The Life Transformative Education Task Force at the University of Connecticut launched in 2019 with an ambitious challenge: to extend and scale life-transformative educational experiences to every single undergraduate student by graduation. Recognizing that such experiences already existed across UConn’s campuses in abundance, the Task Force set out to build the culture and infrastructure needed to make them universally accessible. Its first major initiative was Cultivate, a large online workshop that brought together over 150 faculty and staff colleagues to inspire, develop, and empower life-transformative educators across all UConn campuses.

One of the Task Force’s central pilot projects, Designing Purpose Through Service Learning, applied design thinking to the challenge of expanding experiential learning at scale. Service learning sits at the heart of this work because it naturally creates the conditions for purpose: students work on real community needs, develop agency through problem-solving, and practice reflection that deepens their identity as engaged citizens. A focused design sprint with faculty, staff, and students generated a two-year project plan implemented in partnership with the UConn Office of Outreach and Engagement. Particular attention was paid to regional campuses, where retention and graduation rates are lower and populations of first-generation and minoritized students are higher. A separate mentoring pilot paired faculty and staff volunteers with students identified as at risk of leaving, helping them navigate barriers to persistence. Together, these initiatives reflect UConn’s commitment to ensuring that life-transformative education is not a privilege of the few but a reality for all.