Explores - Champlain College

There has probably never been a time when graduation daydidn’t strike fear, or at least a degree of anxiety, in the heartsof college students about to march into the job market. Addto this familiar experience today’s weak economy—marked,as it is, by job losses and other discouraging trends—andone can sympathize even more deeply with students preparing to maketheir way in the world.For more than a century, Champlain College graduates have enjoyeda sense of confidence in the value of their degrees by virtue of theinstitution’s time-tested emphasis on professionally focused education.While this confidence may understandably be shaken in these uncertaineconomic times, Champlainers may find comfort in the College’sprescient launch of two sweeping initiatives in as many years, eachplanned well before the current economic downturn and each designedto give Champlain graduates a competitive edge in a career marketplacewhere, as College President Dave Finney says, “the only thing we know isthat the rate of change will accelerate.”The first of these initiatives, a recently revamped general educationcurriculum dubbed the Core (see “Core Values” in the fall 2008 issue),offers an exciting interdisciplinary approach to cultivating intellectualpotential on the path of lifelong learning. As many alumni will attest,however—and even their most dedicated professors will agree—a collegestudent’s most valuable learning experiences do not always take placeinside the classroom. What is more, Finney points out, life skills incertain key areas, such as leadership, financial sophistication, and careermanagement, can not only set graduates on a course toward success—butcan be taught as well. “It’s possible for us to identify a whole series oftopics that can help our graduates, in very practical ways, to get ontheir feet when they leave here,” he says. This vision of what ChamplainCollege graduates could benefit from learning, knowing—and beingable to do—on Day One of their lives beyond graduation has inspiredthe College’s latest, and maybe boldest, initiative: the Life Experience &Action Dimension, aka LEAD.Champlain View | Spring 09 11