Wittenberg is excited to offer 16 new opportunities for students to explore, engage, and connect with faculty, staff, and others during the spring semester as part of the University’s second annual Focused, Integrated, Reflective Experience or FIRE Week, Feb. 27-March 3, 2023.
Applications open today, Sept. 19, and feature three deadlines—Oct. 3, Oct. 24, and Nov. 4, 2022—depending on the experience each student chooses. Most of the experiences require only a $100 refundable deposit that will be returned to students after they complete the experience, while others that involve travel do come with a cost. Wittenberg will work with students to create payment plans so that as many as possible can participate.
“The experiences this year are open to all students, and we have a wonderful assortment of trips and adventures,” said Mike Mattison, associate provost and professor of English. “The leaders of these experiences have really taken the time to design the most engaging opportunities, from studying the politics of water in the west or examining the inner workings of a small community like Yellow Springs. FIRE Week experiences give students a chance to engage in-depth with faculty and staff on a wide range of topics, and they are part of President Michael Frandsen’s vision to have these opportunities open to all of our students. These out-of-classroom experiences can enhance and accentuate what students are learning in the classroom, and they give the students an extra boost to their résumé.”
Along with the new Connections Curriculum, which debuted last fall, Wittenberg piloted FIRE Week offerings in the spring of 2022. Moving forward, the plan is to have FIRE Week be a regular feature of the Wittenberg academic calendar, taking place the week before spring break each year. A FIRE Week experience will fulfill one of the experiential learning requirements in the Connections Curriculum, which, in alignment with the University’s mission, challenges students to become responsible global citizens, to discover their callings, and to lead personal, professional, and civic lives of creativity, service, compassion, and integrity.
This year, Wittenberg is offering 16 exciting programs from which students can choose:
- Adulting 101
- Building A Home: Habitat For Humanity
- Chamber Music: From Practice to Performance
- Changing the World! Interactive Science Shows for Middle School Students
- Connecting Generations
- Going Local: The Yellow Springs Experience
- Harnessing Old Man River: Nature Meets Culture in Mississippi
- Head to Heart to Action: Designing a Career & Life Action Plan
- Igniting Change in Communities and Ourselves
- Kruger National Park: Conservation and Community in Post-Apartheid South Africa
- Light on the Great Lakes: Shipwrecks, Sand Dunes, and Buried Cities
- Magical Museum Tour
- The Politics of Water in the West
- Service in Sunny Costa Rica
- StartUp in Austin: The Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning Opportunity
- Men’s Lacrosse Spring Break Trip
For more information about FIRE Week, please click here.
