In the News

Engage speaker educates students, faculty on making connections, finding opportunities

By Zoee McDow

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University hosted guest speaker and author Oscar Miranda Tapia earlier this month where he shared how to forge deeper, more meaningful relationships during his talk for students titled “Relationship-Rich Education: A Guide for College Students.”  Student attendees to the Engage event learned how to build important connections with MTSU faculty, staff, and their peers. Tapia educated students about relationship accelerators — like internships, on-campus jobs, study abroad, undergraduate research, and active involvement in student organizations. Read the full story here.

MTSU’s Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology ambassador program uplifts students, receives grants

By Zoee McDow

Two Middle Tennessee State University faculty members in the Department of Health and Human Performance have been recognized with grants to help continue funding their efforts to enhance in- and out-of-classroom opportunities for their students. Kathryn Blankenship and Karen Davis, associate professors in the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, or SLPA, program, run the SLPA Student Ambassador Program, which gives SLPA majors the opportunity to attend recruiting events and serve as tutors and mentors for their peers in beginning SLPA courses. Read the full story here.

Volunteer Fair gives students opportunity to get involved, creates pathway to Engage scholarship

By Zoee McDow

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University held a Volunteer Fair on October 1st, showcasing many opportunities to volunteer on campus and in the wider community. Laney Denton is a senior majoring in International Relations and Spanish with a minor in Humanities. She started volunteering with MTSU’s Relay for Life in high school, and now serves as the president of the organization, which raises money for cancer research, education, and prevention. She leads meetings, communicates with board members, and runs the Relay for Life event that happens each May. Read the full story here.

Professor Rebecca Oldham named Engage Faculty Fellow, to educate colleagues on new e-portfolio software

By Zoee McDow

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University’s Rebecca Oldham, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, will serve as Engage Faculty Fellow this academic year. Oldham, who serves as a member of the Engage Advisory Board, will be educating colleagues about Microsoft Sway, a software platform for creating and sharing interactive class materials, presentations, projects and more, according to Microsoft’s website. Read the full story here.

NWHM Trailblazer Awards

Congratulations to Dr. Julie Myatt, Engage director and professor of English, who was selected to receive this year’s National Women’s History Month Trailblazer award. Myatt is committed to ensuring that all MTSU community members, staff, faculty and students, feel connected to campus and have a sense of belonging and engagement. She developed the Relationship Rich Education series, a grass roots effort that has grown through book groups, workshops and symposia. As co-director of the General Education English program, she helped establish the Celebration of Student Writing, an event that showcases the research of English students, and she co-facilitated Writing Across the Core institute, an event ensuring effective teaching of writing across the new True Blue Core. Read the full story here.

Engage featured in AACU publication “Building a Culture of Reflection and Integrative Learning through ePortfolios”

Like many transformative campus initiatives at colleges and universities in the South, Engage began as a quality enhancement plan for Middle Tennessee State University’s 2016–21 reaccreditation process with SACSCOC.

ePortfolios and other high-impact practices are not required through Engage, but faculty can certify their courses to signal that they include at least one high-impact practice, one beyond-the-classroom activity (such as off-campus events, cocurricular activities, or volunteering or research within the community), and a reflective “signature assignment” that is uploaded into an ePortfolio.

“The goal is to help students start developing a sense of self as a learner over time and to promote a culture of engaged learning on campus,” says Julie A. Myatt, director of Engage. “The ePortfolio is central to providing students with an opportunity to make connections between courses and their learning outside the university.”

Engage program celebrates 5 successful years on ‘MTSU On the Record’

A program designed to give students a more intimate relationship with their college educations was the topic on a recent “MTSU On the Record” radio program.

Engage employs learning communities, collaborations, project-based learning, problem-based learning and outside-the-classroom activities designed to enhance the students’ intellectual lives.

“Helping students recognize that course work was meaningful, that it was related to their own goals, to their life experience — that is what the program has really tried to cultivate,” Myatt said.

Hear the Interview: https://mtsunews.com/myatt-on-the-record-june2021/

Engage professor Cobb plays games with numbers to make math fun

Engaging students in their classwork was part of Christina Cobb’s teaching style before she started teaching Engage classes.The assistant professor of university studies uses activities and games in her Math 1010 for general studies class. Prizes include backpacks, portable chargers, laptop stands and erasable notebooks funded by an MTSU grant. In math bingo, a student must solve a random equation and look for the answer on the bingo card. In Time to Climb, the first student who answers the question correctly moves up a hill in hopes of making it to the top. Since Cobb was doing so much of this already, she thought it might be worth her while to become an Engage-certified professor. She said it was the best decision she could have made.

Read the Story: https://mtsunews.com/cobb-mt-engage-profile-math/ 

Hear the Interview: https://mtsunews.com/cobb-engage-june2021/

Engage professor Knox helps students collect, organize work in English classes

For some students, general education math and science courses are necessary parts of the schedule for which they have little enthusiasm. For other students, general education English courses fit that description. However, English lecturer Alvin Knox tries to remedy that sense of malaise in his Introduction to Literature and Expository Writing classes, both of which are Engage classes.

“I think what it does do for some students is (to get) them more involved in their entire educational career,” Knox said.

Read the story: https://mtsunews.com/knox-mt-engage-profiles-english/

Hear the Interview: https://mtsunews.com/knox-engage-june2021/

‘It takes a village’ to engage students with high-impact, inclusive teaching

It isn’t enough for Carmelita Dotson to make sure her students are engaged. She also engages her fellow professors. Dotson, a lecturer in the Department of Social Work, teaches courses in the Engage program, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. The program employs specific strategies involving technology and experiential learning to get students more involved in their educational careers.

