Doors of Perception: Learning and Leadership Grant
April 1st, 2016
To: Mr. Graycock, Grants Manager, NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education
From: Brad Grant, Advisor, The Human Experience Café, Wingate University
Re: Learning and Leadership Grant Letter of Intent
I represent the Human Experience Café of Wingate University in Stone River, NC, a classroom in a student-run coffee shop, and I speak for a team of education support professionals seeking funds to begin a new course designed to help college students who struggled their first semester to develop successful study habits and positive academic behaviors.
This will be accomplished by intrusively introducing at-risk students to the tools of academic success and mastery of campus resources through a one-credit-hour course delivered in a Spirit Walk structure, designed to lead one to an orientation towards peaceful resolution of conflicts, empathy towards others, and environmental conscience. For students to be evaluated using responsibility and motivation rubrics to assess completed portfolios, measuring increased grade point averages, and monitoring college enrolment of participants compared to non-participants, it should be noted that federal regulation 21 cfr 1307.31 (April 1, 1989) exempts the non-drug use of peyote in bona fide religious ceremonies of the Native American Church.
Through a student run coffee shop in our tutoring center, where donation only cups of coffee go to a student scholarship awarded each semester, X-333 students and invited members of the public discuss relevant texts and current events for the university television channel. Student orientation and tour groups love to stop and watch people of ages ranging from early teens to over-65 participating in a text-based Socratic dialogue. A mural of the authors from the course text was painted on the walls funded by our first scholarship, free meals are available from local vendors, and an essay mechanic fixes student essays’ grammatical and documentation errors on a large screen.
Our class has been featured in local and national television and print media, written about in education journals and presented on at international conferences, but after Congressman Mick Mulvaney withdrew our funding in 2013, from a grant awarded to us by his predecessor, local businesses and donations have kept us afloat; however, to fund our class trip to The Peyote Way Church of God, a non-sectarian, multicultural, experiential, Peyotist organization located in the remote Aravaipa wilderness of southeastern Arizona, as part of our Human Experience program, we need NEA Learning and Leadership funds, with which we will develop and improve tools and strategies for the continued improvement of college students that we can share nationwide. These funds will allow us to do what we were not able to do when we piloted this program.
We piloted a voluntary version of this course during the Spring 2016 semester as part of the X-333: Tao Te Cha-Ching program and found a dramatic increase in successful completion between those who participated and those who were contacted but did not participate. Courses included meditation and yoga with study of the Tao, and another combined a tour of a maximum-security penitentiary in Columbia, SC., with a weekly boxing club.
Undergraduates who entered the program with grade point averages of less than 2.0 raised their GPAs by 48%, and 50% of students on academic probation returned to good standing after participation in this program. Students with similar GPAs who were contacted but chose not to participate were placed on probation in a 3:1 ratio compared to our participants and were more than twice as likely to be suspended from the University due to academic failure.
This program worked wonders for 90 students lead by 1 instructor and 7 peer mentors, and in light of the Employment Division v. Smith 494 U.S. 872, 108 L. Ed.2d 876, 110 S.Ct 1595 (1990) decision, students will be given a chance to re-evaluate their priorities, and develop an orientation towards peaceful resolution of conflicts, empathy towards others, and environmental conscience through completion of a Spirit Walk.
Successful completers of the voluntary pilot program said that it prompted them to realistically consider their strengths and weaknesses in a way they never had before and that they would recommend the program to friends. They also said the program helped them set and monitor goals, manage their time wisely, develop successful study habits, and have a better sense of why they exist in the universe.
The lessons learned by students and faculty through this pilot program will be applied to the course we will implement with NEA Learning and Leadership funds. With the requirements and incentives of the new course, along with a larger team of instructors, we expect the ratio of success to be even higher. Specifically, we will set the following objectives for the NEA-funded program:
1) 80% of Program Participants will graduate within 4 years of enrollment in this program.
2) 90% of Program Participants will be in good standing after 2nd semester freshman year.
3) 80% of Program Participants will retain SC state scholarships.
There is no program like the one we are proposing at our institution and no other programs like this at other comprehensive universities. This advanced approach will empower students to be leaders inside and outside of the classroom, and themselves.
We intend to apply for $5,000 in group funds to pay the stipend for 1 instructor and travel and lodging funds for 12 students as part of our X-333: Doors of Perception course in which students will create their own rituals as they become acquainted with the great mystery.
From the findings of our pilot program, we know this will be a successful course that will be able to sustain itself after the first year based on retained tuition dollars, and we hope you can see the benefits not only to these students but to the goal of student academic achievement nation-wide.
Please let me know if you think we should apply for the NEA Foundation’s Learning and Leadership Grant.
Thank you,
Bradly R. Grant
Faculty Advisor, The Human Experience Cafe, Wingate University, Stone River, NC