Episode 110: Susan McCahan on Integrating Experiential Learning Opportunities
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Rethinking the Student Journey through Experiential Learning
In the latest episode of The Connected College podcast, host Elliot Felix sits down with Susan McCahan, Vice Provost for Innovations in Undergraduate Education at the University of Toronto. Together, they explore the massive shift occurring in higher education: the move away from passive classroom learning toward a "full menu" of experiential learning (EL).
From transforming work-study positions into high-level data analyst roles to engineering students designing solutions for women’s shelters, McCahan shares how U of T is embedding real-world impact into the undergraduate curriculum. This conversation provides a roadmap for leaders looking to reduce administrative friction and foster an environment where student success is measured by more than just a GPA.
The Diverse Menu of Experiential Learning
At many institutions, experiential learning is narrowly defined as internships or co-ops. However, McCahan explains that at the University of Toronto, EL is viewed as a broad spectrum. This includes undergraduate research with faculty supervisors, co-op placements in non-profits, intense simulations, and even on-campus work-study positions.
The goal is to move away from "one size fits all" models. Different students find their passions through different avenues. By offering everything from short-term simulations to 16-month work terms, the university ensures that every student—regardless of their discipline—can find a way to apply their theoretical knowledge in a professional context.
Turning Data into a Win-Win for Retention
One of the most innovative examples shared is how the Vice Provost’s office uses work-study students. Rather than performing administrative tasks, these students—often from the Faculty of Information—analyze real-world institutional data on student retention and graduation rates.
This creates a "win-win" scenario. The students gain professional methodologies and a powerful resume piece, while the university gains deep insights into student behavior. These findings are then shared with deans and faculty to create targeted mitigation strategies that support student success at the divisional level.
Removing Friction: Addressing IP and Accessibility
Scaling experiential learning isn't without its hurdles. McCahan identifies several "points of friction" that institutions must address, such as intellectual property (IP) rights and accessibility.
For instance, U of T has established clear ground rules: if a student works for a company, the company owns the IP; if the project is part of a course, the student owns it. By clarifying these logistics early, the university reduces the burden on faculty and community partners. Furthermore, the university is working to ensure that students with disabilities or financial constraints have a "smooth handoff" into EL opportunities, ensuring that these high-impact practices are accessible to all.
Impact Beyond the Grade: The Growth of Professional Identity
The most profound benefit of experiential learning is the growth in student confidence. McCahan notes that when students work for a community client—such as designing an erosion control system or a recreational space for a shelter—they move past the "me and my grade" mindset.
When an 18-year-old realizes their work has a tangible benefit for a professional client, it transforms their perception of themselves. They begin to see their education not just as a path to a credential, but as a toolkit for solving real-world ethical and technical problems.
Episode 110 Transcript
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Susan McCahan: we have regularly hired work study students. Some of those folks are graduate students from our Faculty of information from the I school, they're incredible. In terms of the methodologies that they are aware of and bring to my office in terms of their capabilities, new ways of thinking about things, the projects they've worked on have looked at correlations between different kinds of student activities and retention.
Susan McCahan: And being able to investigate that working with a student on real world data. They take away the experience and that they can both talk about the resume and new ways of thinking about things and working with people, and we get the benefit of the work they've done that we can then go talk to the dean, go talk to the vice deans about, here's what we found in your data.
Elliot Felix: That was Susan McCann, vice Provost for Innovations in Undergraduate education at the University of Toronto. We had a great conversation about how they're embedding experiential learning in their student experience from work on internal projects at the university like you just heard about, to working with external companies and community groups. Like you'll hear about a really cool project with a women's shelter, for example. We talked through the barriers, like funding, schedule, pressure, misconceptions, and how to address them.
Elliot Felix: Let's dive in. Welcome to the Connected College podcast. I'm your host, Elliot Felix. I've helped more than a hundred colleges and universities change what they offer, how they operate, and the way they're organized to enable student success. Join me for insightful interviews with higher ed innovators, sharing the stories, stats, and strategies to create better connected colleges and universities.
Elliot Felix: Welcome, Susan. I'm so excited for our conversation about experiential learning and all the great things you're doing at U of T.
Susan McCahan: Thanks. Thanks for having me on.
