential Education, University of Waterloo

Topics discussed in this Episode include:

Dr. McRae’s development academically and administratively around the idea of experiences outside the classroom as an important part of transformational learning of students, which is part of her research interest, and is part of her current roles at the University of Victoria and as the head of WACE.She reviews some of the aspects of the first move of the WACE secretariate to Waterloo, Canada from its previous home in the USA. And she talks about the special role WACE plays in the world as the only international organization supporting WIL/Co-op that promotes the network-of-network idea with national organizations and individual universities around the world.One of WACE’s primary activities is to hold World Conferences alternating with Research Symposia around the world.  The last World Conference last June (2023) was at Waterloo and Dr. McRae reviews what it was like, especially having it at her home University. The next Research Symposium in 2024 will be at Trollhättan in Sweden.In addition to conferences and working with the network-of-networks, WACE is sponsoring a program with a company, Practera, called the Global Challenge Program. It features students from multiple international universities coming together on-line to solve the problem of another entity in a short time, giving them some global experience when they might not be able to travel abroad.We ended on a discussion of how WIL/Co-op and her University at Waterloo must leverage ideas from all over the world to keep fresh and current this form of transformational experiential learning.

Resources discussed in this episode:

https://uwaterloo.ca/https://waceinc.org/https://waceinc.org/gc-key-dateshttps://practera.com/

Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg