UWRF Experiential Learning Course Seeks Projects for Spring 2015 Semester

November 13, 2014 -- The College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) at UW-River Falls is seeking businesses and organizations which have projects that they would like teams of university students to tackle, under the guidance of faculty mentors, as part of an Experiential Learning course.  

Each semester CAFES offers this course that requires teams of students to apply their academic skills to the completion of a project defined by a business or an organizational client. This course is typically taken in the student's senior year and is the culmination of the student's academic career. It is intended that the experience of completing this project will bridge the gap between the student's academic and professional careers.

The benefits to the business/organizational client include having more than 600 student person hours devoted to a project with possible end products being feasibility studies, design analyses, financial analyses, business plans, marketing plans and prototypes. In the course of their work, project teams draw on the expertise of faculty mentors and other UWRF faculty and staff.  

In addition, Steve DeWald, director of UWRF Small Business Development Center, mentors the students on multiple aspects of business planning and feasibility studies.   Clients are generally expected to pay a small fee to cover the cost of producing the deliverables. 

Current semester clients include the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association, the St. Croix Valley Foundation, the Great Rivers Confluence and two private farms. Marketing plans and business plans are among the deliverables for these clients.  

If you are interested in having your project considered for spring semester 2015, contact Adjunct Professor Juliet Tomkins at juliet.tomkins@uwrf.edu or 715-425-3298 by Monday, Dec. 1.