Centers of Excellence
Learning in On-Campus Professional Environments
Through extensive experiences beyond the classroom, Champlain students get a clear vision of how reality can deviate from textbook scenarios; through their own experiences, our students learn how to put theory into practice.
Champlain’s Centers of Excellence—on-campus learning centers in studio-like environments in which students across majors work on professional projects—put Champlain students’ classroom knowledge to the test through practical application on real projects. Within these experiential learning environments, in which students are entrusted with real responsibility and are challenged to accomplish ambitious goals, students develop top leadership qualities such as creativity and confidence, insight and integrity.
BYOBIZ: Bring Your Own Business
Champlain's BYOBiz is the ultimate exercise in experiential learning. Featured in several national publications such as USAToday and Entrepreneur magazine, the BYOBiz program mentors young entrepreneurs in starting and growing business ventures while they are still in college.
As a young entrepreneur, in any major, you can go to the BYOBiz Center for any kind of assistance in launching or growing your business concept, including business plan counseling and gaining access to venture capital resources, private investors and local service providers.
The Center for Financial Literacy
Champlain College's nationally acclaimed, one-of-a-kind financial literacy program hopes to increase knowledge of money matters in classrooms across Vermont, ensure college students graduate with the skills to make sound decisions about spending, credit and investments, and help adults navigate difficult financial situations like buying a home and saving for retirement.
The Center is designed to promote and develop financial literacy skills in K-12 students, college students, teachers (K-12 and college) and adults. The Center will also advocate for more financial education opportunities at the local, state and national level.
The Patrick Leahy Center for Digital Investigation (LCDI)
Champlain has an outstanding reputation in the field of information security and digital forensics—critical elements of information assurance. Among an elite group of four-year colleges and graduate-level universities, Champlain College has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the U.S. National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, an honor awarded to just 110 institutions in the country.
The Patrick Leahy Center for Digital Investigation brings state-of-the-art tools, techniques and skills from the burgeoning field of digital investigation to our students and brings national information assurance experts to campus, enhancing Champlain’s well-established undergraduatelevel B.S. program in Computer & Digital Forensics, highly regarded throughout academic and professional circles in both the private and public sector. The Center also serves as a digital forensics information and training clearinghouse for law enforcement and legal investigation professionals in Vermont and the entire Northeast region of the country.
Emergent Media Center (EMC)
The Emergent Media Center is an academic Center of Excellence at Champlain College that, in partnership with industry, public institutions and nonprofits, creates a laboratory/studio environment in which students collaborate with each other, faculty and clients to develop new concepts, processes, uses and applications for games and other emergent media.
Through a paid position, work-study or internship in the EMC, you can be part of a team that uses game technologies and emergent media to integrate art and code with cultural awareness, creativity and communication. For example, students working in the EMC in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund created a game called Breakaway that addresses the issue of violence against women. The students traveled to South Africa to research the topic, created the concept, developed the game and presented it at the Montreal International Game Summit as well as at the United Nations. Students also worked personally with international soccer star Samuel Eto’o, the spokesperson for the project’s rollout at the 2010 World Cup Games, held this past summer in South Africa.
A different group of students working through the EMC created digital 3D models of all the buildings in Burlington using Google SketchUp that are being used by Burlington city officials for long-range planning, environmental assessment, economic development and emergency response. Other recent EMC projects completed by students include developing two new missions for America’s Army, a popular online game with more than 9.4 million users, and games to promote literacy.
Champlain College Publishing Initiative
Champlain is all about creating graduates who are marketready, experienced as well as knowledgeable and able to compete.The Champlain College Publishing Initiative (CCPI) involves as many students as possible from different professional disciplines—our Professional Writing students create literary works; the Graphic Design & Digital Media majors produce the book layouts, typography and covers; the Marketing majors identify the right sales channels; the Accounting students work through production and promotion budgets, etc. All the disciplines bring classmates together to work closely with each other toward a shared goal.
“The goal,” says Professor Tim Brookes, program director of Champlain’s Professional Writing program, “is to give these students a supervised educational experience in the contemporary field of publishing that is creative, demanding and applicable.
A game created by students for a senior project