To implement Ideas to Action, we will increase the focus on critical thinking within our General Education Program and undergraduate courses and establish culminating experiences for practical application of the critical thinking skills students have developed throughout their education. Our yoking of critical thinking and a culminating experience is purposeful and empathetic. If our proposed marriage of critical thinking and a culminating experience is to be successful, it is vitally important that critical thinking be established as a primary objective in the earliest planning stages of the culminating experience.

The culminating experiences planned for the QEP will further ground and expand our students' capacities for critical thinking. Culminating experiences that units choose to offer should illustrate the use or enhancement of critical thinking skills. Therefore, in helping students design their projects, faculty and staff will need to ensure that critical thinking appears among the project's outcomes and is intentionally incorporated into the project's design. In addition to developing projects within a given major, faculty across the university can work together to develop experiences that will foster interdisciplinary learning. Also, faculty and staff will need to work together to make experiences outside of the university available to students.

The university has chosen to take an expansive approach to culminating experiences and expects participating units to develop a mix of approaches, which could include:

1. Capstone Courses/Projects
2. Internships
3. Senior Theses
4. Research Projects
5. Service Learning Projects