After months of construction and changes to the structure of the Reinert Alumni Library, the Creighton EDGE Program moved to the lower west side of the library next to the offices of DoIT today.
The EDGE Program, in its most basic form, is the space where the offices for Academic Success, Advising and Retention, the Radio Studiorum Program (RSP) and Advising, the Career Center and the Pre-Professional Learning Communities will be, in one single location.
“The EDGE is kind of a concierge, bringing together Academic Success and Advising, RSP and Advising, the Career Center, and our learning communities … all those things are going to come together in one spot,” said Jeffrey Zelda, one of the associate directors of the EDGE Program.
The first part of the four parts that make up the EDGE is the office for Academic Success, Advising and Retention. Services offered here include tutoring, advice on certain academic strategies for success, life coaching and helping students overcome difficulties to become more successful in the classroom.
“We really want to help students realize their full potential and remain successful,” said Tricia Sharrar, the Director of the EDGE.
The RSP Program, which is very familiar to freshmen, is also a part of the new EDGE Program. This part of the EDGE will stay fairly similar; faculty preceptors will still teach RSP 100 classes. From now on, however, a student’s faculty preceptor will remain his or her adviser for both his of her freshmen and sophomore years, or until the student declares a major, upon which time the student will receive a major adviser, according to Sharrar.
The Career Center, which provides students with guidance and assistance for finding and getting internships and jobs, will not be moving down to the lower level of the Reinert Alumni Library with the rest of the EDGE Program, but it will still be a part of the EDGE itself. The EDGE will be able to put a student in contact with the Career Center whenever needed.
The EDGE also provides students with Pre-Professional Learning Communities. Most students are familiar with or have heard of PMED (Pre-Medical Education). More programs like this, using PMED as their model, are established. Pre-Dental, Pre-Pharmacy, Pre-Occupational and Pre-Physical Therapy, Pre-Law and Pre-Graduate Education Learning Communities are now set up. Another Learning Community is the EDGE Community, which is a general discernment process.
“Maybe it’s a Pre-Professional Learning community or a general EDGE community, but all students will have a place in the EDGE Learning Communities because no matter what you want to do, whether you want four years and then into the work force or four years into volunteer service or a professional volunteer group, or if you want to go Pre-Dent, there’s a community for everybody,” Sharrar said. “The idea behind a community is that you pull students together that share common interests and then you advise them on how to be competitive or how to really continue a journey focusing on what the needs and skills are for whatever their future goal is.”
Each of these Learning Communities, like PMED, run six semesters long. They run through the end of junior year to help students with the process of applying for professional graduate schooling. The advice given not only applies to Creighton graduate programs, but graduate programs around the country.
The faculty associated with the EDGE understand that not every student knows what they want to pursue as a career.
“If a student comes and just has nowhere to go, maybe they don’t know if they are Pre-Med or Pre-Dent or Pre-Law, they just come in and talk to us and we’ll have them in an EDGE Learning Community, which will help them go through that discernment process, and the career choices; we’ll talk about shadowing and what the opportunities are,” Sharrar said.
Both Sharrar and Zelda are excited about the shadowing and mentoring opportunity that is provided for students. It helps students get a feel for what their field is like in the real working world.
“Let’s say you’re a theology major and you’re not sure if you want to go to professional school after college but you are interested in theology, we will put you with someone who has their master’s in theology who went on to do divinity work or works for a non-profit,” Zelda said.
The EDGE is not its own separate entity within Creighton.
“This is not just us [the EDGE] off by ourselves; we work with the schools and the faculty,” Zelda said. “It is very much a collaborative effort.”
The EDGE team is made up of a number of faculty members, including Sharrar and Zelda. Assistant vice president for student retention Mary Higgins, director of academic success Joseph Ecklund, associate director of academic initiatives and operations Sandy Ciriaco, assistant director of academic initiatives Tobias Nownes and the director of the Career Center Jim Bretl are all vital members of the EDGE group.
The EDGE program takes a holistic approach to students and it is rooted in Jesuit values. The EDGE pillars are education in the Jesuit tradition, development of God-given talents, growth of intellectual, cultural and global perspective and engaged spirit and sense of purpose.
“The university was trying to really talk about a program that would set us apart from other universities,” Sharrar said. “Something that would differentiate us, and while we’ve always done a lot of these things, we were at a point where we wanted to collaborate and take it to the next level.”
Sharrar stressed the importance of students embracing these services because it will help them in the future.
“We believe in working with the student no matter what it takes … We want to be involved with our students,” Sharrar said. “So for the student, you have a tremendous opportunity in front of you if you just take advantage of the resources that we have. You can’t be afraid to ask for guidance, for assistance … we want the students to come in, we want to know our students.”
This EDGE program is a new development at Creighton, and it brings about change within the community.
“Change is hard,” Sharrar said. “But if you embrace that change and you’re positive about it, I believe that good things can happen.”
Zelda is very excited what the EDGE can do for the students.
“I think it opens up an endless amount of possibilities,” Zelda said. “I think the fact that the student can come to one office, and have all these opportunities … the sky is the limit, and we can help them.”