Elliot Felix: I think a great place to get started is hear how you did and then what you're up to today. So how'd you get started in higher ed?
Susan McCahan: I'm a professor in mechanical engineering. So I came straight out of a PhD into mechanical engineering, into the department as a faculty member. I did work in industry before I went back for my graduate work. And for the first substantial part of my career, I was a typical faculty member. In fact about 20 years ago, I had started a engineering design course that uses community engaged learning as a pedagogy.
Susan McCahan: And about a decade or decade and a half ago, I started doing work in administration first as the first year chair in engineering and then through of stint is Vice Dean in Engineering and now in the institutional Administration in the office of the Vice Provost Innovations in Undergraduate Education, which has a mandate to improve the quality of educational opportunities for students, and that includes experiential learning. Much of what we do is very much in partnership and collaboration with our divisions, which are all very actively involved in one way or another in experiential learning.
Susan McCahan: And I think, at the university we describe or define el. Very broadly. So it can mean placements or practicums, but it can also mean doing research with a supervisor at the university. If you're an undergraduate student, for example, it could mean taking a co-op position in a not-for-profit organization. It may mean working in, really intense kind of simulations in university contexts. Work study on campus. Work study used to be a financial aid program and it isn't anymore.
Susan McCahan: It's much more than that. These jobs are really working on interesting projects. My own office actually hires work study students every year to do some fantastic projects around retention and graduation rate. There is a wide range of opportunities and I've been involved in, capstone design projects that were co-sponsored by industry and, a large first year course that used community engaged learning.
Susan McCahan: It's not a one size fits all. Different students will find their passion and interests in different types of el.
Elliot Felix: I appreciate all those examples. From work study to simulations to co-ops to internships, to practicums. It sounds like there's a full menu of ways for students to get involved and the work study project improving retention sounds really cool.
Susan McCahan: My office has a mandate to work through the data on retention and graduation rates to understand what helps to support student success. I have very slim staff. And so the projects we can work on are quite limited. So we have regularly hired work study students. Some of those folks are graduate students from our Faculty of information from the I school, they're incredible. In terms of the methodologies that they are aware of and bring to my office in terms of their capabilities, new ways of thinking about things, the projects they've worked on have looked at correlations between different kinds of student activities and retention.
Susan McCahan: And being able to investigate that working with a student on real world data. They take away the experience and that they can both talk about the resume and new ways of thinking about things and working with people, and we get the benefit of the work they've done that we can then go talk to the dean, go talk to the vice deans about, here's what we found in your data. How can we support you? In thinking through this and figuring out ways to address this thing we've uncovered to better support your students through the success, right? So I think it's win-win in terms of what everybody takes away from that kind of el opportunity.
Elliot Felix: Really love that the work reinventing work study. So rather than, staffing the welcome desk in the student union, you're rolling up your sleeves, you're digging into the data. You're creating real impact for yourself and for your fellow students. What are some of the cool findings from that about correlations between activities and student success?
Susan McCahan: There are some findings that wouldn't surprise people. We have a co-curricular record that allows students to put onto a record the kinds of co-curricular activities that they've been involved with. And, we find that students who are involved in co-curricularly are more likely to be successful through to graduation, for example. We are able to then take data and break it down by postcode, by discipline, by division, and give individual divisions the kind of mitigation strategies or the kind of support strategies may be different depending on what the data looks like for example.
Susan McCahan: So I think that's the personalization or the, being able to first get the institutional data, but then also slice and dice it for individual groups that have the efficacy on the ground to make change happen is really useful.
Elliot Felix: That's really cool. So we've talked about experiential learning and the menu of options from work study to internships and co-ops and practicums and hands-on research. And we've talked about how you're thinking about, retention and graduation. I would love to put those together and hear your definition of student success.
Susan McCahan: It is complicated. I think when we refer to student success for purposes of data analysis, we are talking about students who are progressing through their programs of study at a reasonable rate and then fully through to graduation. That may not be the student's definition of success. The student may feel that, success is they've gotten whatever they need out of higher education to go on to do whatever they wanna do next in their life. And that might be leaving before graduation to go into medical school or something like that because you can do that. But for purposes of data analysis, that's how we describe it.
