Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Provides Professional Consulting Experience
This semester, Dr. Mike Vander Weele ’73, professor of English, approached colleague Dr. Rick Hamilton, professor of business, with an idea that would encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and allow students to put their classroom experience into practice in a professional setting.
Vander Weele planned to teach a “writing for non-profits” section in his Advanced Writing course and enlisted the support of Hamilton, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career to non-profits.
Hamilton suggested a collaboration between the students in the writing course and students in his Organizational Consulting course to work with the “client,” Chicago Semester, in improving their online communication and marketing efforts, especially important during the program’s 40th anniversary year.
The Advanced Writing students worked as writing consultants for one of the Organizational Consulting business teams. The students worked together to consider how to best represent the client’s history and legacy through shaped interviews and to develop stories that would fit Chicago Semester’s communication needs.
“It is a wonderful experiment in process,” Hamilton said, adding that the departments will apply what is learned from the project to future endeavors.
Vander Weele agrees that cross-disciplinary collaborations help students to experience lessons they can carry into the future.
“This fits nicely with my sense of what the English department can do to help non-profits get their stories out while also making rich writing experiences available to our students,” Vander Weele said.
Both English and business students found it to be a rich learning experience.
Business student and team leader Adam Suwyn ’15 of Ada, Michigan, saw partnering with English students as a way to expand the scope of what his team could do for its client, Chicago Semester.
“The biggest thing [Advanced Writing students] bring is a unique and fresh perspective to our work,” Suwyn said. “Our group has been accounting and finance focused, so the writers helped us to step back and see the organization from a very relational perspective.”
Advanced Writing student Kayla VanWyk ’16 of Pella, Iowa, served as consultant to Suwyn’s team and appreciated the opportunity to understand how her skills could be used in business.
“It’s great to see how work as a writer can translate into the business world,” VanWyk said.
Other Collaborations
With the assistance of Tabitha Matthews, coordinator for Community Services and Pre-College Programs, Advanced Writing students also worked with Faith and Action, a non-profit that believes in impacting communities through demonstrating God’s love in practical ways. The class wrote shaped interviews to enhance the story of the organization through its website.
Vander Weele also reached out to Trinity’s marketing and communications office. A staff member answered students’ questions about choosing people to interview, conducting interviews, and writing content, as well as the time involved in creating a major publication, from first contact through print.
The business department has also pursued collaborative opportunities with other academic departments, such as computer science, art and design, and church and ministry leadership.