Stephen Patchin, Author at Essential Education Newsblog

Building Bridges: Michigan Tech & Keweenaw Community Foundation Collaborate on Essential Ed Experiences

Published September 17, 2025

Beginning early in 2025, Michigan Tech University and the Keweenaw Community Foundation (KCF) co-hosted a series of community focus groups, bringing together more than 50 local organizations to explore how MTU students and faculty can engage meaningfully with the local community. The discussions, centered around the university’s new Essential Education Experiences (E3) program, highlighted ways to connect classroom learning with hands-on service opportunities while ensuring that collaborations are mutually beneficial for both students and community partners.

Michigan Tech Essential Education Experiences are a new type of course, launching this Fall 2025, designed to provide students with a transformative education that integrates civic engagement, interdisciplinary learning, and real-world problem-solving. Through hands-on learning projects outside of the traditional classroom, these courses will equip students with the skills needed to navigate a rapidly changing world while fostering meaningful partnerships with local organizations.

Leading the effort is Cassandra Reed-VanDam, the E3 manager at Michigan Tech, who emphasized the importance of fostering long-term relationships between the university and the local community.

“These focus groups allowed us to hear directly from community partners about their priorities and how Michigan Tech can collaborate in meaningful ways,” said Reed-VanDam. “We want to ensure that these projects are valuable not only for student learning, but also for the organizations and constituents they serve.”

A Collaborative Approach to Community-Engaged Learning

Held at the KCF office Community Room located in the Hancock Community Hub, with one session taking place in Keweenaw County, each focus group centered on different themes, including education, arts and culture, government and social services, and environmental stewardship. Participants engaged in thoughtful conversations about how students could support local initiatives through coursework, research, and volunteerism.

“When we learned more about the MTU E3 program, we saw an excellent opportunity to help provide capacity and support to our community partners while helping students and faculty at MTU engage locally. The ‘mutual benefit’ value alignment drew us in to partner with MTU, and we are looking forward to the future of this new initiative,” stated Robin Meneguzzo, KCF Executive Director.

The sessions allowed community leaders, nonprofit organizations, and faculty members to identify key areas where student involvement could make a difference. Ideas ranged from helping local museums develop digital content and improving nonprofit social media strategies to tackling environmental challenges and mentoring local youth.

Additionally, discussions explored ways to enhance student engagement, align project timelines with academic calendars, and improve logistical support such as transportation and funding. Many organizations shared insights on fostering structured communication channels with the university and developing effective long-term planning for student projects to ensure successful collaborations.

Looking Ahead: Next Steps for Collaboration

As Michigan Tech continues to refine the Essential Education Experiences program, the insights gained from these focus groups will help shape its structure. Potential next steps include developing a formalized project matching system to pair faculty and students with community needs more effectively, strengthening communication platforms to ensure that expectations and responsibilities are clear on both sides and establishing long-term partnerships between faculty and local organizations to create sustainable, impactful projects.

These conversations mark the beginning of an evolving collaboration between Michigan Tech, the Keweenaw Community Foundation, and the broader community. By working together, students can gain real-world experience while making a meaningful difference in our local community.

For community partners, this initiative represents an opportunity to gain actionable insights, develop creative solutions, and receive valuable support from Michigan Tech. As the program develops, local organizations are encouraged to stay involved and continue shaping the future of community engagement at MTU.

If you would like to join the E3 Community of Practice here on campus, please contact Cassandra Reed-VanDam (cmvandam@mtu.edu), the Essential Education Experience Manager at Michigan Tech.

Michigan Tech Essential Education Seminars prepare students for Success

Published September 10, 2025

By Stephen Patchin

Starting college is a pivotal moment, and at Michigan Tech, we’ve designed a first-semester experience to help new students navigate it successfully. The Michigan Tech Seminar in Essential Education, offered through a wide variety of introductory courses, helps students not only get acclimated but also chart their academic journey, practice reflection, and build a sense of community. This isn’t just another class; it’s an integrated experience with core modules that are adapted by instructors to fit the unique needs of different majors.

The seminar is built on three key pillars:

Essential Education: these modules help students understand the “why” behind their education. By introducing Michigan Tech’s Essential Abilities, students are prompted to reflect on our key learning outcomes and their own strengths and areas for growth. This self-assessment is more than an exercise; it’s a tool for creating a unique academic plan. Students are encouraged to explore a wide range of opportunities early on, including Essential Ed minors, undergraduate research opportunities, study away programs, and student organizations, helping them set concrete goals and map out a pathway to achieve them.

