By: Susan Elrod
On January 21st, a panel of leading experts in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education set the stage for a conversation with academic leaders regarding the key leverage points and critical questions Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) should be focusing on as we formulate an action agenda for the next five years. Dan Sullivan, president emeritus at St. Lawrence University and a major player in creating the PKAL-AAC&U alliance, introduced Peter Bruns (Howard Hughes Medical Institute), Jim Gentile (Research Corporation), Shirley Malcom (The American Association for the Advancement of Science), and Cora Marrett (National Science Foundation), who provided their perspectives on the current state of undergraduate STEM education reform. Read the rest of this entry »
By: Laura Behling
“I don’t know if you’ve heard this before,” John Pryor, director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA, wondered, “but finances are on the minds of a lot of people, not just presidents and boards, but also students who are coming to college.”
Thursday’s release of the 2009 CIRP data by the Higher Education Research Institute noted some intriguing principles and practices of today’s first-year college and university students. Fifty-five percent have some concerns about financing college, the highest percentage since 1971; more students are turning to loans to finance college; their fathers are unemployed at the highest percentage in the history of the survey (4.4 percent); and even though academic reputation is still the top reason students choose a particular school, other concerns, such as affordability or offers of financial assistance, are increasingly having an impact on a student’s choice of school. Perhaps needless to say, colleges and universities will need to be able to deal with students who are increasingly anxious about financing their education.
By: Stephen Langendorfer
Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that in its first five years the Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative has become the single most influential program ever created by AAC&U? This claim may be debatable, but the accomplishments of LEAP at its mid-point mark are truly remarkable. LEAP has promoted multiple programs in campus action, public advocacy, and authentic evidence. The Campus Action Network and Partner States initiatives are bringing the existence and adoption of the Essential Learning Outcomes to the forefront on college campuses across the country. The periodic Hart Research Associates surveys conducted for AAC&U are documenting that employers indeed value the achievement of the Essential Learning Outcomes in those they hire. The newly published Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) rubrics are providing, for the first time, a national basis for assessing the Essential Learning Outcomes and offer a realistic alternative to standardized testing.
In 2005, LEAP’s lofty goals—sparking public debate about essential learning outcomes for all students, promoting liberal education and its broad benefits; and documenting the degree to which students were achieving liberal education outcomes—must have seemed daunting at the very least to the AAC&U leadership and membership. Looking back over LEAP’s brief history, these goals, like the Essential Learning Outcomes they spawned, are well on the way toward achievement. As Carol Geary Schneider proudly pointed out in the opening plenary session of AAC&U’s 2010 annual conference, the chief academic officers at AAC&U member institutions report that 63 percent of their campuses have learning goals that address the essential learning outcome of integrative learning, while 89 percent of campuses address the essential learning outcome of writing skills. Read the rest of this entry »
By: Ross Miller
I recently took on the role of director of assessment at a proprietary business school, bringing my background as an aging white guy educated as a musician, experienced in both public school and college teaching, and employed for nine years by AAC&U. The session on Liberal Learning and Business Education (with William Sullivan and Anne Colby of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) was of interest to me as I ponder how to make general education and elective liberal arts study engaging, useful, and even life-changing for the students at my college.
With both associate’s and bachelor’s degree programs in business, my college is very successful at enrolling students attracted by our promise of small classes, friendly and attentive faculty, and an excellent job placement rate.
By: Jonathan Rossing
Faculty and administrators continue to recognize the unique needs of First-generation college students. And we understand the value of integrated and applied learning as we strive to help students practice new knowledge across disciplines and in their everyday lives. But have our institutions accounted for the ways First- generation college students complicate the success of integrative and applied learning?
The profile of a First-generation, “traditional-age” college student whose parents never completed baccalaureate degrees paints an incomplete portrait. We must contend with the dynamic character of “First -generation” students. Many parents now enter college for the first time with their children, yielding two generations of firsts. Single, working parents enroll in classes to advance their careers and opportunities. Students in a “sandwich generation,” caring for children and aging parents, seek out higher education for the first time. Given the country’s current military engagement and economic struggles, campuses see First-generation students returning from several tours of duty, and others seeking advanced education due to unemployment. And in a global community, more First-generation students are also First-generation U.S. citizens. This complex student sketch appears across all institutions—urban and rural, four-year and community colleges, research and liberal arts. Read the rest of this entry »
By: Katrina Carter-Tellison, Ph.D.
