At Convocation, Cornwell Announces New Fund for Student Internships, Experiential Learning

$100,000 in APEX Fellowships to be awarded this year

WOOSTER, Ohio, Aug. 28, 2012 – In his Convocation address to students, faculty, and staff today, Wooster President Grant Cornwell announced a new program that will provide $100,000 each year to support internships, applied scholarship opportunities, entrepreneurial ventures, and other forms of experiential learning for Wooster students.  

The grants, called APEX Fellowships, will be awarded competitively, based on proposals developed and pitched by individual students. The grant program is one part of the college’s new, comprehensive approach to student advising, academic and career planning, and experiential learning, dubbed APEX. Wooster’s existing programs and resources in these areas, once scattered around campus, were brought together this summer in a newly renovated space in Gault Library.  

“We have fundamentally rethought how we go about advising, mentoring your planning process, and organizing the host of opportunities we offer for you to experiment with your emerging life plans,” Cornwell told the Convocation audience. “APEX Fellowships are a strong signal of Wooster’s seriousness of purpose in helping you, our students, translate the value of your education into a trajectory beyond graduation.”  

Convocation marks the formal beginning of the new academic year. In addition to unveiling the APEX Fellowships, Cornwell urged both new and returning students to “remain open to insights and inspiration that can come from quarters you never anticipated. If your quest is to become a writer or a violinist, understand that geology, math, and physics can expand your soul. If you are resolved that medical school or scientific research is in your future, remember that philosophy, literature, history, and art will cultivate your humanity in ways that you will draw upon throughout your career, indeed, throughout your life.”  

Read the full text of Cornwell’s address.