1. humphreys@aacu.org; @debrahumphreys; www.aacu.org/leap
Enacting the LEAP Vision for Student Success: The Essential and Changing Faculty Roles LEAP Indiana Summit February
Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Policy and Public Engagement, AAC&U
@debrahumphreys;

2. “The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” -David Foster Wallace

3. 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?

4. Liberal Education and America’s Promise (2005-present) A Vision Aligned with Learning and Economic Research
Essential Learning Outcomes
A Guiding Vision and National Benchmarks for College Learning and Liberal Education in the 21st Century
High Impact Practices
Helping Students Achieve the Essential Learning Outcomes/T-shaped proficiencies
Authentic Assessments of Student Learning
Probing Whether Students Can APPLY Their Learning – to Complex Problems and Real-World Challenges
Inclusive Excellence
Diversity, Equity, Quality of Learning for All Groups of Students

5. 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

6. 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)

7. Dancing With Robots (2013)

8. 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

9. 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?
(employers)
Range of knowledge and skills that apply to a range of fields or positions
Knowledge and skills that apply to a specific field or position
College students:
Specific 15%
Both 63%
Broad range 22%
Both field-specific and broad range of knowledge and skills

10. Employers are in broad agreement on college learning outcomes for all students, regardless of their chosen field of study.
Employers’ agreement with statements about college learning aims regardless of student’s chosen field of study
Students/ total agree
94%
85%
86%
83%
87%
All college students should have educational experiences that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own
96%
All college students should gain an understanding of democratic institutions and values
87%
Every college student should take courses that build the civic knowledge, skills, and judgment essential for contributing to our democratic society
86%
Every college student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences
78%
All college students should gain intercultural skills and an understanding of societies and countries outside the United States
78%

11. Learning Outcomes that at Least Four in Five Employers Rate as Very Important
Proportions of employers rating each skill/knowledge area as very important for recent college graduates to have*
Students: very important for success in workplace*
78%
77%
75%
74%
79%
Oral communication
Working effectively with others in teams
Written communication
Ethical judgment and decision-making
Critical/analytical thinking
Applying knowledge/ skills to real world
*8, 9, 10 ratings on zero-to-10 scale, 10 = very important

12. How Are We Doing? Good News:
85% have articulated common learning outcomes for all students;
Outcomes are aligned with Essential Learning Outcomes and Employer Priorities;
Many institutions are implementing more high-impact practices, including more applied learning projects (23% required of all students);
More than 2/3 of CAO’s say they are placing greater emphasis on integration of knowledge, skills, and application.

13. How Are We Doing? The Bad News:
We have both a communications/image problem and a performance/scale problem.
In 2009, 60% agreed that “colleges today are like most businesses and care more about the bottom line than about making sure students have a good educational experience. (up from 52% in 2007). (Public Agenda)
A 2015 survey of employers showed that the majority feel that today’s college graduates are not particularly well prepared on the learning outcomes that they view as important. This critique applies to all of the 17 learning outcomes tested, including the cross-cutting skills that employers highly value. We are implementing high-impact practices, but need to bring them to scale.

14. *8-10 ratings on zero-to-ten scale
Employers give college graduates lower scores for preparedness across learning outcomes than current students give themselves.
Proportions who believe they/recent college graduates are well prepared in each area*
Working effectively with others in teams
Staying current on technologies
Ethical judgment and decisionmaking
Locating, organizing, evaluating information
Oral communication
Working with numbers/ statistics
Written communication
Critical/analytical thinking
Being innovative/creative
*8-10 ratings on zero-to-ten scale
(continued)

15. How Are Our Students Doing? Another Perspective

16. It Takes More Than a Major
“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 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)

17. Students: more likely to be hired
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?
Students: more likely to be hired
95%
89%
76%
82%
85%
87%
71%
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%

18. Why Faculty Work—and Collaboration—is Key
Need Redesign of Curricular Pathways Rich in High-Impact Practices—both General Education and Majors
Need more integrative problem-based learning opportunities
Need Redesign of Assessment Approaches Focused on Projects and Signature Work
Need Integration of Curricular, Co-Curricular, Work-based learning—advising and career exploration
Need New Ways for Graduates to Demonstrate and Describe Their Achievements (e.g. e-portfolios, sophisticated Linked-In pages, etc.)

19. Learning Research Demonstrates: Relationships Matter—Faculty Matter
George Kuh Research on High-Impact Practices demonstrates that faculty are essential to student success:
Performance expectations set at high levels;
Interactions with faculty/peers about substantive matters;
Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback;
Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning

20. Learning Research Demonstrates: Relationships Matter—Faculty Matter
Shanna Smith Jaggars Research from Community College Research Center confirms that social supports and faculty interaction is essential to low-income student success:
“Students who are more vulnerable, who are younger, who aren’t sure where they are going, and who are still developing academic skills, go to college to learn how to learn. Many of these students arrive at college without skills that are vital to academic success…many students report that the personal connections they develop with instructors in the classroom are vital to helping them learn.”
(“No, online classes are not going to help America’s poor kids bridge the achievement gap,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2015)

21. The LEAP Challenge
“It is high time to break free of the old ‘breadth first, depth second’ model for college learning. Instead, we need guided pathways to integrative and adaptive learning. We must ensure that all students are given opportunities to tackle complex questions—from first to final year.” Carol Geary Schneider, president, AAC&U The LEAP challenge is to make integrated, problem-based Signature Work a goal for all students—and the expected standard of quality learning in college.

22. LEAP Challenge Curricular Pathway Model: Faculty Collaboration Essential

23. 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