Message from Jay Roberts, Provost of Warren Wilson College--
I am excited to announce the formation of the Center for Experiential Learning at Warren Wilson College. The new Center will integrate our Work Program, Community Engagement, and Global Engagement efforts and programming into one area, reporting to the Provost, and housed in the historic log cabin on campus. The result of careful discussion and planning between the various offices and programs through this time of transition, the Center for Experiential Learning will be a hub for academic and co-curricular experiential learning helping students, faculty, and staff connect and collaborate on a range of exciting initiatives and efforts both on and off-campus.
The Center will be led by two Associate Deans: Paul Bobbitt, Associate Dean of Work and Anna Welton, Associate Dean of Community and Global Engagement. We are thrilled with this leadership team and the level of expertise and experience Paul and Anna bring to this important work (see their bio's below for more details). By combining these areas under one physical and metaphorical roof, in an iconic campus building, the new Center will take advantage of natural synergies and collaborations between community engagement, work, and off-campus study to help make the many experiential learning opportunities for students at Warren Wilson more accessible and more powerful. Paul and Anna will also serve on the Provost Leadership Team as we continue to invest in and commit to our educational goals and values around work, community engagement, and place-based learning locally, regionally, and globally.
The Center will also house the Bonner Leaders program supervised by our new Assistant Director of Community Engagement, Diamond Slone Couch. As part of this new structure, Shannon McNair will move into a new role as Associate Director of Work and Rachel Kerr will shift into a new role as Assistant Director of Global Engagement. We will begin searches for a new Associate Director of Community Engagement along with a Data and Operations Coordinator to provide administrative support for the Center.
More details and information will be forthcoming from Paul and Anna as we live into this new structure and re-organization next academic year. As always, please reach out if you have any questions or concerns.
Paul Bobbitt's Bio
Paul Bobbitt has served as Associate Dean of Work for the past five years after serving as a work supervisor for the seven years prior. In addition to his primary role of providing leadership to the Work Program, Paul represents Warren Wilson College's Work Program during advocacy trips to Washington DC, chairs the Work Colleges Consortium Work Deans group, and participates in various career and workplace development organizations both regionally and nationally. Paul holds a B.A. in Geography from the University of North Texas.
Anna Welton's Bio
Anna Welton has served as the director of global engagement at Warren Wilson for the past six years. She has a BA in International Studies from Kenyon College and holds a Master’s degree in Intercultural Service, Leadership and Management from The School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. Anna has worked in a variety of educational settings over the past sixteen years, with the bulk of her work sitting at the intersection of community engagement and international education. She worked for an educational non-profit in the outskirts of Buenos Aires for several years, served as the director of the Princeton Bridge Year Program in Peru for two years (whereby Princeton freshmen conducted a year of community engagement work in a rural region of the Andes), and she worked for the Foundation for Sustainable Development in San Francisco for several years, partnering with universities to provide community engagement programs to students in international settings through grassroots non-profit partnerships. Anna is passionate about bringing a critical eye to the fields of community engagement and study abroad, and harnessing efforts through collaborative partnerships that are driven by the values of equity, justice, and accessibility. She is thrilled to be moving into this new role at Warren Wilson and looks forward to collaborating with staff and faculty to continue building imaginative, embedded, justice-centered experiential education opportunities for students and community partners.