by:
  Kris Bulcroft,
  Carmen Werder, and
  Glenn Gilliam

  Introduction

Western Washington University, a public regional comprehensive university in the state of Washington, continues to engage in dialogue fostered by the American Association of Higher Education's Campus Conversations Project. This discussion has proven instrumental in significant change initiatives across campus and has expanded our collective understandings about the correlation between the scholarship of teaching and student learning outcomes. Central to our campus conversations has been the student voice in providing a rich source of data regarding this relationship.

Evidence suggests that students who are actively involved in designing their own learning experiences, coupled with opportunities to reflect on those experiences, achieve much deeper learning (Light, 2001). At the same time, higher education literature points to the need for shifting to a learning-centered paradigm, and increasingly institutions are seeking ways to become more student-centered in their mission and programs (Barr and Tagg, 1995).

The inclusion of the student voice in the Campus Conversation at Western Washington University has provided a distinctive opportunity for learners to become active agents in designing new organizational approaches that more clearly focus on student learning. Ensuring that students have an integral and ongoing voice in this dialogue has resulted in our identifying ways to support teaching to achieve the learning outcomes identified by the students themselves.

• Introduction
• Campus Conversation at Western Washington University (Parts I & II)
• Where are the Students?
• Leadership Inside Out
• The AAHE Summer Academy
• A Web of Connections
• The Teaching and Learning Academy
• A New Course on Learning
• Diffuse Leadership
• A Public Rally for Learning
• Lessons Learned from the Students
• References
• print version