School of Adult and Professional Education
Special Adult Options
Prior Experiential Learning/Portfolio Course

The School of Adult and Professional Education students, except for Nursing majors, with extensive and varied experiential learning may participate in the Prior Experiential Learning Assessment (P.E.L.A.) Program, which gives students the opportunity to apply for credit for their prior experiential learning. Validated learning, not the experience alone, is the basis for awarding credit. It should be noted that the School of Adult and Professional Education does not award credit for “having lived,” but rather for having mastered – through professional, creative, volunteer, or other experience – knowledge and skills that are deemed to be at the college level and are applicable in the context of the student’s degree program.

To resister for this Pass/No Credit Seminar, students must meet with a P.E.L.A. advisor and obtain written approval.  (The P.E.L.A. Coordinator reserves the right to limit students’ programs during the semester in which the students are enrolled in the Seminar.) The Seminar is a mentored course designed to facilitate the assessment of prior experiential learning for the purpose of developing an experiential learning portfolio. In part, the Seminar consists of individualized exercises designed to identify acquired skills and knowledge, and culminates in presenting these as college–credit worthy, relating these to the student’s degree program and career goals.

An integral part of the Seminar is the validation process, which consists of assembling all relevant documents into a prior experiential learning portfolio under the supervision of a qualified mentor. Portfolios are evaluated by faculty members, and a credit award is made by the P.E.L.A. Evaluation Committee taking into consideration content, competence level, college–credit appropriateness, and applicability to the student’s degree program. Notification of the credit award is sent to the students by the Registrar prior to the conclusion of the next regular semester. At the time credit awards are made, students’ records will be updated to reflect the addition of credits.