Husky Folio: Michigan Tech’s pedagogical approach to helping students recognize, reflect on, and collect evidence of their learning, is a powerful tool for career readiness. The Husky Folio modules introduce students to the practice of documenting and reflecting on their learning. Through a series of assignments, students learn how to use our Husky Folio platform to tell the story of their academic and personal growth. This is valuable practice not only for future classes but also for preparing them to articulate their skills and experiences in a job interview.

Husky Life: The Husky Life modules focus on crucial aspects of student success: academics, community, and wellbeing. These modules connect students with vital campus resources and encourage them to build relationships with peers, faculty, and staff. Instructors can tailor assignments to fit specific professional development needs, with many sections focusing on resume building and departmental networking. The modules also address key life skills, with instructors able to choose topics like time management, stress reduction, and coping with loneliness, ensuring a holistic approach to student wellness.

Because we recognize that transfer students have unique needs, a seminar specifically designed for these students was also developed. Evidence suggests that a significant number of our transfer students may face academic challenges, with nearly half having a GPA of 2.5 or lower (about 33% of our total Michigan Tech undergraduate student population have a GPA below 2.5). We know that having a sense of belonging on campus contributes to academic success for students. (https://www.ihep.org/publication/student-experience-and-belonging-strong-outcomes/) Through the Michigan Transfer Seminar, we are working to build community among new transfer students while also helping them learn about campus resources and plan for their future, ensuring they have the support they need to succeed.

The success of the seminar is a testament to strong cross-unit collaboration. Developed by faculty from diverse academic disciplines as well as student affairs staff, this partnership has created a seamless introduction to campus life, beginning with summer orientation and continuing through the fall semester. This collaborative effort also resulted in a $650,000 State of Michigan MiLEAP College Success grant, which will support continued development of the modules and innovative teaching practices over the next three years.

The seminar also serves as an incubator for new ideas in curriculum design. The shared modules are designed to be both structured and flexible, allowing them to be effective in courses ranging from small seminars to large lectures and in subjects as varied as Engineering Analysis, First Year Arts Seminar, Explorations in Computing, and Natural Resource Professional. This adaptability ensures that students across all disciplines receive a high-quality, relevant experience.

You can learn more about the shared seminar modules and other seminar-related programming through the “Essential Education Resource Hub for Instructors” in Canvas <Essential Ed Resource Hub for Instructors> Courses that serve as seminar courses can be found on our Michigan Tech Essential Education website <Program Requirements | Essential Education | Michigan Tech>.

What’s New with the Essential Education Minors?

Published September 10, 2025

By Stephen Patchin

Our new Essential Education minors, launching this fall, are built directly into the Essential Education curriculum. They offer a unique opportunity to explore a specific theme through a variety of disciplinary perspectives. By design, they are a seamless addition to a student’s degree, allowing them to broaden their perspective and complement their major without adding to their credit load.

Each Essential Ed minor allows students to engage with a variety of perspectives and disciplines, incorporating courses from specific categories in the curriculum. These include a communication-intensive course, an intercultural competency course, and a selection of courses from the humanities, arts, social sciences, and business (SHAPE). A key feature is the flexibility for students to customize their coursework within the minor’s theme, allowing them to align their learning with their personal and career goals. The Essential Education Curriculum page <https://www.mtu.edu/essential-ed/overview/curriculum/> includes more specific information about the requirements each minor must meet. As part of their minor pathway, students will create an ePortfolio through Husky Folio, allowing them to reflect on and integrate their learning journey.

We are excited to announce that the following Essential Ed minors are in the final stages of approval:

AI Ethics
Creativity & Expression
Economics & Society
Entrepreneurship
Human-Centered Design
Leadership
Population Health
Public Policy & Law
Sustainability Studies

Stay tuned for a deeper dive into each of these themes in the coming weeks. In the meantime, get a sneak peek into the vision behind these minors by watching this video: <Michigan Tech’s Essential Education Minors – Launch 2025>.

Essential Education is here! Your guide to the new curriculum

Published September 3, 2025

By Stephen Patchin

This fall marks the official launch of Essential Education, a new general education program that began as a part of Tech Forward 1.0 conversations seven years ago. Essential Ed represents a strategic evolution of our curriculum, and we’re dedicated to helping you navigate it.

Every Thursday this academic year, we’ll use Tech Today to highlight the many components of Essential Education. You’ll get a closer look at the key elements, and we’ll share the accompanying programs and resources designed to assist instructors, community partners, and in navigating this new curriculum.

