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FEATURES
When Shelby Kile came to
Birmingham-Southern, she
wasn’t quite sure what she
planned to do with her life.
A graduate of Bob Jones
High School in Huntsville,
Kile was thinking about
marine biology or maybe
medical school before she
arrived on the Hilltop. But
then she took a psychology
course, and, in her words,
“found out where my passion
was.”
For a time, she and her
parents worried what her
new focus would mean. But
this summer, Kile worked at
Piper Place, a rehabilitation
center in Birmingham for
adults with severe mental
illness. The senior taught
classes on substance abuse,
life skills, anger management,
and more to students with
schizophrenia, depression,
and bipolar disorder.
“I got to learn more
about mental illness and
medication in a real-world
environment, and my
supervisor was so generous
with her time,” said Kile,
who is now looking into
graduate school and hopes to
become a psychiatric mental
health nurse practitioner or
an occupational therapist.
“It’s something I can be
passionate about—and it’s
given me a unique thing I can
sell to future employers.”
Kile’s internship was made
possible by Birmingham-
Southern’s newest initiative,
rise3. One of the most
important in the college’s
history, the project’s roots
go back to 2012, when
BSC began to work on its
Quality Enhancement Plan, a
broad-based 10-year outline
to boost the effectiveness
of a Birmingham-Southern
education. With extensive
community input, a team of
faculty, staff, and students set
out to determine the best way
to improve student learning.
All signs pointed to one area:
experiential learning, one of
BSC’s long-time strengths.
Research backed up the idea.
The Association of American
Colleges and Universities, a
national organization focused
on quality undergraduate
liberal arts education, identifies
a range of what it calls high-
impact teaching and learning
practices that have been
widely tested and proven
to benefit a diverse range of
students. The list varies from
first-year seminars to writing-
intensive courses, but BSC’s
team decided to focus on three
primary areas: collaborative
research, internships, and
service-learning. And thus
r(research)-i(internships)-
s(service-learning)-e3 was
born.
The initiative dovetails
perfectly with BSC’s
overarching push to encourage
students to explore their
passions, experience learning
hands-on, and excel after
graduation—also known as
e3—said BSC’s president, Gen.
Charles C. Krulak.
“This really sets us apart as a
college by giving our students
a unique combination of a
liberal arts curriculum with an
innovative hands-on approach
to learning,” Krulak said.
“They’ll learn by doing, they’ll
get valuable experiences to add
to their résumés, and they’ll be
ready to take on any challenge
after they leave the Hilltop.”
Economic and social
impact inUganda
BSC students have traveled to a lot of places to expand their
knowledge. This year, for the first time, three went to Uganda
for two weeks as part of a rise3 research project. Working
with Associate Professor of Business Administration Dr. Bert
Morrow, who was hired as a consultant to help design a
plan to boost efficiency for rural farmers in that country, the
students designed a survey about cooperative development and
then collected responses on location in the country’s Bushenyi
district.
The students learned how to create a survey instrument,
administer it, and gather data all while in a foreign
environment. But they also learned to question their
assumptions.
“We might have gone in there with pre-formed notions
about bottom line revenue and costs,” said Patrick Joyce,
a junior business administration major and Stump
Entrepreneurship Scholar who was so affected by the trip
that he is considering a career in international business or
development. “But then when you visit, you see things that
make a real difference—simple things like water, roads, and
resources.”
They found that the farmers were, indeed, eager to cooperate,
although they weighed the social benefits over economic
boosts. The team is working this semester to analyze their data
and submit a report to an academic journal—a rare boon for
undergraduates. It has also opened their eyes not just to world
travel, but to a whole new world of career opportunities.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Caleb
McVicker, a senior business administration major from
Indianapolis, Ind., who had been considering financial law for
a career path, but is now thinking more broadly. “It definitely
gives you an entirely new concept of what’s out there.”
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