Articles July 18, 2025 BURLINGTON, Vt. (July 17, 2025) — The Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry at Champlain College and Vermont-based nuwave Equity Corporation are joining forces to transform organizational culture through strength-based approaches and cutting-edge consulting. Founded on the pioneering work of Dr. David Cooperrider, Appreciative Inquiry is a globally recognized methodology that helps organizations thrive by identifying and scaling their core strengths. The Cooperrider Center, housed within Champlain College, is the world’s only academic center dedicated to advancing research, education and practice in Appreciative Inquiry. An award-winning Vermont-based technology and consulting firm, nuwave already integrates Appreciative Inquiry in its work helping organizations evolve their workplace culture. Grounded in the values of diversity, inclusion and equity, nuwave leverages cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to gather internal data through curated surveys, promoting scalable, cost-effective culture shifts that boost productivity and enhance workplace psychological safety. Through this collaboration the Cooperrider Center and nuwave will deepen the integration of Appreciative Inquiry into organizational culture transformation by co-developing educational content, case studies and evidence-based tools that help organizations move beyond deficit-based problem-solving to amplify what’s working. “At nuwave, we believe culture is the engine of performance,” said Emiliano Void, founder and CEO of nuwave Equity Corporation. “Appreciative Inquiry helps our clients build on their strengths to create meaningful, lasting change. Partnering with the Cooperrider Center brings unmatched expertise to this work, and we’re thrilled to be learning and building together.” This partnership builds on ongoing collaboration between Champlain College and nuwave, including the Vermont Culture Innovators Project. This student-centered initiative, funded by the Vermont Community Foundation, offers paid, hands-on learning opportunities for Champlain students who support culture change efforts in Vermont businesses. Together, nuwave and the Cooperrider Center will create practical resources for organizations seeking to evolve their cultures through strength-based practices, while also documenting success stories and generating new data on the impact of Appreciative Inquiry. These efforts will support organizational transformation, enrich Champlain College’s student learning opportunities, and expand public access to insights about what fosters truly thriving workplaces. “This partnership brings together a shared commitment to redefining how organizations approach change,” said Dr. Lindsey Godwin, academic director of the Cooperrider Center. “We’re excited to collaborate with nuwave to expand the evidence base for Appreciative Inquiry, bring strength-based consulting to more organizations, and create tools that help leaders cultivate cultures where people and performance flourish.” For more information about the Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, visit www.champlain.edu/appreciativeinquiry. About Champlain College: Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a residential undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain. Additionally, Champlain College Online provides an expansive portfolio of online degrees and certificates, reaching students across all 50 states and U.S. territories, while fostering strategic partnerships with forward-thinking workforce organizations. The College is known for its distinctive and innovative approach to career-focused education and its Upside-Down Curriculum, which helps students be ready for work, ready for life, and ready to make a difference. Champlain is ranked as one of the “Best Colleges” by U.S. News & World Report for 2025, and was named one of the “Best 390 Colleges” by The Princeton Review for 2025, including among its “Best Northeastern colleges.” For more information, visit www.champlain.edu. About nuwave: nuwave is an award winning Burlington based business intelligence technology company focused on workforce optimization through culture. nuwave uses an interdisciplinary team of experts and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to map out cultural strengths and gaps across organizations, and connect them to unique strategies and solutions that activate change across all levels of the workforce. By connecting culture to business outcomes, nuwave can help show the financial impact of positive and negative culture on organizational performance. For more information, visit www.nuwaveco.com.
