The Beloit Companion / Short Guides for Families
A Beloit education equips students to see beyond boundaries. It helps them examine the past, scrutinize the present, and imagine the future. Students experiment, revise, transform—and become ready for the world ahead.
Top 10 most innovative college
(U.S. News & World Report)
The world is always changing—and we change with it. We create majors in new fields. We work with students to create a sustainable campus culture. We find smart, strategic ways to respond to profound shifts in consciousness.
In January, we offer students two weeks of workshops, panels, and networking opportunities. The goals: identifying, pursuing, and securing the job, internship, or graduate school placement of their (very realistic) dreams. The Career Accelerator includes intensive interview preparation, remote site visits to regional and national businesses and organizations, and personalized guidance from accomplished alumni and professionals in a range of fields.
To understand this evolving world, we need new fields of study. In 2020, we added Data Analytics and Data Science, and a major and minor in Critical Identity Studies, a wide-ranging field of profound urgency and lasting impact. Our interdisciplinary Environmental Studies major includes two tracks, one in Environmental Justice and Citizenship, and one in Environmental Communication and Arts.
When the pandemic emerged, we met the moment. Our community came together to make ambitious, strategic plans that would guarantee a safe return to campus. We created the Beloit Action Plan—including the Advanced Mentoring Program and the Midwest Flagship Match—that addresses the academic, social, and financial needs of our students.
As we planned for the fall of 2020, our students took a major role. The college laid out health and safety protocols and updated our facilities and programs to accommodate in-person learning. Our students took the crucial next step, developing and writing a Student Statement of Culture, a community agreement that establishes shared norms and behaviors to help our entire community stay safe. Read more about this innovative collaboration in Forbes and The Daily Beast.
Career Channels is a program designed to make clear, strong connections between classroom and career. Students can join a Channel—a voluntary community—in one of an expanding number of fields, from Curating and Communicating to Business and Entrepreneurship. Each Channel offers access to relevant people, programs, and resources, on and off campus.
How do you respond to a challenge? How do you address the hard questions? How do you inspire those around you? Beloit has always been ready.
A professor talks about creating a resilient campus culture.
Ron Watson, Associate Professor of Political Science and Health and Society:
This is a remarkable moment in the history of Beloit. Everything feels possible.
I see it in our response to the pandemic, the work we put into bringing people back to campus in a way that allows everyone to learn and grow. I see it in our willingness to have difficult conversations about race, power, and privilege. We ask the hard questions, and we expect our students, and ourselves, to confront, address, and unpack the hard answers.
And what happens is that when students come to Beloit, they’re transformed. I’m thinking of a student who had grown up without many opportunities. But he had a vision of being involved in fashion and design. He came to Beloit, he studied abroad, and his horizons got much bigger. He started making big plans and putting them into action. His experience says so much about his character. It also says something about the environment we create at Beloit.
Entrepreneurs are optimists and pragmatists. They see a need and find creative ways to meet it. They see a problem and find collaborative ways to solve it. The spirit and practice of entrepreneurship are everywhere at Beloit.
Meaningful progress is a collective enterprise. To us, innovation is grounded in relationships, engages with communities, and advances the common good.
Our Duffy Community Partnerships program—named for the late James Duffy ’49, the former president of ABC—is rooted in relationships with dozens of local agencies, civic offices, and service organizations. Students apply for admission to a sociology class that serves as their home base. They’re placed with a partner organization for a full term, completing 90 hours of work, gaining professional skills, completing a time-sensitive project, and studying the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in their field. Some students go on to conduct (and often publish) summer research that emerges from their experience.
We offer a range of service-learning courses that give students hands-on experience working with (or conducting research for) local organizations. One example: In our Psychology Practicum, students complete internships at local schools, clinics, service agencies, and more—and reflect and report on the experience with classmates, professors, and members of the organization.
Belmark Associates is a student-managed market research firm, founded by students in 1985 and currently housed in our Center for Entrepreneurship. Assisted by faculty mentors and advisors, students design and implement research, share their results, and make recommendations. One recent example: A small team of students and Professors Laura Grube and Brian Morello conducted demographic research for Acts Housing, a regional nonprofit that helps low-income families purchase and renovate homes. Other clients include the First National Bank of Beloit, University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, and the Beloit Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Our approach to innovation is thoughtful, strategic, and respectful of what’s come before. Building a sustainable future often means preserving the best of the past.
Our new student union and athletic center is a brilliant re-imagining of a decommissioned power station on the Rock River. The Powerhouse is a soaring 120,000-square-foot facility that won World Architecture Festival awards for best re-use and best future project. This is how tomorrow works.
The not-so-secret plan of the Powerhouse is to integrate the social, physical, and intellectual elements of campus life.
Our new home for competitive and recreational swimming, featuring eight 25-yard lanes, one- and three-meter diving boards, and a video board and timing system.
Because people naturally come together over hot drinks and baked goods.
The Powerhouse is home to several other fitness spaces and our Health & Wellness Center.
A contemporary space for film screenings, presentations, and lectures.