For a deeper dive into any topic, visit the Essential Education News Blog . We’ve already developed a number of resources to get you started:

What is Michigan Tech’s Essential Education? The Essential Ed website provides a comprehensive overview of the program’s core elements.
Introducing HuskyFolio powered by PebblePad. Learn about the value of Folio Thinking and how the new HuskyFolio platform will be gradually integrated into the curriculum at the HuskyFolio website .
Essential Education Minors – Find the current list of minors. Degree audits will be linked here once they are finalized.
Essential Education Experiences – Get all the details on the new Essential Education Experiences website.
Essential Education Resource Hub for Instructors – If you are teaching an Essential Ed course, this Resource Hub is your one-stop-shop in Canvas. It offers step-by-step guidance—including a Course Setup Guide, instructions for Instructor EA reporting and HuskyFolio—as well as specialized tools and support for course lists, Essential Abilities, large-class teaching, and more.
Essential Education YouTube Channel – Our new channel features videos you can use in the classroom or just to learn more about Essential Ed, featuring corporate partners discussing the value of Essential Abilities, highlights from our first symposium, and more. We’ll be adding new content all year to showcase how Essential – Education prepares our students for success.

If you ever miss a Thursday Update, just check the Essential Education News Blog to catch up and continue exploring this signature program.

CTL and Essential Education Lunch and Learn

Published February 13, 2025

By Stephen Patchin

Make plans to attend a Lunch and Learn hosted by the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and Essential Education at Michigan Tech.

The Lunch and Learn is titled “Building an Essential Ed Experience: (Re)Designing Your Course to Become an E3.”

When: Tuesday, March 4, from 12-1 p.m.
Where: MUB Ballroom A
Registration: Register to Attend the Lunch and Learn (registration is required).
Interested in designing and teaching an Essential Education Experience (E3)? Join E3 leadership and fellow instructors for a course redesign workshop. E3 courses should prepare students for an ever-changing, dynamic and diverse world by increasing social awareness, global understandings and/or cultural competencies through hands-on learning. Students will apply their learning toward a project or activity that engages with community beyond the traditional classroom.

This workshop will cover the basics of E3 requirements and provide participants time to workshop with others an existing or proposed Essential Education Experience course, while learning more about practical tools for transforming their own courses into E3s. Faculty who are interested in E3 courses but don’t have a specific course in mind yet are welcome to attend and can expect to gain insights that will aid in future course development.

Lunch will be provided to those who register.

For questions or to request accommodations, including dietary, please feel free to contact the CTL at ctl@mtu.edu or 906-487-3000.

Essential Education Employment Task Force Holds First Meeting Focusing on Essential Abilities

Published September 27, 2024

By Stephen Patchin

The newly established Essential Education Employment Task Force, composed of organizations that have been long-standing recruiters at Michigan Tech, recently held its first meeting. Many of these recruiters are Michigan Tech alumni, united by a shared passion for helping shape programming that equips our students for success—not only in their first jobs post-graduation but throughout their entire careers.

This task force will play a critical role in ensuring that we clearly communicate the value, accomplishments, and learning outcomes tied to Essential Education. Their input will help us continue developing programs that foster the Essential Abilities our students need to thrive in today’s workforce.

We would like to extend our thanks to the Essential Education Employer Task Force members for collaborating with our faculty and staff to refine and strengthen the components of Michigan Tech’s Essential Education initiative. The task force includes representatives from Stellantis, Gerdau, Michigan Scientific, Kimberly-Clark, Greenheck, Nexteer, Caterpillar, Plexus, General Motors, and Security Vitals.

The task force’s mission is to help us establish effective communication channels with recruiting organizations, ensuring they understand the Essential Abilities our students are developing through these experiences. As the task force continues its work, we will focus on building engaging learning opportunities that align with the skills and attributes these employers seek in their future employees.

What are the Essential Abilities developed throughout the Essential Education programming?

Michigan Tech’s current General Education program has 8 undergraduate student learning goals, of which 6 are used in the assessment of General Education. These 6 USLGs include 41 performance criteria. Our new Essential Education program reduces these to 4 undergraduate student learning goals with 12 performance criteria that we call Essential Abilities. This reduction aligns us with the number of learning goals and performance criteria at peer institutions and simplifies assessment within essential education. Below are the 4 learning goals and associated Essential Abilities defined.

Learning Goal: Think Critically

Question Assumptions: Students identify and evaluate stated and unstated assumptions underlying an experience, question, problem, or statement.

