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Students and Families

UWF is launching its 2025 Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), Reflect to Connect, centered on fostering critical reflection within high-impact practices (HIPs). Research demonstrates that students engaged in HIPs such as internships, undergraduate research, and service learning tend to experience greater levels of academic success (source: American Association of Colleges and Universities). HIPs also enable students to refine technical and interpersonal skills, both of which are important to future career success. UWF subscribes to the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ definition of HIPs. Definitions for each HIP-type can be found on the High-Impact Practices page. UWF is committed to enhancing both the quantity and quality of HIPs, thereby expanding students’ access to these meaningful opportunities.

Critical Reflection

Building upon past successes in integrating HIPs to enhance students’ professional communication skills, UWF now aims to infuse intentional critical reflection into these impactful experiences. UWF’s definition of critical reflection is, “Critical reflection is a reasoning process to make meaning of an experience. Critical reflection is descriptive, analytical, iterative, and ongoing. Reflection can be articulated in a number of ways such as in written form, orally, or as an artistic expression. In short, this process adds depth and breadth to high-impact practices and builds connections between course content, the experience and the student’s professional goals” (adapted from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga).

QEP Pilot Projects

Examples of HIP projects receiving grant funding for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Connecting Coursework to Careers: Empowering Students Through Video Narratives

  • Grant Recipients: Dr. Holley Handley, Dr. Byron Havard, Dr. Michelle Horton, and Stephanie Clark
  • Project Summary: This project will establish and operationalize a hybrid video studio designed to facilitate faculty and student efforts in producing video content aimed at demonstrating critical reflection.

Integration of an ePortfolio for Professional Nursing Education

  • Grant Recipient: Dr. Kathy Andresen
  • Project Summary: This project is focused on nursing students developing an ePortfolio with the intention of assembling artifacts that demonstrate professional nursing education competency.

Argos Abroad

  • Grant Recipient: Jessica Prather
  • Project Summary: This project is designed to provide scholarships that help alleviate the financial burden of studying abroad for students.