UVA is Breaking Ground in Northern Virginia
The University of Virginia is delivering world-class educational programs on their Northern Virginia campus and needs world-class learners with fresh perspectives.
By Greg Fairchild, dean and CEO of University of Virginia in Northern Virginia
march 21, 2023
At this time of year, there’s an excitement in the air that accompanies the annual college decision season. Across the region, energetic learners and their families are weighing options about where they will head next on their lifelong journey. There’s a sense of latent potential ready to explode into the world.
Sepia-toned images float in my own memory of that period in my life—those first days after arrival on campus. I’ve had the recent opportunity to experience this again vicariously through conversations with my own children. When my son animated a recent conversation about his freshman literature class with personal discoveries and pending mysteries, I was reminded of the emotional power that learning can create.
In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate that those experiences needn’t be relegated to shoeboxes in the closet, dusty yearbooks or plaques on the wall. Increasingly, educators recognize that the zest for learning doesn’t cease with age. We have more avenues than ever before to re-engage with learning in novel ways, in novel places and connected to learners’ own lived experiences.
Over the last decade, educators were taking on new learning as well. We questioned our long-held assumptions about learning—who consumes learning, where they could take this learning and how learning could be co-created. We were experimenting and innovating to figure out how to reach and connect when learners weren’t in the same room. Technological and pedagogical tools were being created to enable us to span space and time. These increasingly included AI-based innovations.
Then, what economists term an “environmental shock” occurred. A global pandemic forced us to take steps rapidly. Many of us were forced to make these changes quicker than some of us might have otherwise. And I am so glad that we did. We can reach more learners than ever before and help them achieve their life goals.
At University of Virginia in Northern Virginia (UVA|Northern Virginia), we’ve realized that the doors of campus should swing open to learners of all ages. Our notions of a “college-age” person are fallacies. There are many benefits in this approach:
- We can assist in the advancement of economic and career goals. Innovative learning programs can be tailored to current, near-term working needs. We can refresh practical knowledge with state-of-the-art frameworks and technologies that can benefit the learner and their employers.
- We know that the conversation matters—what is offered and who contributes. With our ability to bring together learners from across broad spectra of demographics, industries and life stages, we can foster conversations among learners in the home, classroom and workplace.
- We can change the way we engage our lives. Individuals who take the affirmative step to simply undertake learning can earn higher salaries and enhanced career mobility.
- We can reinvigorate discovery. Our work with adult learners facilitates the development of new interests, expansion of past passions and a renewed sense of personal efficacy.
- We can create multi-directional learning. Adult learners are more likely to bring their own knowledge into the classroom. They challenge and question our models in ways that cause educators to rethink and revisit our assumptions. This fundamentally alters the traditional hierarchy in the classroom. Learners take as much from others in their sessions as from their professors. This replicates the way we solve problems once we leave the classroom.
- We can solve real-world problems. New learning helps individuals hone their critical thinking and problem-solving skills in application to their daily challenges. A design-thinking framework useful in operations management can inform the busy life of a working parent, and the place where they draw a paycheck.
- We can interrupt mental atrophy. New learning can stimulate the brain and keep us active and engaged.
At UVA|Northern Virginia, we create educational offerings for learners of all levels—rising high school students, undergraduates seeking to build special skills outside of their curriculum, graduate students and working professionals. And we aim to offer these in a broad range of formats—in person, online and hybrid offerings, in which our participants are interacting simultaneously across geography. Importantly, our educational offerings are as much about content as connection. New networks are created when participants come together.
We’ve seen the great power of learning first-hand, certainly in the graduate and undergraduate courses we’ve developed over two decades. One of my most enjoyable offerings has been a fiction literature class for MBA students. Spreadsheets can certainly be the basis for important insights in our workplaces. And, trust me, so can a great fiction novel.
We’ve also engaged with executives in new learning projects. Some of these have happened in classrooms and some on worksites. One of these is a new project that has us engaging with sole-proprietor retailers on how they can increase efficiency and carefully expand. Learning, at all stages, is empowering.
We’ve also seen the power of learning in places that are overlooked. One of these has been business skills training with returning citizens in correctional facilities here in Virginia and New York. Not long after I became engaged in this work, I received a call from a mental health specialist who worked in the prison system. He told me, “I want you to know that your student is dreaming again.” Please know, reader, I lost it.
Since we began that work, we’ve written letters of recommendation for jobs, parole decisions and college applications. I’ve received wedding photos and career updates from lifelong learners whom I met when they were trying to reframe and redirect their lives. I have been made better by these relationships in ways that I hadn’t anticipated.
At UVA|Northern Virginia, we’ve come to the Washington region with a recognition that the area is filled with learners at many life stages. We are bringing education directly to the learner and staying with them as they progress on their journeys. We at UVA|Northern Virginia recognize that learning never ceases. It’s closer than you think.
Learn more about UVA|Northern Virginia’s world-class educational programs for lifelong learners here.
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