Evaluate Information: Students identify and evaluate relevant information to address an experience, question, problem, or statement.

Analyze Ethical Implications: Students recognize and analyze ethical, questions, and problems.

Learning Goal: Communicate

Communicate Quantitatively: Students interpret quantitative data and choose appropriate methods and formulas to communicate findings.

Communicate Contextually: Students choose communication formats and methods appropriate for the context, purpose and audience.

Foster Collaboration: Students communicate with others to develop, distribute, and complete tasks; seek and incorporate the perspectives of others; and communicate main ideas and results in team settings.

Learning Goal: Adapt

Reflect: students review prior learning (and experiences) to consider significance of experiences inside and outside the classroom as well as plan next steps for learning and growth.

Welcome Challenge: students demonstrate willingness to try new things, persevere in the face of obstacles, learn from mistakes, and appreciate learning and growth in addition to achievement.

Explore Diverse Perspectives: students demonstrate awareness of their own norms and biases as well as existing diversity within and beyond their own social and cultural group(s).

Learning Goal: Contribute/Transform

Engage in Civic Life: students develop the knowledge, skills, and motivation to make a difference in the civic life of their communities.

Innovate Solutions: students apply an appropriate process to design, evaluate, and/or implement a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.

Create: students compose novel (or unique variations of existing) works, ideas, questions, formats, or products and synthesize their ideas with those of others.

So why make the change to these four goals and their aligned essential abilities?

The shift to the Essential Abilities in Michigan Tech’s new Essential Education program was driven by the need for a more streamlined, impactful approach to student learning. This move allows us to focus more effectively on the skills and competencies that matter most to employers and help students thrive not only in their first jobs but throughout their careers. The Essential Abilities emphasize critical thinking, communication, global awareness, and lifelong learning—key competencies for navigating an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Think Critically
The ability to think critically about complex issues is vital for all students. While the disciplinary context and subject matter will vary, the ability to carefully consider assumptions, available information, and the ethical dimensions of problems and proposed solutions are key skills. Collectively, these skills help students make sense of large amounts of information, detect and avoid fallacies, facilitate dialogue, attend to diverse perspectives, and cultivate a deeper awareness of how to connect and synthesize culture, social, economic, and scientific ideas.

Communicate
The challenges of the 21st Century require the ability to communicate information and ideas intentionally, strategically, and responsibly – across a range of audiences, disciplines, and media – using a variety of modes (written, spoken, quantitative). Such communication required attention to the diversity of contexts (global, local, intercultural). Skillfulness in this area involves the ability to connect with others through interpersonal and group communication skills.

Adapt
Working and living in a diverse and rapidly changing technological society requires skills and mindsets that support lifelong learning, personal and professional growth, agility, and resilience. It is important that students are able and willing to take appropriate personal and intellectual risks, reflect on their own performance (successes and failures), and consider diverse perspectives that may evolve over time.

Contribute/Transform
A new frontier is emerging where the solutions to social problems will be found in a rapidly changing world where science, technology, humanities, arts, and social sciences intersect. In this environment, those who seek to make significant contributions to society must engage with multiple perspectives and use well-developed creative thinking skills to form new ideas that form their actions. It is essential for students to develop, share, and inspire creativity – such as pursuing opportunities in the creative arts, collaborating to find innovative and ethical solutions, and contributing to their communities and the broader world.

Michigan Technological University’s Essential Education Initiative will be fully implemented in Fall 2025. This forward-thinking curriculum will prepare our students for careers that don’t exist today. Michigan Tech’s Essential Ed further aligns our undergraduate curriculum with business workforce needs, further enhancing career opportunities for our students.

Folio Thinking: Inquiring, Reflecting, and Integrating Knowledge

Published September 3, 2024

By Stephen Patchin

Welcome to the first installment of the Husky Folio blog. In the coming months, we’ll explore Michigan Tech’s new Husky Folio program, which builds and enhances metacognition using ePortfolios to inquire about, reflect upon, and integrate knowledge. At its foundation is the concept of folio thinking.

Folio thinking encourages deeper thinking, self-assessment, and growth by maintaining a personal collection of work, ideas, and reflections. This approach helps students track their progress, identify areas for improvement, and develop a habit of continual self-improvement. It fosters a deeper understanding of key concepts, encourages individuals to connect their learning to real-world applications, and empowers them to actively participate in their intellectual development.

