Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty

Higher EducationVirginia, United States2-10 Employees

Established in 1998 as the Shepherd Alliance and incorporated in 2011 as the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty, SHECP unites institutions to collaborate for an important venture in undergraduate and professional education. The member schools integrate rigorous classroom study of poverty with tailored and focused summer internships and co-curricular activities during the academic year. This combination, sustained over two or three years, enriches the education of students in a wide variety of majors and professional studies who intend many different career paths. The intent is to prepare students for a lifetime of professional, civic and political activity that will diminish poverty, drawing on a multitude of perspectives and initiatives.

A sustained study of poverty including firsthand experience has been conspicuously absent from undergraduate interdisciplinary studies and has not been prominent in professional education. SHECP leads an effort to change this situation so that poverty studies will take their place alongside other interdisciplinary programs in higher education. The SHECP model, a combination of curriculum and co-curricular activities, differs from some interdisciplinary programs in that it is explicitly designed to enrich all undergraduate majors and professional studies and not to become an independent major or professional trajectory.

“Shepherd” honors a couple who are the founding benefactors of a prototype for these programs that was developed at Washington and Lee University. They have nurtured W&L’s program for many years and are contributors and advisers to SHECP.

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