“We saw Engage as an added bonus to help our students … to get the material integrated more smoothly throughout their journey,” Dotson said.

Read the Story: https://mtsunews.com/dotson-mt-engage-profile-may2021/

Hear the Interview: https://mtsunews.com/dotson-engage-june2021/

Engage Names 2019 Scholarship Winners

After receiving a scholarship toward her degree and career goals in foreign affairs, MTSU sophomore Hannah Solima of Smyrna, Tennessee, was even more convinced of the benefit’s of the University’s Engage curriculum program.

“The outside classroom experience really does help with your education, and how you learn and overall growth as a person,” said Solima, a University Honors College triple major who’s had multiple study abroad experiences in pursuit of degrees in French, International Relations, and Criminal Justice with a Homeland Security concentration as well as a minor in German.

Engage Names 2018 Scholarship Winners

Engage, the university’s latest Quality Enhancement Plan, announced Carolline Parker and the other winners of its inaugural scholarships at the second annual spring reception held Thursday, April 12, in the Student Union Ballroom.  Students attending the reception received a free professional headshot for their e-Portfolios as well as an Engage T-shirt. The event also featured displays from Engage students participating in the Reading History Initiative, an MTSU program that links reading and U.S. history courses for college freshman who require additional literacy skills. Dr. Becky McIntyre from the Department of History and Tim Nelson from University Studies partnered to coordinate the effort. Also attending the reception was Engage featured guest, Candyce Reynolds, a professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy in the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Her work has focused on the use of the e-Portfolio to promote student learning and program assessment. – Jimmy Hart

Engage Abroad: Singapore Edition

In May, seven Engage students enrolled in Administering Early Childhood Programs embarked on a journey to Singapore to study early child issues in a global setting. As described in Dr. Jane Seok Jeng Lim’s syllabus, “Administering Early Childhood Programs (Study Abroad – Singapore) will provide an understanding of the state regulations, standards and framework that impacts early care and education in Singapore. It also examines the various preschool settings in Singapore and the importance of being a community of learners in a professional organization.” Students reflected daily on their experiences, noting that they will be able to bring a different perspective to their classrooms because of what they learned in Singapore.

For more information on Study Abroad opportunities, visit: https://mtsu.studioabroad.com/

Engage students teams up with Borderless Arts Tennessee for Blue Mars Festival

Students enrolled in Lori Kissinger’s Interpersonal Communication course collaborated with Borderless Arts Tennessee for Blue Mars Festival. Attendees participated in games, crafts, a photo booth, a bake-off and a costume contest, all with a Mars theme.  Borderless Arts Tennessee is a statewide organization committed to inclusive and accessible arts programs for people with disabilities to enhance educational curriculum, enrich creative expression, empower career development, and encourage community engagement.

More on the Blue Mars Initiative.

Inaugural Student Reception

Engage hosted their first student reception on April 20, 2017. Students were provided with refreshments, t-shirts, and an opportunity to have their photo taken professionally for use in their ePortfolios. This event will happen annually, eventually growing to incorporate the presentation of scholarships.

The Portfolio Process with Melissa Peet

Melissa Peet visited MTSU on March 21, 2017 to lead two workshops on ePortfolio development; one for students and one for faculty. Peet’s work as director of integrative learning and knowledge management at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business greatly influenced the Engage program. The presentations were sponsored by the Distinguished Lecture Fund, Jennings A. Jones College of Business, College of Education, Office of Student Success, and Engage. 

Engage Open House

On February 15, 2017, Engage celebrated the opening of a new office space inside the James Union Building, Room 306. The office will be staffed Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

In an interview with MTSU News, Mary Hoffschwelle said “It not only provides a workspace for our Engage staff … but it also provides a place where faculty and students can come to talk with us about Engage courses, what they’re learning in these courses and what they need to do with what they’re learning.”

Engage Launch Celebration

On October 25, 2016, Engage celebrated the successful launch of their program inside the Student Union Ballroom. In addition to faculty-led teams and committees, MTSU students had a hand in developing the QEP. Marketing materials were created by advertising classes and branded with a student-designed logo. 

Dr. Mary Hoffschwelle, faculty fellow director of Engage, said “I’m working with a group of folks who are committed to thinking about learning and instruction so that we can really address the goals that we have at this university, not only the goals that we have for our Quality Enhancement Plan.”

First Annual Engage Week

Events scheduled throughout the week of September 15 to September 23, 2016 gave students an opportunity to get more involved in the campus community. Events included film screenings, debates, guest speakers, and symposiums as well as Bash the Rec and Engage-a-palooza: Open Mic MTSU Songwriters. Overall attendance is estimated at over 2,000 students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Full list of events.

Habitat for Humanity Build

On Friday, February 26, Engage partnered with Phi Kappa Phi to sponsor shifts as part of the MTSU Habitat for Humanity Blitz Build.

MTSU Business Student Justin Johnson Designs Winning Logo for Engage

Engage launched a logo contest as part of their November 6th kickoff. Entries were required to incorporate the Engage tagline, “engage academically, learn exponentially (and) showcase yourself”. The top three entries were displayed at the Student Union Commons where members of the campus community could cast their votes. Justin Johnson’s design will “represent the Engage curriculum enhancement plan for the entire university.”

Launch Event

On November 6, 2014, Engage was introduced to the MTSU community by President Sidney A. McPhee at an afternoon event on the Student Union Building commons.