Strengthening Experiential Education: A New Era

There has been a "sea change" in higher education since the 1986 edition was published. NSEE contributed to and has benefitted immensely from those changes. And one corollary or consequence of this profound change is that experiential education professionals will be more effective in institutionalizing experiential education in their respective institutions and K-16 education overall if we exploit the resources and legitimating entities that currently exist and are emerging every day. Very few of us in 1986 were bold enough to predict the prominent place that experiential education would assume throughout the K-16 enterprise. Put simply, high impact learning practices, civic engagement, community-based learning and research, and classroom engagement are the new mantras in K-16 education. Experiential education has, indeed, moved to center stage. We are certainly in a new era, one requiring competent experiential education professionals "now more than ever".