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Experiential Learning

Transforming students into independent, creative, and critically conscious thinkers and performers. 

  • Joey Nolan '24, attended the Atlantic Acting School summer conservatory program prior to his senior year. Joey is an actor, director and ...
    Joey Nolan '24, attended the Atlantic Acting School summer conservatory program prior to his senior year. Joey is an actor, director and lighting designer with a passion for making theater accessible to all people.
  • Sophia Bush '25 was an integral member of the Hedgerow Theatre Company summer team, Sophia helped build the set, worked backstage, and ev...
    Sophia Bush ’25 was an integral member of the Hedgerow Theatre Company summer team, Sophia helped build the set, worked backstage, and even fearlessly filled in as Stage Manager for several performances.
  • Gabby Price '25 spent the summer as an intern at a local dance school.
    Gabby Price '25 spent the summer as an intern at a local dance school.

All students at Ursinus College complete the Experiential Learning Project (XLP), designed to empower them to take initiative in the acquisition of education and to build confidence in themselves. 

Do more than One.

Theater and Dance majors may work on more than one experiential learning project during their four years in college. Indeed, an independent study might spark an idea for a Summer Fellows project, which, in turn, might then serve as the beginning of the capstone honors project. 

Students themselves determine the specific content of independent research projects, and double majors are encouraged to pursue interdisciplinary honors projects. 

Featured Story

Not Just Hackers: Analyzing Computer Scientists in Popular Media

Tre Dunlap ’25, a computer science major and theater minor from Brooklyn, N.Y., is analyzing the portrayal of computer scientists in popular media under the mentorship of Professor of Theater Domenick Scudera as a part of the Ursinus College Summer Fellows research program

Research Project Examples

  • Tools for Change: Theatre for Social Justice in Communities of Marginalized Youth
  • Mystery & Magic: Playwriting in Theory and Practice
  • Colorism in the Works of African-American Dramatists
  • The Art of the Story: An Introduction to Playwriting and Dramatic Adaptation
  • Bitter Bitches: Feminism, Theater, and Dark Comedy
  • In Pursuit of Theater for Social Change: Theater as a Vehicle for Sexual Violence Prevention Education
  • Female Stage Comedy: History and Practice
  • Violence in Modern & Postmodern Drama
  • Human Suffering in the Work of Samuel Beckett
  • A Feminist Reading of Women’s Agency in Euripides’ Tragedies
  • Creation of Interdisciplinary Performance Art Piece, Ricochet
  • Creation of Museum Installation, Disclose
  • Medusa Myth/Creation of Original Play
  • Pigeonholed: Representations of Autism in Drama
  • Pride and Prejudice: A Modern, Queer Retelling for the Stage
  • Writing Resistance: Examining the Evolution of Feminist Ideology and Theory in Theatre Since the Second Wave
  • Sexing the Stage: Designing Sets for Queer Plays
  • Designing for Yiddish Drama