Presented by Dr Sandra Smeltzer

Canadian provincial governments have begun to actively promote experiential learning (EL) in publicly funded post-secondary institutions. This form of ‘hands-on’ pedagogy includes, but is not limited to, internships, co-ops, and community engaged learning. As government bodies in Canada are expected to tie institutional funding to such EL offerings soon, university administrations are hurriedly embedding EL into their strategic missions and mandates.

EL has also become increasingly popular with students keen to gain ‘in the field’ know-how, to put their academic training into practice, and to ‘give back’ to a local or international community. However, concerns have been raised that EL can further the neoliberalization of higher education; facilitate the exploitation of student labour; and place a greater workload burden on faculty, staff, and community partners. It is therefore rather surprising that curricular EL has received relatively little attention from communication and media studies scholars.

In this presentation, I will discuss some of the challenges, benefits, and issues unique to communication- and media-based EL. I will argue the importance of earmarking robust financial and human resources to ensure this form of pedagogy is ethical and appropriately supported. This argument is informed by semi-structured interviews conducted with a wide range of EL stakeholders, combined with a Canada-wide survey administered to communication and media studies programs.

Speaker Bio:

With a background in Communication and Media Studies, Anthropology, and Development, Dr. Sandra Smeltzer's areas of research include experiential learning, critical pedagogy, community engaged learning, communication in transitioning and developing countries (particularly in Southeast Asia), the ethics of activist research, ICTs for social justice, and the scholar-activist dialectic. She is a Teaching Fellow at Western University (2015-2020) with a focus on experiential learning, holds a SSHRC Insight Grant titled Ethical and Effective Experiential Learning for Communication Studies, and is the co-coordinator of the Media & the Public Interest program at Western. She was a Moore Institute Fellow at the National University of Ireland, Galway; has been awarded the USC Teaching Honour Roll Award of Excellence for every year she has taught at Western; and is the recipient of the FIMS Undergraduate Teaching Award. She was awarded Western's inaugural Humanitarian Award for her international work; named one of Canada's Top 25 Most Influential Women by Women of Influence magazine and one of Western's Top Newsmakers; and is profiled in the philanthropy magazine, Lifestyles.