New Issue of ELTHE Explores the Experiential Learning Imperative, Student Voice, Connection, and Hope

Experiential Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ELTHE), a peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Experiential Education, offers open access to research, commentary, and reflective scholarship that advances experiential learning across higher education contexts.

The June 2026 issue brings together contributions that ask not only whether experiential learning works, but for whom it works, under what conditions, and to what larger ends. Across institutional strategy, undergraduate research, high-impact practices, nursing education, and critical hope, authors examine how experiential learning can be designed, aligned, assessed, and sustained in ways that support students, educators, institutions, and communities.

All ELTHE issues are available free to read online. Readers can explore the current issue and past volumes at this link.

In This Issue

The Experiential Learning Imperative for Higher Education: Leadership, Alignment, Partnership, and Refinement | Stephen P. Hundley

This invited commentary positions experiential learning as a strategic imperative for higher education. Hundley offers a four-part framework—leadership, alignment, partnership, and refinement—for helping institutions move experiential learning beyond isolated programs or local enthusiasm. The article invites readers to consider how experiential learning can make student learning visible, strengthen institutional identity, and provide evidence of impact in a moment of heightened expectations for higher education. Read more.

High-Impact Undergraduate Research Metaphors | Marcy Meyer

This peer-reviewed article explores how students make meaning of undergraduate research through metaphor. Drawing on students’ reflective essays, Meyer examines how learners describe high-impact undergraduate research as a journey, a sport or competition, and an architectural process. The article highlights how students’ language can reveal their understanding of struggle, progress, scaffolding, and support, offering practical insight for educators designing and facilitating undergraduate research experiences. Read more.

Personas and Motivations | Thaksheel Alleck, Adam Golian, Talley Lyons, Jake Panzer, Taylor Butler, Michelle Spada, & Eric Obeysekare

This peer-reviewed article centers student voice in the study of high-impact opportunities. Using semi-structured interviews and grounded theory analysis, the authors identify student personas that illuminate the diverse motivations, barriers, and decision-making patterns shaping participation in high-impact practices. Their findings call on institutions to design more targeted, equitable, and inclusive interventions that respond to students’ lived experiences and aspirations. Read more.

Use of a Group Art Project as Experiential Learning to Promote Student Connection and Retention in an RN to BSN Course | Jaime Sinutko, Sonya Kowalski, & Elaine Webber

Situated in the context of enrollment and retention challenges in RN to BSN programs, this peer-reviewed article examines how a collaborative art project can foster connection, belonging, and persistence. Drawing on student reflections, the authors show how a modest, relationship-centered experiential intervention embedded early in a hybrid program can increase peer connection and motivation to continue. Read more.

Struggling to Hope: Is Experiential Education a Pedagogy of Hope? | Patrick M. Green & Joshua Meyer

This extended conference abstract explores the relationship between experiential education and hope in a world shaped by uncertainty, injustice, and complex social problems. Green and Meyer position experiential education within traditions of critical hope, inviting readers to consider how experiential learning can sustain agency, imagination, and possibility for students, educators, and institutions navigating fragile conditions. Read more.

From the Editor

In her Editor’s Note, Editor-in-Chief Amy Cicchino invites the ELTHE community to pause and reflect on the value, conditions, and purposes of experiential learning. She frames the June issue around a central challenge: experiential learning must be able to demonstrate its impact while remaining responsive to students, attentive to context, and connected to larger educational aims.

Taken together, the articles in this issue emphasize the importance of listening carefully, designing responsively, engaging in genuine partnership, and using evidence to refine practice. They remind readers that experiential learning matters most when it is aligned with student experience, institutional purpose, and the broader hopes we hold for higher education.

About Experiential Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ELTHE) 

ELTHE remains a shared space for scholars and practitioners to advance experiential learning across disciplines and institutional contexts. Readers interested in contributing to future issues can find submission guidelines and calls for proposals on the journal website.

Explore the June 2026 issue and past volumes at this link.