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Susan McCahan: It is typical now given the number or fraction of our students who are doing some form of el, and that may be a full year internship. In many cases, it's a 12 to 16 month internship. It may be co-op programs that are being taken, every year they're doing a three or four month work term depending on how it's structured, it means that the vast majority of our students are taking five years to finish their undergraduate programs.
Susan McCahan: And that's almost by design because we want that EL to be built into the undergraduate program. And for example, if you look at Engineering, which was it's, again, it's my home division. It's the one I've worked in for the longest part of my career. They have a very high percentage of their students who go on a 12 to 16 month work term.
Susan McCahan: And it's a four year academic program, so that makes it five years for the vast majority of those UTSC, which is our University of Toronto Scarborough campus has a long history of co-op programs. Different kind of structure to that. Arts and science, which is our biggest undergraduate division, has recently ramped up their experiential learning programs that include both summer internship opportunities and also that sort of 12 to 16 month work term, and that's expanding rapidly.
Susan McCahan: And so we are seeing divisions where we saw pockets before of planned el, obviously in medicine. Experiential learning is a large fraction or nursing, right? That's always been a very large fraction of their curriculum, but at the undergraduate level, it was in smaller pockets, and those pockets have really expanded so that the vast majority of undergraduate students now have a very fulsome range of opportunities. Everything from work study that you can do part-time while doing your full-time studies to this kind of, I leave university for a year to go work and then I come back to finish up my program. And both of those and everything in between exist in different forms. And what we wanna make sure we're doing is creating our academic programs and our progression rules and regulations to support that kind of configuration and not have any barriers for students who want to mix those opportunities in with their studies.
Elliot Felix: It's interesting. So you know, you've got this big menu of experiential learning activities. And the bottom line is, as students kind of order off that menu, time to degree, may change, may increase, but ultimately that's a good thing. And as long as they're making progress, then that's, and they're getting to where they want to go then that's success. And that's forcing you, it sounds like, to maybe measure things a little bit differently, maybe structure things, schedule things or have different processes. I'd love to hear how you've had to adapt, everything from the calendar to the curriculum to address that shift and allow, give people the time and space to order from the menu.
Susan McCahan: Yeah, I think there's a little bit like when we are considering a new program, especially a new program that has experiential learning as an expected part of the curriculum. There are always questions about how will you know students with a disability engage with this? For example if there's travel involved, if it's a global experience, like how are we making sure that there is a smooth transition and in and out and, over there and back again. If that's needed, if a student falls out of sync with their cohort for whatever reason, is there the opportunity for them to continue to progress or are they like out for a year before they can come back in?
Susan McCahan: We don't want to have students, who are just because they fail a few courses here or there are suddenly put in a position where they are having to jerry rig together something that isn't going to support their successful entry and progress back into the academy. So making sure that as we think about designing these programs and as we introduce more el into these programs, we are doing it thoughtfully in a way that takes into account that not every student will go through these programs in exactly the way they're, in the designed progression.
Susan McCahan: And that, that is part of what we are thinking about as we do this. We have more part-time students than we had a few years ago. And I think that has become more normalized. Because we're recognizing that they're el. Maybe because they have to work part-time because they come to campus or whatever.
Susan McCahan: So there's some of that for summer classes but pre pandemic, we had very few online classes in post pandemic. A lot of our summer classes are offered online, not so much during the year, but in the summer. Why? Because we want to encourage our students to pursue opportunities during summer that may not be in the greater Toronto area, maybe elsewhere, but we also wanna give them the opportunity to maybe take some credits during the summer so that they have a little bit more open space during the year. And so taking advantage of things like online teaching and learning when it creates more flexibility for them. That's the ideal kind of mix for us.
Susan McCahan: And so being very intentional about thinking about what courses do we offer online, when do we offer those courses online, and why are we doing that? In support of, again students pursuing a wide range of experiences and being successful in their academic program.
Susan McCahan: Because so much of this happens at the divisional level where they are designing these programs and where they're delivering them in my office, we support overarching needs for experiential learning. For example, a whole set of resources on intellectual property. Who owns the intellectual property that a student develops in an EL situation? If they're working on a placement with a company. The company owns the ip.
