Stephanie Cole, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of History,
College of Liberal Arts

Service Learning Course(s):

• Women and Work in Transatlantic Perspective

“The process of working in an organization and thinking about the connection with course concepts makes them come alive and allows the students to understand at a more fundamental level."

Dr. Stephanie Cole enjoys service learning because she believes it makes course concepts come alive and allows students to learn at a more fundamental level, while also making the course livelier. Having previously worked in the nonprofit sector, Dr. Cole believes that hands-on experience allows her to think broadly about service learning and what it means to implement it into a women’s history class. Studying the overlaps of race, gender, age and how they play into contemporary issues in the workforce for today’s women allows her students to be more aware of their own biases. Working with community partner WINGS, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged women in need, Dr. Cole hopes her students will be able to get a different perspective on women in history compared to women today, and see how similarities have carried down over the course of history for women.

Dr. Cole advises faculty interested in service learning to think broadly about what service learning is and realize that it is not specific to one discipline, but can be utilized to fit almost anything if you allow it to.