You may have heard the term folio thinking used in the last few years as a diverse team of Michigan Tech faculty and staff worked to infuse the curriculum with more opportunities for reflection. This team studied modern learning theory and best practices in helping students succeed in and out of the classroom. One “high-impact practice” recognized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is the use of ePortfolios to “[make] meaning through reflection and thereby [develop] deeper, more intentional identities as learners.”¹ Folio thinking is the process of collecting, organizing, reflecting on, and drawing connections between learning experiences. The ePortfolio is a student’s electronic home for this work, their Husky Folio.

Suppose you have a LinkedIn profile and are active on the platform. In that case, you’ve already engaged in a simple form of folio thinking by curating the information you feel best reflects your professional identity. Husky Folio is a more structured yet flexible way of collecting learning experiences and reflective activities and integrating them into portfolios. Depending on the need, students can turn those artifacts into portfolios demonstrating learning to faculty, recruiters, admissions officers for graduate school, or friends and family.

Starting this semester, students taking one of the First-Year Seminar courses will gain experience using the ePortfolio platform PebblePad. Students will have the opportunity to consider where they would rate themselves on the new Essential Abilities and reflect on an experience or concept such as academic planning. They will also create an “About Me” ePortfolio.

Incorporating folio thinking into existing coursework can be as simple as taking a few minutes at the end of class to share their thoughts on how the course material relates to their personal experiences, career goals, or societal issues. For example, “How do you think the concepts we’ve covered so far relate to your future career in [specific field]?” or “Discuss how the material we’ve studied impacts society. What role do you see yourself playing in addressing these issues?” You can also provide more formal opportunities, such as having each student in a group project write an individual reflection on the group dynamics, their contribution, and what they learned from the collaborative process. You can find more examples of ways to incorporate folio thinking into various courses by reviewing the resource document below and learn more about the value of learning portfolios from this helpful video.

In the next installment of the Husky Folio blog, we’ll discuss the tool PebblePad and begin to explore creative applications in each unique course and degree. In the meantime, if you want to know more, visit the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning Open House on Thursday, September 5, between 1 and 2:30 p.m. and see our table! You can also attend a Lunch ‘n Learn on October 22 and learn more about how faculty are employing folio thinking pedagogy in their courses this semester. You can also email Dr. Nancy Barr at nbbarr@mtu.edu to discuss how a Husky Folio could creatively support your course needs.

Download

¹ Eynon, B., & Gambino, L. M. (2017). Introduction. In High-Impact ePortfolio Practice: A Catalyst for Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning (p. 1). Stylus.

Written by: Nancy Barr, PhD, NREMT, Assessment and Writing Support Specialist, Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education

Essential Education Announces Office Hours for Fall Semester

Published August 30, 2024

By Stephen Patchin

The Essential Ed Leadership Team is setting up weekly “Office Hours” to support our campus community as we implement the new Essential Education curriculum. Individuals, department committees, and other working groups are welcome to attend for consultations, including (but not limited to) the following topics:

Revising degree audits and flowcharts to make the most of Essential Ed requirements
Tips for Building an Essential Ed Minor
How to Build an Essential Education Experience Course
What are in Essential Ed Seminar Modules
How is Essential Education Assessed
How have Wellbeing and Success Courses changed
What is Folio Thinking, and how do ePortfolios support Folio Thinking

The first two Essential Ed Office Hours will be in Library Conference Room 103 from 12:00 – 1:00 pm on Wednesday, September 4, and Thursday, September 12. The complete calendar of Office Hour Dates for the Fall Semester can be found below. Note the Special Guests and Topics noted on the calendar. For further information or questions, contact Steve Patchin – Project Manager for Essential Ed Implementation, at shpatchi@mtu.edu.

Library Conference Room 103 – Noon to 1 pm
Date	Day	Special Guest & Topic
September 4	Wednesday
September 12	Thursday
September 18	Wednesday
September 26	Thursday	Nancy Barr – Folio Thinking & PebblePad
October 2	Wednesday	Jeannie DeClerck – Assessment & Essentail Ed
October 10	Thursday
October 16	Wednesday
October 24	Thursday
October 30	Wednesday
November 7	Thursday
November 13	Wednesday	Jeannie DeClerck – Assessment & Essential Ed
November 21	Thursday	Nancy Barr – Folio Thinking & PebblePad
November 27	Wednesday
December 5	Thursday
December 11	Wednesday

Essential Education Soft Launches Seminar Courses – Fall 2024

Published August 26, 2024

By Stephen Patchin

Michigan Tech Essential Education will be soft-launching the Michigan Tech Seminar shared modules beginning this Fall, 2024. These modules are embedded in Intro to the Major seminars or included in existing large-format courses (ENG 1101). Several units are in the process of developing new courses that will use the shared modules and fulfill the seminar requirement. Those majors not offering their own seminar course will have their students take a university-wide seminar beginning in Fall 2025.