Susan McCahan: If it is a partnered project inside a course where the partner is bringing the project into the class and the class that's working on it, the student owns the ip. And if the company wants that IP after the class is over, they have to negotiate with the student. So making sure that everybody's clear on the ground rules on things like intellectual property helps to, reduce the friction for faculty and units that want to engage in this kind of work, but aren't sure what the logistics are and aren't sure, like how to navigate some of these more complex questions.
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Elliot Felix: So when you're removing the barriers and the friction, physical or financial or logistical barriers, and you're setting the ground rules and you're providing the flexibility when all this goes right? What are the benefits that students receive from all these different experiential learning opportunities? I guess students and society, but what are the benefits?
Susan McCahan: I think there's a huge growth in confidence. I think the competencies that are developed are ones that go far beyond what you can just teach in a class. I introduced community engaged learning in my class in the first, it's a first year class. It's a big first year class because what I found was that when students and we divide them into design teams to work with real partners in on a design project. These are 18 year olds who are working in teams with a community client on a design project that when they are doing a design for a community client who has a real need and a real appreciation for the work that the students are doing, the students suddenly see their work as having a benefit in the world in a totally different way than acing a math test, right?
Susan McCahan: When they are getting a good grade in I'm picking on math, but if they're getting a good grade in a physics or math or a engineering course, which is an assignment, that grade is benefit to them. And maybe their parents are really excited about it too. But it's very much, me and my grade. When they're doing it for somebody else and for a community organization, an adult who expresses real appreciation for that work, that may be one of the first times they've ever done something, quote unquote professional for somebody who is not a teacher or a parent.
Susan McCahan: And it gets them right out of that, me, my grade and I thinking right and into the work I'm doing and the learning I'm doing has an impact and can have an impact well beyond myself, and I think there's huge motivation there. I think what we see is that students are willing to go the extra mile on projects when they are connected to a community client. They care more about the output. It's not just for the grade because they can see the community partner cares about the output. And you just see them light up around that, those projects in a different way than they would if it was just something, an assignment I devised for them to do just for the grade.
Susan McCahan: So it's, it really makes, I think, a huge difference in their perception of their professional selves and the ways in which their learning can have an impact, which is motivational.
Elliot Felix: I think it's really great to, to tap into that, what things they care about, the motivation, the community impact, the self-confidence, the self perception as a professional the making progress. What are some examples of some of your favorite projects and programs whether it's, from your class or beyond that are having these kinds of impacts on students in society alike.
Susan McCahan: it's really hard to pick favorites and I think there are just so many. We have students who are involved in tutoring programs and schools and through libraries. We have students who work in outreach programs, to get, middle school and high school students excited about a discipline that they care a lot about and would love to see, their home communities because our students come from so many different communities both across the GTA, but really across the world, the connections they have and the ways in which they can connect to kids in those communities. It in ways that I couldn't possibly. it's a huge game changer for those communities, but it's also for our students who again, feel like they are acquiring the skills, the confidence, the ability to have an impact in really important ways.
Susan McCahan: What they are gaining through university has a meaning beyond, again, just the certificate or the credential that they are gaining. In my class, one that stood out for me was back a while ago, we did a project with a women's shelter. They had, this is again engineering. They had a backyard that was very steeply graded. You go out the back door of the women's shelter and it's uphill. And that hillside had erosion issues.
Susan McCahan: Every time it rained, there was a whole bunch of mud that would come down right in front of the back door of the women's shelter. And they wanted a solution for that, but they also wanted to make this very highly braided backyard useful for the women who were in the shelter. And so our students went in and with coaching talked to the staff in the shelter and also talked to the some of the residents. I think that was transformational for those students. The residents wanted something like a volleyball court in the backyard somehow, and that is so humanizing.
Susan McCahan: And another request was that they have a covered area for smoking. And my students who never expected to encounter an ethical issue in a first year course were like, Is it ethical for an engineer to design a covered smoking area that makes it more comfortable for these residents to smoke? Getting them to have to figure through, wrestle with that. Yeah. That quandary of, it's a first introduction to what does it mean to really be faced with a very real world ethical question as an engineer, the bigger ethical questions they'll face in their career. But this one was a really good starting point for how do we reason through it, so those, that was a project that I think had a real benefit for the shelter. They walked away with some ideas that they could think about fundraising for our students, walked away having had an incredible experience thinking through some really hard problems.
