Liberal Education Today: Creating Pathways to Professional Success, Civic Engagement, and Well-Being Franklin College Inaugural Symposium April, 2016 Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Policy and Public Engagement, AAC&U

Questions To Ask Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

College Learning for the New Global Century (2007) “The world in which today’s students will make choices and compose lives is one of disruption rather than certainty, and of interdependence rather than insularity.” Important Questions: How do we educate students for success and flourishing in this kind of world? What are the Essential Learning Outcomes and set of educational practices aligned to this reality?

Integrating Three Big Aims of Education: The Unique Selling Point of Liberal Arts Education— for Individuals and Society Responsible Citizenship Professional Success Flourishing/Well-Being

What is a college education for? “to help people lift themselves up and help them find their lives…Sometimes it’s their professional lives. Sometimes it’s finding themselves personally. [a college education] enhance[s] who they are as people, so that they live happier and better. We teach them to be leaders. All for the good of others…” Franklin College President Thomas J. Minar

Narrow Learning is Not Enough: Essential Learning Outcomes Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World Focused on engagement with big questions, enduring and contemporary Intellectual and Practical Skills Practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance Personal and Social Responsibility Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges Integrative and Applied Learning Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems

But, Will I Get a Job? Students want lives of meaning and purpose…and they want jobs and the capacity to pay down their debt and build a future.

Doing well in college and getting a good job are students’ top current goals. Very important* goal for me today (all students) Doing well in college Getting a good job Friendships/social connections Making a difference by helping others Being informed about news in the United States Making my community a better place to live Voting in elections Being informed about news outside the US Being involved politically College is helping a lot/ fair amount in this area 78% 74% 61% 53% 43% 49% 35% 42% 32% 9 *8, 9, 10 ratings on zero-to-10 scale, 10 = very important

How Are Our Students Doing? Another Perspective https:

The Big Economic Picture “Human work will increasingly shift toward two kinds of tasks: solving problems for which standard operating procedures do not currently exist, and working with new information—acquiring it, making sense of it, communicating it to others….today, work that consists of following clearly specified directions is increasingly being carried out by computers and workers in lower-wage countries. The remaining jobs that pay enough to support families require a deeper level of knowledge and the skills to apply it.” “Frank Levy and Richard Murnane, “Dancing with Robots” (2013)

Dancing With Robots (2013)

Job Growth Dominated By Jobs That Require Both Quantitative and Social Skills “[S]kills like cooperation, empathy and flexibility have become increasingly vital in modern-day work. Occupations that require strong social skills have grown much more than others since 1980…Jobs that require both socializing and thinking, especially mathematically, have fared best in employment and pay….The jobs that require social skills but not math skills have also grown….The jobs that have been rapidly disappearing are those that require neither social nor math skills, like manual labor.” Source: “Why What You Learned in Preschool is Crucial at Work,” by Claire Cain Miler. New York Times, October 16, 2015 (based on David J. Dening research study).

What do Employers Say? Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success (Hart Research Associate 2015) AAC&U has commissioned a series of studies—focus groups/surveys of students and business leaders, see:

Three in five employers believe that it takes BOTH specific knowledge/skills and broad knowledge/skills to achieve long- term career success. Which is more important for recent college graduates to have who want to pursue advancement and long-term career success at your company? Knowledge and skills that apply to a specific field or position Range of knowledge and skills that apply to a range of fields or positions Both field-specific and broad range of knowledge and skills (employers) 15

Employers want broad learning, cross-cultural capacities—in addition to hands-on learning. Employers’ agreement with statements about college learning aims regardless of student’s chosen field of study All college students should have educational experiences that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own 96% 87% 78% Every college student should take courses that build the civic knowledge, skills, and judgment essential for contributing to our democratic society Every college student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences All college students should gain an understanding of democratic institutions and values 86% 78% All college students should gain intercultural skills and an understanding of societies and countries outside the United States 16

Learning Outcomes that at Least Four in Five Employers Rate as Very Important Oral communication Working effectively with others in teams Written communication Ethical judgment and decision-making Critical/analytical thinking Applying knowledge/ skills to real world Proportions of employers rating each skill/knowledge area as very important for recent college graduates to have* *8, 9, 10 ratings on zero-to-10 scale, 10 = very important 17

Most Important Lesson: Integration and Putting Knowledge To Use Matters Most “Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.” Lazslo Bock, senior VP of people operations, Google (quoted in NY Times 2/23, 2014)

Why liberal education is so important today “liberal education…educates people in a way that facilitates retraining throughout their lives…[our graduates] are prepared to retool themselves through the five or seven careers they’re likely to have. This isn’t about task learning when you’re years old. This is about maturing intellects that will enable you to retool, to do anything you want to do.” Franklin College President Thomas J. Minar

How Do We Build Students’ Capacity? High-Impact Practices built into Intentional Curriculum and Co-Curriculum  First-Year Seminars and Experiences  Common Intellectual Experiences  Learning Communities  Writing-Intensive Courses  Collaborative Assignments and Projects  Undergraduate Research  Diversity/Global Learning  Service Learning, Community-Based Learning  Internships  Capstone Courses and Projects

Employers say they are more likely to consider hiring recent college graduates who have completed an applied learning or project-based learning experience. How much more likely is your company to consider hiring recent college graduates if they have had this experience? Internship/apprenticeship with company/organization Senior thesis/project demonstrating knowledge, research, problem-solving, communication skills Multiple courses involving significant writing Research project done collaboratively with peers Service-learning project with community organization Field project in diverse community with people from different background/culture Study abroad program 94% 87% 81% 80% 69% 66% 51% 21

An Integrated Agenda for Change? Prioritize Integration and Application for All Students Need Educational Pathways Rich in High-Impact and Applied Practices—Gen Ed, Majors, and Co-Curriculum Need to Communicate Early and Often about How Students Are Developing Professional and Civic Capacities Assessment Approaches Aligned to Integrative Outcomes Need Integration of Curricular, Co-Curricular, Work-based learning—advising and career exploration Need New Ways for Graduates to Learn How to Talk About and Demonstrate Their Learning Achievements (e.g. e- portfolios, sophisticated Linked-In pages, etc.)

A Twenty-First-Century Liberal Education Source: General Education Transformed (Gaston, 2015)

What Students and Our Society Need and Deserve “In a world of relentless change, all students need the kind of education that leads them to ask not just ‘how do we get this done?’ but also ‘what is most worth doing?’” College Learning for the New Global Century, 2007