Experiential learning outside of the classroom can make abstract concepts concrete and offer real-world insights into a potential career path. Here, three professors from our Manhattan, Bronx, and London campuses share the impact of their recent trips and how they organized them for their students. Want to share a recent hands-on experience from your class? Tell us about it here.
Reporting on a Journalism Conference
To give his Nonfiction Writing Seminar students real-world industry exposure, English adjunct instructor John Hanc, a professional writer, journalist, and book collaborator, invited them to the annual American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) conference in February at the midtown Manhattan campus of the Fashion Institute of Technology. An enrichment grant from the Dean’s Office at Fordham College at Rose Hill covered the cost of the passes.
Nine students were able to attend and met him at the event. The most interesting workshop, he said, was a “pitch slam” which featured aspiring authors pitching their book ideas to a panel of literary agents.
“I said to my students, ‘Listen to how these authors pitch their books, listen to the kind of books they’re pitching … I want you to learn—what did the agent like? What did they not like? That can help you in your career.’”
Hanc asked them to take notes and present their learnings afterward to the class.
“They organized it into a PowerPoint, and each of the nine had interesting observations. It was just great—I was so proud of them.”
A Real-World Introduction to End-of-Life Care
Noticing a growing interest in medical humanities at Fordham, theology professor and department chair Brenna Moore, Ph.D., partnered with psychology professor Rachel Annunziato, Ph.D., associate dean of strategic initiatives, to pilot a Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) course called “Spirituality, Health, and Healing.”
The class examines the role that spirituality plays in our health and well-being. With funding from a CCEL grant, the class recently visited Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, the only hospital in the country that offers palliative and hospice care to adults with life-limiting illnesses.
Seeing the Calvary staff caring for patients in their final hours was eye-opening for her students, Moore said. “We realized how often death and dying take place in hospitals behind closed doors and how much more compassionate our world looks when we are open and attentive to this stage of life.”
Seeing British Democracy at Work
As part of his Philosophical Ethics course, Fordham London adjunct professor Piers Benn brings students to the House of Commons to watch Parliament in action. “I have run this trip many times since 2015,” he said, “and usually we witness routine ministerial questions and debates.”
But on March 3, “we hit the jackpot,” Benn said. “We all watched the Prime Minister [Keir Starmer] address the House on defense spending, Ukraine’s sovereignty, and his meeting with Trump. There followed questions from the leaders of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Nigel Farage, and several others.” A student of his recounted the proceedings, and the trip, in The Fordham Ram.