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Elliot Felix: Yeah. I'd imagine so. Speaking of hard problems, what are the challenges to institutions fostering experiential learning opportunities? You mentioned there's some logistics, there's creating the ground rules, but what challenges people in doing this and what's changing about how you're doing it?
Susan McCahan: I think we'll see change in the ways both students and parents view experiential learning over the last 10 years. I think when I got started on this, there was this sense that experiential learning, especially placements that took the student out of university for a year was slowing down the student's progress. That the point was and I think there was a fair amount of pressure to move through higher education as fast as possible and get out into the real world. And that pressure was coming from all over the place, it was coming even from people who would look at a resume and say, how come it took you five years to graduate? This is a four year program.
Elliot Felix: Yeah. 'cause I did all this awesome stuff while I was in school.
Susan McCahan: because you're doing all this awesome stuff. But you know that I think as the number of students, as the percentages have changed so that the majority of our students are now doing experiential learning of some kind or another, and again, it could be short term, could be long term. That has really changed, I think substantially. I think there's much more support for it, I think the other the other thing is that for some students they can't afford to do something that is el without payment. If it's a internship that doesn't have pay with it. If it's a global opportunity that you know, comes with costs.
Susan McCahan: There are barriers for those students and I think also for our students with accessibility needs or disabilities or who are counting on support that they get in higher education for accessibility, aren't always very sure that they're gonna get the same levels of support through a partnered opportunity. We're working very hard with our partners for a smoother handoff and to make sure that those students have as, again, as frictionless a transition into a EL experience and back again as possible. But there's still, I think, some barriers to that.
Susan McCahan: And I just think that, for some students there is some extra work involved in applying, while you're carrying five courses at university in Toronto, which is, not a walk in the park in terms of workload to on top of that fill out the applications and do the interviews we do want our students to go through some workshops in preparation for these kinds of activities. It's an excellent opportunity to get some early advice on resume writing on interviewing. In slightly lower stakes opportunity to work through those steps that you will need later. But you're doing that on top of your regular academic workload.
Susan McCahan: And so I think for all of those reasons there are still some barriers to involvement in these things. We hope to keep chipping away at that and finding some really systemic ways to, again, pull down some barriers and remove some friction so that an increasing number of students can find opportunities that fit them and their interests. Some of our students know they're gonna go right to grad school. It's like, why would I go out and do a co-op if I know that I'm going straight from here into a PhD program?
Susan McCahan: Actually, something like a work study position in a research lab or in a research group might be just the ticket and it might be the differentiating factor for you when you go to apply for a graduate school and you want a particular supervisor, particular project, it's great opportunity to see are you really interested in this field? Is this really a good fit? For what what your life aspirations are. So we want them to consider that opportunity as well.
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Elliot Felix: So you've thought about the changes you're addressing the challenges, reducing friction, reducing barriers, increasing opportunity and access. A final question is what are your lessons learned from that. Might help other folks adapt and embrace EL at their institution.
Susan McCahan: I know I've already said some of this before, but it is not one size fits all. You may have gone through a co-op program that was a really good fit for you. But students are going to be looking for things that fit who they are, what their aspirations are, and what their life circumstances enable them to take on. And so having a wide variety of opportunities is super important.
Susan McCahan: That is definitely one lesson, and I think the other one is trying to figure out, we're still working on this, how to communicate those opportunities to faculty, to students, to our partners without overwhelming, having such a long menu of hundreds of items, right? That it becomes very difficult for somebody to find what's gonna work for them. And so those are the things that are important is like very much making lots of opportunities, lots of different kinds of opportunities available, and then helping students navigate to find the thing that is a good fit for them.
Elliot Felix: That's great. Susan, thank you so much for your insights. It's been great hearing about experiential learning at University of Toronto and all the different opportunities you're creating and how they contribute to student success.
Susan McCahan: Very nice speaking with you as well.
Elliot Felix: Thanks for listening to the Connected College podcast. Go to Elliot felix.com for more information about my book, the Connected College articles I've written and talks I've given. There's also tools you can download information on upcoming events and information on booking me to speak at your institution or organization. Please support the podcast by rating it and reviewing it wherever you're listening. Let's create connected colleges where all students succeed.