Whether presenting at a conference, developing an open education resource, coordinating an environmental summer camp for youth, or instructing Oregon State students online and on campus, Dave Stemper’s deep-rooted environmental scholarship has been passed on widely to help shape a thoughtful new generation of natural resource managers and communicators.
When Demian Hommel applied for the Oregon State University Ecampus Research Fellows Program, he carried the seed of an idea: Experiential education can transform a student’s understanding of a concept into real-world circumstances, so it should be offered equally to learners in online and traditional classroom settings. What he didn’t know was that sowing the seed of this idea through his research project could help sprout a grassroots community of advocates like him.
“It isn’t just that a student can participate in the hybrid program without leaving Portland. They can deepen their education by being right in the middle of the city and exploring Portland from a new vantage point while also being a member of the OSU community.” Instructor, blogger, author, self-described gero-punk and long-time Portlander Jenny Sasser is set to explore the human experience at the university’s new location near Pioneer Square through a mixture of classroom and online instruction.
Teaching immediately-applicable skills and guiding students on their multilingual journeys? Now you’re speaking Raven Chakerian’s language. Raven is an online instructor of Spanish and Italian at Oregon State University who realized her passion for languages and communication early on. Even outside of her formal education in Spanish, she pursued language learning through travel, community development, and social interactions. When she joined Oregon State Ecampus five years ago, teaching online was like learning a new language – conquering its challenges and new possibilities, she’s working toward fluency.
An education with Oregon State Ecampus can take students places they never expected. And that’s not only because a top-ranked degree opens up new pathways for their futures. Ecampus students often find themselves visiting unfamiliar places to complete their course work through field trips.
Oregon State Ecampus students are experts at adapting to their environment. They turn coffee shops into classrooms and living rooms into lecture halls. But for students taking crop science classes online, they needed a more lifelike way to learn about plants from a distance. And now they’re getting their hands “dirty” by digging into a variety of crops in a 3D virtual greenhouse.
The annual Oregon State University Division of Extended Campus Awards recognize faculty partners who have gone above and beyond to improve the learning environment and outcomes for distance students.
“We are inspiring our students to think differently and create new systems of collaboration and sharing to minimize use of resources, reduce emissions, adapt to changing conditions and create healthy sustainable communities and economies,” says Ann Scheerer, sustainability double degree program academic advisor and instructor.
At Oregon State Ecampus, students in the college student services administration (CSSA) master’s program online are compelled by their own experiences to create more equitable access, involvement and retention in higher education.
Oregon State University Ecampus knows that as leaders in the field of higher education, there is a responsibility that comes with it: stay on top of the research. And what better way to do so than by being the ones to conduct the research?
