The OU Pledge Defined

The OU Pledge is Oakland University's commitment to provide our undergraduate students with opportunities for meaningful, experience-based learning. Experience-based learning at OU, sometimes referred to as “experiential” learning, includes, but is not limited to, the following opportunities, many of which also provide an element of community engagement:

• Internships allow students to integrate knowledge and theory learned in the classroom with practical application and skills development in a professional workplace setting across in-person, remote or hybrid modalities.
  
  
• Cooperative education programs (co-ops) provide students with multiple periods of work related to the student’s major or career goal. A typical co-op involves alternating terms of full-time classroom study with terms of full-time, discipline-related employment.
  
  
• Service learning at OU is defined as a course-based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in a semester-long service partnership that meets a community-defined need or aspiration. Service learning at OU also requires student reflection on their service experience to foster deeper self awareness of how their respective discipline impacts issues of social equity and also supports ongoing, reciprocal campus-community relationships demonstrating OU’s commitment to stewardship of place.
  
  To be designated as a service-learning course at OU, the class must:
  • Directly and explicitly link the service experiences to the course learning objectives.
  • Engage students in reflection aimed at connecting their service experience(s) to course content and life experience, including exploration of individual and social group identities, and systemic/institutional change.
  • Include tracking of student service hours and faculty/staff-community partner preparation (hours), as well as an assessment of student reflection, quality of  service (incorporating feedback from partners) and the impact of service-related learning outcomes on community partner(s) and/or community(ies) served.
  • Involve the student in the practice of culturally respectful engagement and reciprocal decision making processes that build upon community strengths and assets.
  • Incorporate different types of service to meet/address diverse learning styles, needs and related accommodations.
    
    
• Field experiences are common in the health care and education fields and involve hands-on observation and engagement in a professional setting outside the classroom.
  
  
• Clinical preceptorship rotations involve students working in health-care settings under the guidance of experienced clinicians, or “preceptors,” to develop students’ clinical, assessment and judgment skills.
  
  
• Research: OU’s research centers and institutes provide valuable resources and opportunities for students, as early as their first year, to work alongside their professors.
  
  
• Study abroad at OU includes faculty-led, exchange and partner programs that enhance students’ academic knowledge with immersive cultural and educational experiences. The 300+ programs cover nearly every major and take place in more than 45 countries spanning six continents.

For more information about The OU Pledge or for help starting your search for experience-based learning opportunities, contact the Career and Life Design Center.