Advising
Overview of Advising at the Swearer Center
The Swearer Center provides a range of advising support to students through opportunities such as the University Community Academic Advising Project (UCAAP) and Ability VII to more general support for students seeking academic and career advice. Information about Jobs and Careers can be found here; contact Amy Doyle to discuss community-based work advising or other Swearer staff based on your interest.
University Community Academic Advising Program – UCAAP
What is UCAAP?
The University Community Academic Advising Program, UCAAP, has been designed to encourage students, at the very beginning of their college experience, to embrace community participation, reflection, and civic responsibility as central parts of a Brown education. In fact, the program has been working to advance a vision affirmed by the 2008 report of Brown’s Task Force on Undergraduate Education, which argues for “…a more inclusive concept of education – indeed, one so inclusive that conventional distinctions between general education and the concentrations, between the curricular and the extracurricular, even between classroom and community, need to be rethought.”
How does it work?
UCAAP is an initiative of the Swearer Center for Public Service in collaboration with the Office of the Dean of the College. Limited to 45 participants, students must apply to be part of UCAAP. Though open to all incoming students, the program is especially suited for students who have had prior community service/social justice experience. The UCAAP Program is an academic advising option like the Curricular Advising Program (CAP), though unlike CAP, no academic credit is offered for participation. Community exploration and work is strongly encouraged, though a specific service requirement is not part of UCAAP.
Newly accepted students to Brown apply to be part of UCAAP, and upon acceptance are matched with academic advisors who encourage them to think about the connection of academic study with work and service in the community.
Brown’s culture of independent and integrated learning supports moments of powerful and transformative learning that occur outside the classroom or laboratory. Building on the freedom of Brown’s curriculum, and the tendency toward activist involvement that is another distinctive feature of Brown’s educational culture, UCAAP has been organized to:
• Introduce students to resources and opportunities of the Swearer Center, and the cultures and language of community work at Brown.
• Introduce students to salient social issues in Providence and Rhode Island, as well as key organizations, leaders, advocates, organizations, and residents involved with those issues.
• Challenge students to think comprehensively about community work, social change and justice, and their goals for their Brown education; and encourage students to examine and articulate the moral convictions that will guide them through life.
• Encourage students to design meaningful experiences that integrate study and community work that makes a positive difference not only for themselves but for the world they live in.
• Create a learning community of students dedicated to exploring issues of social transformation, leadership skills for social change, and the nature of service and social change.
Academic Advising
UCAAP participants are paired with academic advisors who are selected for their knowledge of Brown’s academic resources as well as their knowledge of community resources and their work to connect the capabilities of the university to inequalities in the community and society. PLME and Engineering students are invited to participate in UCAAP, though those programs will assign academic advisors to them.
UCAAP Institute and Seminar Series
UCAAP students are required to participate in a two and one-half day pre-orientation Institute on Service and Community. This is an opportunity for first-year Brown students who have applied and been accepted into UCAAP to begin an exploration of these ideas through intensive exposure to the Swearer Center and the Greater Providence community.
The UCAAP Institute will begin and the seminar series will continue the process of creating an active space for individuals committed to community work to share their insights; come together with other students, staff, faculty and community members to further explore the values of civic engagement; and serve as a resource for others within the Brown community in the furthering of the role of service in a liberal education.
As part of the Institute and seminar Series we will explore the challenges, complexities and possibilities of service and community from a variety of experiential and theoretical perspectives while developing a better understanding of our own experiences in community and service.
Apply online to the 2009-2010 UCAAP program. The application deadline is June 19 at 5p.m. EDT. (You must have a Brown network login to access the application. If you haven't activated your Brown network ID, click here.)