New Issue of ELTHE Explores Sustainability, Agency, and the Design of Experiential Learning

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 September 2026 issue brings together contributions centered on two increasingly important themes in experiential education: sustainability and agency. Across institutional strategy, study abroad, agricultural education, career readiness, and sustainability education, authors examine how educators and students can respond to changing conditions by intentionally designing, adapting, and sustaining meaningful learning experiences.

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

In This Issue

Permission to Grow: Reclaiming the Purpose of Experiential Education in a Climate of Fiscal Uncertainty | Holly Unruh, Heather Haeger

This invited commentary asks how experiential education can continue to grow amid shrinking resources and institutional constraints. Drawing on a framework of abundance and community cultural wealth, Unruh and Haeger challenge the familiar call to simply “do more with less” and offer strategies for working within, and, when necessary, beyond, existing structures to protect the transformative and equitable purposes of experiential education. Read more.

What If Students Built Something? Constructionism as a Response to the Study Abroad Reflection Problem | Irvine Clarke III, Theresa B. Clarke

This peer-reviewed article reconsiders reflection in study abroad through the lens of constructionism. Rather than relying primarily on private, retrospective reflection, the authors propose designing opportunities for students to create shareable artifacts that make their thinking visible and open to feedback, revision, and deeper interpretation. The article offers design principles for creating more meaningful and transformative reflective learning experiences abroad. Read more.

The Evaluation of Experiential Learning in Undergraduate Course Syllabi within a College of Agriculture | Grace Dooley, Stacy K. Vincent, Tyler Newberry

Using Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, this peer-reviewed study examines how experiential learning is represented in undergraduate course objectives and assignments within a College of Agriculture. The findings reveal uneven attention across the stages of experiential learning, highlighting opportunities for educators to more intentionally align course design, assignments, and learning objectives with the full experiential learning process. Read more.

Ready for Work? Community, Faculty, and Student Perceptions of Career Readiness Outcomes Through Involvement in a Service-Learning Showcase | Chelsea Redger-Marquardt, Rhonda Lewis, Payton Hamilton

This peer-reviewed study examines how students, faculty, and community partners perceive career-readiness development through participation in an annual service-learning showcase. Findings point to growth in communication, critical thinking, professionalism, and teamwork, while suggesting that public showcases can provide meaningful spaces for reflection, demonstration of learning, and community partnership. Read more.

Sustainability Education in Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Courses: Evidence from a Mixed-Methods Study | Yunkyung “Julie” Lee, Travis J. Miller, Md Arif Iqbal

This peer-reviewed article explores how short, experiential Life Cycle Assessment modules can build sustainability literacy and connect environmental learning to students’ future careers. Across undergraduate courses in applied food and apparel fields, students showed substantial gains in their familiarity with and understanding of Life Cycle Assessment, demonstrating how strategically embedded experiential modules can make sustainability education relevant beyond traditionally technical disciplines. Read more.

From the Editor

In her Editor’s Note, Editor-in-Chief Amy Cicchino frames the September issue around sustainability and agency. Rather than treating constrained resources, shifting expectations, and complex social and environmental challenges solely as limits on experiential education, she invites readers to consider what remains possible when educators, students, and communities use their agency to sustain, redesign, and create meaningful learning experiences.

Read together, the contributions emphasize that sustaining experiential learning depends not only on resources, but also on the capacity of educators, students, and communities to intentionally imagine, design, and create what comes next.

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 September 2026 issue and past volumes at this link.