AUM’s Senior Project course is intended to reflect on an undergraduate’s academic experience at Antioch University and restate the core learning objectives as may be applied to their life, ambitions, and goals. Each graduate is required to deliver a presentation to the community addressing what their Antioch University degree means and how they plan to employ it. The newly formatted course, completing only its second semester, has proved to be so much more. Students are offered the opportunity to present their thesis using whatever means of personal expression that is most representative of their learning. Forms that this might take include speech, poetry, artwork, dance, civic engagement, technology, or service.
Serving as a platform to express the true spirit of an Antiochian, AUM graduates have delivered their presentations to audiences of family and friends, civic and business leaders, interested community members, and AUM staff and faculty. Presentation topics to date have included working with traumatized homeless children in shelters to break the cycle of abuse; addressing local food desert crisis as a second career; education planning for high school students engaging local business leaders as mentors through community libraries; a mentoring program for at-risk young women to promote education and career choices; an e-business magazine for women entrepreneurs; the American learning experience as a foreign national; and lessons learned/or not on overcoming hate and bias through Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek.
The 7-week course provides graduating students an environment to develop skills related to presentation structure and style, finding an authentic voice, personal reflection, and public speaking. The intent is to encourage, engage, and promote students to embrace their unique place in the world as Antioch University graduates. Through critical thinking, creative expression, innovation, and with purpose and passion, Antioch graduates lead and champion the ideals that are Antioch University-Midwest.
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