Lauren Kznarich, MA

Ms. Krznarich is the Associate Director for Experiential Learning in the Office of New Student Courses. She was excited to start her first semester at UTA and work directly with experiential learning curriculum which includes both service learning and other things.

Lauren’s experience with service learning comes from when she was a student in college but it wasn’t until she implemented it into her own courses that she was able to see the value of it. She has taught service learning at her past institutions and assists in embedding service learning in first-year UNIV courses at UTA.

She enjoys the translation service learning makes with what a student learns in class to what they do in terms of the project. Being in the faculty fellows program, Lauren enjoyed building relationships and the connections as well as having a resource group to toss ideas out to, connect with, and to know that other people are also interested in working on this at the same time.

Lauren advises faculty hesitant about introducing service learning to start small and not feel obligated to do giant all-inclusive projects immediately. She adds to stay connected with others and build a relationship with a community partner to see where it leads you. Even if it does not work out how you initially planned, it will be a learning experience.