Ohio Wesleyan Featured in New Edition of ‘Colleges That Change Lives’
DELAWARE, OHIO – Ohio Wesleyan University is featured in the new edition of “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges.” In the book, released today, Ohio Wesleyan is described as “a shining beacon of what happens when a campus embraces collaboration in the context of liberal learning. … This is the stuff of higher education.”
For the book, education journalist Hilary Masell Oswald visited Ohio Wesleyan in 2011 and conducted in-depth interviews with students, professors, and administrators to evaluate the university’s curriculum, extracurricular activities, admission standards, and more. Ohio Wesleyan has been featured in the book ever since the first edition was published in 1996 by Loren Pope, a former New York Times education editor.
In Oswald’s text, the journalist praises Ohio Wesleyan’s recent curricular enhancements including new Course Connections networks, Travel-Learning classes, and Theory-to-Practice grants. The enhancements are intended to help students understand issues of global importance from multiple academic perspectives and to combine international learning opportunities with real-world educational experiences.
Oswald notes Ohio Wesleyan’s outcomes already have included, for example, students visiting Pakistan to research U.S.-Pakistani relations, Bangladesh to examine microfinancing and poverty, and Italy to study interconnections between food and health.
“As you might expect, the campus buzzes with excitement,” Oswald writes. “Everyone is dreaming big, and the college has the structure to support those dreams.”
She also praises Ohio Wesleyan’s efforts to help students to mature in all aspects of life.
“The character development that accompanies intellectual growth is exceptional,” she states. “Few places pay so much attention to the whole person. Egos are small here, and hearts are big.”
Ohio Wesleyan President Rock Jones, Ph.D., said the university is excited to be recognized for its efforts to educate tomorrow’s leaders and prepare them for life in a rapidly changing, interconnected world.
“Our mission is to graduate students who are prepared to become moral leaders in a global society,” Jones said. “Our dedicated faculty and comprehensive curriculum prepare students to analyze multiple viewpoints, identify sound reasoning, solve complex problems, and communicate solutions. We dedicate ourselves to ‘changing lives’ every day, and our inclusion in this influential guidebook is another indicator that we succeed.”
Learn more about “Colleges That Change Lives” at http://www.ctcl.org. Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s curriculum at https://www.owu.edu/academics/.
Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier small, private universities, with more than 90 undergraduate majors, sequences, and courses of study, and 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Located in Delaware, Ohio, just minutes north of Ohio’s capital and largest city, Columbus, the university combines a globally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities that translate classroom theory into real-world practice. OWU’s close-knit community of 1,850 students represents 47 states and 57 countries. Ohio Wesleyan was named to the 2012 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with distinction, is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” and is included on the “best colleges” lists of U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review. Learn more at www.owu.edu.