Required assignments are expected to require no more than ⅓ of a 1 credit course, with expectations of about 15 hours total of combined in and out of class work. Eight of the nine modules in the list below are now available in Canvas Commons for seminar instructors to access and use. We anticipate that the remaining module will be available in Commons by September 6. Anyone from Michigan Tech can view the modules, but we ask that only Michigan Tech Seminar courses use them with students (to avoid unnecessary repetition of materials).

Modules include:

Welcome to College — Reviews key policies and resources and helps students understand the differences between high school and college.
Husky Points — Students select activities to help them connect to the community, University, and resources.
Career Preparation — Students create an About Me page in the PebblePad ePortfolio platform and draft a resume (optional).
Time Management — Students track their time use and discuss strategies for time management.
Academic Planning — Students explore personal and academic goals and make a four-year plan.
Stress Management — Students learn how stress impacts them physically and mentally and explore strategies and resources for managing stress.
Loneliness — Students learn to recognize signs of loneliness (in themselves and others) and develop strategies for managing feelings of disconnection and accessing resources.
Reflection — Students learn more about how reflection supports learning and personal growth and receive instruction and feedback in effective reflective writing.
Introduction to the Essential Abilities — Students use a structured PebblePad workbook to reflect on the Essential Abilities and identify their own strengths and opportunities for growth.

A special thanks to those instructors who participated in the Seminar Training, which took place on Thursday, August 15. We appreciate the efforts of the summer team that constructed the content and Canvas Modules:

AJ Hamlin – Engineering Fundamentals
Maria Bergstrom – Humanities/CSA
Linda Wanless – Center for Teaching and Learning
Anna McClatchy – Wahtera Center for Student Success
Dawn Corwin – Wahtera Center for Student Success
Nancy Barr – Assessment and Writing Support Specialist/APUE
Heather Simpson – Exploring Majors/CSA
Susan Liebau – Chemistry
Jenn Sams – Library
Kailee Laplander – Electrical and Computer Engineering

Below is the list of courses that will be launching the Essential Education Seminar components, including new Canvas Modules and associated activities in the Fall of 2024

Participating in Soft Launch Fall 2024
(57 sections, 1125 students)
BL 1580 First Year Exp in Bio Sci
BL 1590 First year exp in pre-health
BL 1600 First Year Exp in Med Lab Sci
CH 1130 PDC1 (prof dev chem)
CS 1000 Explorations in Computing
ENG1101 Engineering Problem Solving and Analysis
HF 1999 Intro to the HF major
HU 1000 Intro to Humanities
KIP 1000 Intro to Exercise Sci
KIP 1010 Intro to Sports and Fit Mgmt
MA 1910 Exploring Symmetry Groups
PSY 1999 Intro to the Psych major
SA1000 – Exploring Majors
SS 1001 Orientation to Soc Sci

Courses in development for Fall of 2025
Nursing
Physics
VPA – Sound Design, Theatre
University-Wide Course
College of Computing
Forestry

Questions? Contact the Essential Education Implementation Leadership Team: essential-ed-l@mtu.edu or reach out to Steve Patchin: shpatchi@mtu.edu

Michigan Tech Essential Education launches website

Published June 18, 2024

By Stephen Patchin

Michigan Tech’s Essential Education initiative was developed to prepare students to be leaders in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Essential Education signals that the skills, abilities, and mindsets facilitated by a broad education in the foundational disciplinary areas of the sciences, math, social sciences, arts, and humanities are essential to students’ educational and professional development. This forward-thinking curriculum prepares students for careers students for careers that don’t exist today.

Michigan Tech’s Essential Education website has just gone live. You can visit the new website here: https://www.mtu.edu/essential-ed/. This public-facing site provides more information on the why and how of Michigan Tech’s Essential Education program, which formally launches in the Fall of 2025 for our first-year students and scales to capacity by the 2027-28 academic year.

Essential Education Website

Special thanks to Michigan Tech’s University Marketing and Communications team, as well as Michigan Tech’s Essential Education Marketing and Communication Advisory Board, and the Essential Education Implementation Leadership Team for their work on constructing this website.

Author: Stephen Patchin

Learning Goal: Think Critically

Learning Goal: Communicate

Learning Goal: Adapt

Learning Goal: Contribute/Transform