Over Summer 2025, the Career Center (CC) — in collaboration with the Center for Digital Innovation in Learning (CDIL) and the University Council on Teaching (UCT) — launched the Integrative Learning Faculty Grant, a new initiative designed to recognize and support faculty members who are interested in fostering integrative learning in their classrooms.

Why did you apply for this grant?

This grant provided a unique opportunity to transform the Nursing Synthesis Capstone Clinical Practicum into a more integrative and future‑oriented reflective experience by thoughtfully aligning seminars with integrative learning at a pivotal transition-to-practice moment for undergraduate students. By incorporating clinical learning with personal reflection and career preparation, the course will better support nursing graduates in their journey to becoming compassionate, thoughtful, resilient, and purpose-driven professionals who are happy in their work and stay in the nursing workforce longer.

What were you hoping to gain from your collaboration with CDIL and the CC?

I knew that redesigning the seminars and reflection exercises in this course would take a lot of thoughtful planning. Collaboration with CDIL and the Career Center was the expertise that was needed to make this happen. I was especially interested in discussing concrete ideas for creating stronger and more meaningful assignments that would allow students to integrate their learning over the entire program in order to better prepare students to apply for jobs and transition into the practice environment more smoothly. I also was hoping for support to re-design the canvas site to reflect the course changes.

What surprised you as part of this collaboration?

I was really excited about this collaboration to begin with, and I would say I was surprised at how many great ideas were generated right from the start, and how easy, seamless, and fun the collaboration was. The regular meetings were extremely helpful to generate the momentum to create an initial outline that we could work with and continually refine and come up with new possibilities for assignments and restructure the course in a more meaningful way.

What’s your biggest takeaway from this collaboration?

My biggest takeaway from this collaboration is how transformative it can be when instructional design expertise and career development resources are intentionally woven into a clinically focused nursing capstone course. Through the process, I came to appreciate just how essential it is to build a deliberate structure around integrative learning which is something CDIL helped bring to life. The guidance provided supported the shift from less focused seminar discussions to a cohesive, purposefully designed learning experience that ties together clinical reasoning, ethical reflection, identity formation, and interdisciplinary thinking. At the same time, partnering with the Career Center highlighted how critical professional readiness is at this transition point. Their resources, especially tools like the AI Interview practice platform and resumé support (which I was not previously familiar with), demonstrated how career preparation can be embedded seamlessly into this course rather than treated as an add‑on. 

How will you continue to develop your project moving forward?

Moving forward, I plan to make adjustments to the course based on student feedback. I also plan to adapt this course to the graduate direct‑entry prelicensure clinical capstone course.