The saying goes, “you have to bet big to win big” and there’s no doubt about it –e-portfolios are a “big bet.” Whether it is the effort needed to engage students, the time required by faculty, or the commitment of institutional resources, e-portfolios are an enormous endeavor. However, what has emerged from The Search for VALUE Symposium, is that there can be no more effective way to assess student learning and no greater tool to make changes to that learning process than e-portfolios. The workshops focused on three key areas: the philosophical argument of “why” use e-portfolios; the nuts and bolts of using e-portfolios for assessment; and how to accurately evaluate institutional technology needs.
As educators, we find ourselves facing a difficult challenge. As Darren Cambridge stated in his session, “the outcomes we most value are often the most difficult to measure.” How do we measure empathy and personal and social responsibillity? Can there be a standardized test for such outcomes? E-portfolio methods allow us to examine these principles and concepts in a contextual way across time. E-portfolios allow students to engage in the all-important principles of Integrative learning. Students can make links and synthesize learning across courses, semesters, and disciplines over time. In fact, that time does not have to be restrained to the period during which the student is enrolled, but depending on the technology employed, the e-portfolio can be utilized indefintely throughout students’ lives.
By: Ross Miller
For me, e-portfolio use is all about expectations and Greater Expectations. Teaching all of our students, and teaching all students to higher levels was a dual challenge that (as Randy Bass mentioned) basically established a logical (and one hopes inevitable) drive to spread the practice of using portfolios for learning. (If you are thinking that I neglected to include assessment, then you may still be thinking of assessment as separate from the process of learning.)
The Greater Expectations project advocated for all of us to find intentional approaches to liberal education – working to develop intentional learners, teachers, and institutions. If we really intend to be intentional while also working within the limits of time, then we must focus on those practices that produce the greatest effects. Portfolios and their electronic progeny have long pointed toward a handful of powerful practices of which we should be more conscious and use much more often. Read the rest of this entry »
So, Time Magazine published yet another article last week distracting everyone from the serious challenges facing the American educational system. With the alarmist headline, “Is a College Degree Worth Less?” the magazine distracted its readers more than it educated them. In truth, the article was far less alarmist than the headline indicated. After stating the obvious fact that more students are going to college and graduating with BA degrees—thereby increasing the “supply” of degree holders and, potentially, diluting the value of those degrees—the article notes that, “employers stress that a basic degree remains essential, carefully tiptoeing around the idea that its value has plummeted.”
Luckily for us, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce continues to set the record straight on the continuing value of a college degree. Make no mistake about it, even as more and more students flock to college and even in the midst of a recession with high unemployment rates for everyone, “college is still the best option.” Read the rest of this entry »
Few jobs in higher education could be as challenging these days as that of president of a public college in California. As Mildred García, AAC&U board member and president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, recently noted, this year her institution “experienced the largest budget reduction in its history.” She notes further that “our social contract promising higher education for our citizens is being shattered.”
It is difficult to argue with this statement, at least in California. García, however, and many other presidents like her who have formed AAC&U’s new Presidents’ Trust, are working hard to stitch that social contract back together and especially keep a focus on what really matters—providing not just access to a seat in a college classroom, but access to a true quality liberal education. As García notes, her university community is responding to the current challenges as “a call to strategic action, with the goal of shaping a university that is academically stronger and more effective.” Her aim for Cal. State, Dominguez Hills is “to embody a new vision of liberal learning for the twenty-first century.” Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, there has been a flurry of articles and reports about higher education and the policy choices that will affect its future. As a communications professional, I would normally welcome the attention to higher education; the whole sector is underreported, in my humble opinion. However, this recent coverage has centered on the wrong questions and the wrong debates—and is diverting attention from some really important trends and problems.
Both the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times have recently published forums on the question, are too many students going to college? This is the kind of question editors love because it makes it easy for them to line people up on either side of a seemingly important debate. But the answer to this particular question is pretty clear-cut: for any individual student, going to college is clearly better than not going. This is why students are flocking to colleges of all sorts—two-year, four-year, for-profit, not-for-profit, public, private.
