Transformative gift for signature Brock Experience

“A Longwood admissions counselor came to my high school last fall and told us all about these courses where students travel around the country and talk to people who are dealing with them,” said Williams. “It sounded like a really cool experience and exactly the type of hands-on learning that I’m looking for. It really sold me on Longwood right away.”

Now more students like Zachary will have an opportunity to immerse themselves in issues facing all citizens.

On Friday, Longwood announced a new $5 million investment from Joan Brock ’64, who established the program with her husband, Macon, through a founding gift in 2016.

This latest gift will enable more students in the future to embark on in-country learning experiences, through additional scholarship funding, increased capacity, and the development of new courses.

“The impact Joan Brock has already made on her alma mater goes beyond words” said Longwood President W. Taylor Reveley IV. “The Brock Experiences program has already helped shape the lives of a generation of Longwood students, fulfilling Joan and Macon’s dream when this idea first took hold. The extraordinary generosity of this new gift will further strengthen a signature program of the Longwood experience – unlike anything else in higher education -- that will draw even more students here, help them to participate in something that will transform their lives and careers, and advance our mission of citizen-leadership.”

Brock Experiences are a group of immersive courses that offer in-depth study of an unresolved issue of our time in a place affected by that issue. Each year, students complete coursework before traveling to an area of the country and then conduct interviews, learn from experts, and experience firsthand the ongoing civic questions raised by the underlying topic.

The Brock program builds on the pioneering course that takes Longwood students to Yellowstone National Park each spring to study public land management and stewardship. Since then, 10 additional courses have been established and students have traveled throughout the United States: from Boston to Puerto Rico, from Alaska to the Arizona.

In Yellowstone National Park, for example, students study the place of national parks in society as well as considering issues of conservation, wildlife management, and environmental protection. Recently students have traveled to New Orleans to study how a community reckons with, celebrates and preserves its history, to Alaska to consider how economic pressures over natural resources impact policymaking and citizen rights, and to Silicon Valley to study the ethical and practical challenges of genomics research.

Faculty from across Longwood’s three academic colleges regularly propose courses and are selected as Brock Fellows. These fellows receive support to develop Brock Experiences – lining up learning experiences for the students – then offer them to students as semi-regular courses.

“Brock Experiences have been transformative for Longwood,” said Josh Blakely, director of Brock Experiences and senior director of integrated learning for the Cormier Honors College. “They provide a level of depth and meaning for students that they can’t get in the classroom—it’s making academics come alive and teaching students how to apply their Longwood education to the broader world. This new investment will allow us to offer more scholarships to make Brock Experiences accessible to more students, develop more courses, and increase enrollment in our great slate of courses already in place.”