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‘Create Your Own Story’

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‘Create Your Own Story’

Stories of how the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts has guided a generation of alumni

Two hands hold a vintage photograph of students on the steps of Main Hall in front of the same building today.
100 Years Upon the Hill
Illustration of Michele Sampson-Nelson ’03
An Administrator Serving First-Generation College Students

By Laura Barlament

Launched in 1998, the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts has now guided a generation of Wagner students.

What sets the Wagner Plan apart from a traditional liberal arts education? A series of special courses, called “Learning Communities,” show students how different disciplines work together to address large questions or issues. The Wagner Plan also incorporates experiential learning, so that students apply what they are learning in the community or in the workplace.

Wagner students take three Learning Communities — First-Year, Intermediate, and Senior — along with other general education courses and their major and/or minor courses.

Over the past few months, I have interviewed alumni who have graduated under the Wagner Plan, asking them how this educational model affected them and what continuing influence it has in their lives.

What I heard again and again is that the Wagner Plan enables students, in the words of Quincy Rasin ’18, to “create your own story.”

  • An Administrator Serving First-Generation College Students
  • A Music Promoter and Change Manager
  • A Prison Social Worker and Reformer
  • A Language Teacher and Global Citizen
  • A Public Relations Specialist and Civic Leader 
  • An Internal Auditor Who Can Connect the Dots
  • One Class, Many Paths
  • An Urban Physician Devoted to Diversity
  • A Corporate Lawyer with a Heart for Social Justice
  • A Community-Based Researcher with Eclectic Taste 

Winter 2018–19

  • Feature Stories
  • The Wagner Plan
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A Community-Based Researcher with Eclectic Taste

Mar 13, 2019 Wagner helps you "create your own story," says Quincy Rasin '18.
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An Urban Physician Devoted to Diversity

Mar 13, 2019 “In the Learning Communities, you learn to branch out, whether you’re comfortable with it or not,” says Dr. Violeta Capric ’12.
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One Class, Many Paths

Mar 13, 2019 In 2018, I checked in with a few students I had written about in 2007–11 and found out where their Wagner Plan education had led them.
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