Each year, the ExEd Champion program provides recognition, professional development, and resources to
Purdue faculty and staff who are passionate about experiential education and its impacts on students. Six faculty and staff members, including Dr. Reuben Goforth, were selected as the 2024-2025 ExEd Champions.
“I am constantly uplifted by the sense of wonder and accomplishment I see in my students as they get their hands dirty and feet wet,” Goforth said. “There is always a mix of learning styles among students. However, my experience is that experiential learning is almost universally applied to a wide range of students with successful outcomes across the board. In addition, student directed and integrated participation in course activities promote learning for students who often underperform in classroom-only courses. This allows such students to “shine” in ways that may not be apparent otherwise.”
Goforth came to Purdue FNR in 2007 as an assistant professor of aquatic ecology and was promoted to associate professor in 2014. He serves on several committees within FNR, previously acting as the chair of the curriculum committee and also serving on the assistant professor promotions committee and student awards committee.
He was an instructor for the FNR Nature of Wild Things Learning Community from 2015-17. He has been the faculty advisor for the American Fisheries Society student subunit (2008-2013) and the Marine Biology Club (2011 – present).
He served on the College of Agriculture curriculum, student relations and awards committees. At the university level, Goforth was part of the Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award selection committee in 2018 and 2019. Currently, he is a panel member reviewing and advising Title IX cases for the Office of Institutional Equity and the Office of the Dean of Students (2016 – present).
In 2019, Goforth was selected as one of 12 faculty and staff members from across the university to be trained as Mental Health First Aid instructors. He then led workshops from 2020 to 2022.
Internationally, Goforth mentored two students in a six-week National Science Foundation Underrepresented Minorities Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica in 2017. He was an Organization for Tropical Studies field course instructor at Palo Verde Biological Station in Costa Rica in 2023. He also served as a member of the science advisory board for the La Selva Biological Station for five years.
Goforth received FNR’s Outstanding Undergraduate Counselor Award (2012, 2019) and received the College of Agriculture’s David C. Pfendler Outstanding Undergraduate Counselor Award in 2019. He was honored with FNR’s William L. Hoover Faculty Service Award in 2021 and received the department’s Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Early Career Award in 2011. Goforth received the inaugural College of Agriculture’s Unsung Diversity Hero Award in 2016 as well as a North American College and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA) Educator Award in 2018. He was a College of Agriculture’s Professors Reviewing Excellent Practices 2018 cohort member and received a Teaching for Tomorrow Fellowship Award in 2019. Goforth also has been awarded two Purdue University Bravo Awards.
Goforth leads the Purdue FNR Marine Biology Practicum course (FNR 37800) each August, which presents
students with expanded opportunities to use field techniques to sample and report on marine habitats and organisms. The course emphasizes the proper care and use of field sampling gear and identification of fish and invertebrate samples from exposed shore, lagoon, and estuary habitats. A trip to Seahorse Key Marine Lab in the Gulf of Mexico is a central component of this course.
Goforth began taking students to Costa Rica over spring break in 2009. The trip was formalized as a College of Agriculture Study Abroad program in 2013. The trip has occurred every year since 2009, except in 2020 when it was canceled due to COVID19. The trip allows students to explore representative tropical ecosystems in Costa Rica and their resident species. They also experience what it is like to work at a biological station and in rural Costa Rican culture. Goforth also was a co-instructor for a three-week study abroad trip to Columbia in 2018.
In addition to the annual Marine Biology Practicum and Costa Rica Study Abroad trips, Goforth emphasizes experiential education in two of his other courses: Aquatic Sampling Techniques (FNR 351), and Aquatic Sciences Summer Practicum (FNR 371).
