By Rick Vacek | May 5, 2025
Dr. Salena Brody’s wildest dreams continue to be exceeded only by the reality of the Short-term Working Groups.
As the pandemic waned several years ago, the Associate Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning dreamed of starting a program that would unite faculty and small groups of students on four-session projects outside the classroom for 1½ to two hours per week.
Five semesters and 52 groups later, the SWGs (pronounced swigs) are a certifiable hit on The University of Texas at Dallas campus.
The Short-term Working Groups are here for the long term.
“The plan was to institutionalize the program,” Brody said. “I think we’ve made it.”
The program’s growth blossomed into another idea: She dreamed that a few people would want to gather to celebrate those early accomplishments.
So, of course, a standing-room-only crowd packed the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center ballroom for the first SWG Showcase Celebration, made possible by a grant from the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund. An alumna going to medical school in another state flew to Dallas just to be there.
“I had a vision for so long of being in that room and seeing all those people,” Brody said, “but I didn’t dream it would be like that.”
Then she dreamed of students speaking from the heart about what the SWGs had done for their academic confidence.
Naturally, they went far beyond that, declaring that the SWGs had changed their lives in four emotion-filled presentations that had faculty members telling Brody for weeks afterward how moved they were.
“Those resonated with everybody,” she said. “People really, really loved it. I could feel the energy in the room, people rooting for the speakers.”
There was only one way to describe that day.
“This is absolutely a dream come true,” Brody told the audience.
Talk to those four students about the SWGs a few days after their Showcase presentations, and you hear one remarkable story after another.
Like Brody, they can’t quite believe the program’s effect, either.
“I don’t think I realized the impact of SWG until everything happened.”
SOFIA MEINARDUS
Sofia Meinardus, sophomore, cognitive science major:
“I don’t think I realized the impact of SWG until everything happened. Life is continuously moving. Sometimes you don’t realize that the opportunities you’ve been given are that big until you look back and reflect and think, ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that.’ That whole speech and showcase made me reflect and realize that SWG is the reason I am where I am right now.”
Ashlyn Day, junior, counseling and child learning major, plans to graduate after Fall 2025 semester:
“I really don’t know what my life would have looked like, just in terms of how I present myself as a person and how I experience myself as a person, if not for SWG and Dr. Brody’s mentorship. Do I think I could have gotten into a lab eventually? Maybe. Probably. But could I have gotten into a lab with the level of self-assurance and confidence and the skillset that I felt I needed to take opportunities that were presented to me, to be able to say yes confidently. No, I don’t think so at all.”
Sansita Gajavelli, sophomore, biomedical engineering major:
“I’ve changed so much. It’s more of a can-do spirit. I didn’t even want to come here. I was scared to leave my parents. I couldn’t even grasp the concept of college. What do you mean that I have to leave my parents and study all the time?
“Then over the last two years I’ve learned it’s not all about studying. You have to make relationships. There are lifelong memories. You can do so much more than just study. Yes, that’s obviously the main reason you go to college, but there’s so much more than just going to school, doing homework and taking tests.”
“SWG changed how I approach opportunities now in that I am more willing to be open-minded to something new.”
NITIN CHIKKODI
Nitin Chikkodi, junior, molecular biology major:
“Before my SWG experience, I’d say that I was someone who was hesitant in college. As a freshman, I was unsure if I’d be able to find a place if I belonged and if I’d be able to work on something meaningful to me. College is a much bigger environment than high school, and I initially struggled with taking advantage of all the opportunities around me due to feelings of fear.
“However, SWG changed how I approach opportunities now in that I am more willing to be open-minded to something new. I still have that fear in me, but my SWG experience showed me that it’s OK to have those feelings – we just shouldn’t let them control us.”
One of the many SWG benefits is the way the small groups create leadership roles. But it’s one thing to speak to a handful of students in a small room; it’s quite another to talk to 150 people, both faculty and students, in a large ballroom.
“That was definitely a really cool moment that I would not have been able to do without SWG,” Meinardus said. “I was more excited and nervous once it finished. As soon as I sat down, I was shaking. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. What did I do?’”
Like the others, Day had never given a talk to a group that large.
“I was terrified, for sure … for sure,” she said. “But as with pretty much all my experiences with Dr. Brody and SWG, it was like, ‘This is an incredibly daunting task, but I am in an environment where I feel safe and supported enough to take on this really crazy, intimidating thing.’”
Brody further challenged the students by having three of the four follow a Pecha Kucha format – they had 20 seconds to talk about each PowerPoint slide in their three-minute presentations. Gajavelli’s speech was a tribute to the instructor in her two SWGs, Dr. Ben Porter, Associate Professor of Instruction in Bioengineering.
The Pecha Kucha trio kept falling behind in the dress rehearsal the day before. But when it was time to be on time, they consistently hit their marks.
“The students who got up were so brave to share their story, to do it in front of an overflowing room, and to do it when it was a ticking clock,” Brody said. “I’m so thrilled to work with them, to take them from their ideas to that moment – working with them was like a bonus mentoring opportunity for me. To see it go from their first draft to when they were owning the room was amazing.”
Brody was equally amazed by the number of faculty who took the time to be there. “That says something about how special those relationships were,” she said.
There was much more to the event – desserts that quickly disappeared (“I learned that students really like dessert,” Brody said, laughing), raffle prizes, exchanges of pins that were created for each SWG and lots of photo opportunities afterward.
But those talks … oh, those four talks. They were like a declaration of independence from fear.
“The students’ speeches really moved everybody in the room because they showed us all how meaningful it is to matter,” Brody said. “The students matter to their faculty, they matter to the success of the project, and it doesn’t take years to do.
“SWG is about building confidence and building a relationship and intellectual curiosity. I think as you check off more and more of those possible outcomes, that’s where the life-changing happens. Students were brave, they signed up for something where they didn’t know how it was going to go, and they had to lean into the relationship for those outcomes to happen.”
Again, just ask the students. They’ll tell you.
“SWG helped me break out of my shell,” Meinardus said. “Before SWG, I don’t think I would have been able to go up in front of a huge crowd of people and do a speech like that. I don’t think me a year ago would think that was possible.”
Day was talking to her mother the night before her speech about how much she has changed.
“I really don’t think I would recognize ‘freshman me’ versus me now just in terms of confidence and general sense of calm when approaching new, challenging things,” she said. “It’s very, very different.”
And Gajavelli has seen tangible evidence in her classes.
“Before, I didn’t help people because I didn’t know if I had the right answer,” she said. “Now I help them and if I’m not sure of the answer, I ask. That’s how you make friends, too.
“I’m not scared anymore.”
*****
Read more about the SWGs:
Short-term Groups Transform Research Perspectives
SWGs Give Students a Taste of Becoming Known