DSF projects should be transformative learning experiences, reflecting student and faculty imagination, creativity, and ingenuity. These projects should be opportunities for students and faculty to learn together in imaginative ways beyond the traditional academic course. DSF projects should not resemble conventional modes of instruction. They are decidedly not internships or solely resume-building exercises.

DSF projects should reflect critical thinking and engagement on the parts of both students and faculty. Student fellows and faculty alike should be active and engaged learners in the process, working together in collaboration and making good use of their discernment and judgment in their shared projects. Faculty mentors should be fully engaged and “hands-on” in the project, including their students in truly collaborative work.

DSF projects should engage with diverse perspectives in global and local communities and across disciplines and bring them into meaningful dialogue. Through their projects, students and faculty should also illuminate and engage with the entanglements of the various, multifaceted human dimensions tied to their work (such as the ethical, the social, the historical, the scientific, and the transcendent). The comprehensive nature of DSF projects means that they in all likelihood cannot be entirely completed in any one silo of learning, such as the library or the laboratory.

DSF projects should be responsive and contribute something of value to the broader community. They should engage with matters having practical import outside of the university setting and be responsive to human concerns, needs, and wants. (A project’s practical value and import should not be construed narrowly in economistic or materialistic terms, but broadly in more humanistic terms.)