The Baccalaureate Degree: Meaning, Integrity, and Quality Southern Association of Colleges & Schools Commission on Colleges Annual Meeting Atlanta, GA.

The Baccalaureate Degree:Meaning, Integrity, and Quality

Southern Association of Colleges & SchoolsCommission on Colleges Annual Meeting

Atlanta, GADecember 7, 2009

Carol Geary Schneider

Questions about Degree Integrity Are Proxies

The real Question is Whether Graduates Are Developing the

Capabilities They Need for Their Future and Our Shared Futures

Overview

Historical PerspectiveContemporary Pressures to Raise the Quality of LearningThe Academy in Transition—Ensuring Integrity and

Capability in 21st Century ContextsIssues We’re Avoiding—But Need to Address

“Robert’s” Story – The Laissez Faire Curriculum

Issues in Robert’s Story

Every Course Is an IslandAbsence of Shared Expectations about the

Goals for Advanced WorkGrades and Credits Masking Vastly

Different Expectations for Student EffortUnderdevelopment of Student Capability

Historical Perspective:Changing Designs for

College Learning

Changing Designs for College Learning

The Nineteenth Century College

The Twentieth Century University

A Common Core Curriculum(All learning is “general and liberal education”)

Breadth + Depth(Breadth = General Studies; Depth = Majors; “liberal education” becomes synonymous with “general education”)

The Twenty-First Century Academy

Changing Designs for College Learning

A Curriculum in Transition:Rethinking educational purposes and practices to better prepare students for

• global interdependence

• innovation in the workplace

• diverse democracy

The World Itself is Demanding More…

Disruptive Global and Social Change

Diversity as a Daily Reality

Epochal Choices Facing U.S. Citizens– e.g., Sustainability, Inequality, Energy,

Education

Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions

The World Itself Is Demanding More…

(continued)

An Economy Absolutely Dependent on Knowledge and Innovation

Employer Anxiety about Finding Highly Capable Employees

Productivity Is Now Tied to Learning…

Half Life of Industries, Companies, Jobs, and Skills Decreasing

Today's Students Will Have 10-14 Jobs by the Time They Are 38

50% of Workers Have Been With Their Company Less Than 5 Years– 25% Less than 1 Year

Breadth, Depth, & Applications of Academic Preparation Are Expanding

DOL-BLS

Key Capabilities Open the Door for Career Success

and Earnings

“Irrespective of college major or institutional selectivity, what matters to career success is students’ development of a broad set of cross-cutting capacities…”

Anthony Carnevale, Georgetown UniversityCenter on Education and the Workforce

The Growing Demand for Higher Order SkillsSource: Council on Competitiveness, Competitiveness Index

“[Employers] generally are...frustrated with their inability to find ‘360 degree people’ who have both the specific job/technical skills and the broader skills (communication and problem-solving skills, work ethic, and ability to work with others) necessary to promise greater success for both the individual and the employer.”

From Peter D. Hart Research Associates,

Report of Findings Based on Focus Groups Among

Business Executives (AAC&U, 2006)

LEAP

Bringing Educators and Employers Together Around the Learning—i.e.

Capabilities—Students Need

Narrow Learning is Not Enough!The Essential Learning Outcomes

Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World

Intellectual and Practical Skills

Personal and Social Responsibility

Integrative Learning

Employers Want Colleges to Place More Emphasis on All

the Essential Learning Outcomes

The Academy in Transition:Ensuring Degree Integrity and

Capability in 21st Century Contexts

Five Crucial Priorities

Putting Learning Outcomes at the CenterSetting Standards for Expected Levels of LearningUsing High Impact Practices that Help Students

Develop Essential OutcomesDesigning Assessments that Put Students’ Own

Work at the CenterFacing and Changing the Inequities WITHIN

Each Campus (Robert’s Story)

Putting Learning Outcomes at the Center

Thanks to Accreditors, This Is Happening But Students Have Been Left Out

of the Loop

How many of your students understand your institution’s intended goals or outcomes for

undergraduate learning?*

* Among members at institutions with learning outcomes for all undergraduates

Majority

Some

Almost allNot many

Setting Standards for Expected Levels of Learning

Integrating General Outcomes with Specific Fields’ Outcomes

AAC&U’s VALUE Rubrics— An Important Beginning, but Only a Beginning

High-Impact Practices

First-Year Seminars and Experiences 

Common Intellectual Experiences

Learning Communities

Writing-Intensive Courses

Collaborative Assignments and Projects

“Science as Science Is Done”/Undergraduate Research

Diversity/Global Learning

Service Learning, Community-Based Learning

Internships

Capstone Courses and Projects

High Impact Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter

by George D. Kuh

(LEAP report, October 2008, www.aacu.org)

Outcomes of High Impact Practices for Underserved Students:

A Review of the LiteratureLynn Swaner and Jayne Brownell

(Forthcoming AAC&U report, 2010)

The Good News

High Impact Practices Do Foster the Essential Outcomes –

and Persistance as Well

Assessments that Put Students’ Own Work at the Center

Turning High Impact Practices into Sources of Authentic Evidencee.g., Research; Collaborative Projects;

Internships; Capstones; e-Portfolios

Issues We’re Avoiding—But Need to Address

The Sanctioned Rise of Colleges Committed to Narrow Learning

“Career Programs” – Designed to Allow Minimalist Designs for General Education and the Erasure of Liberal Education

The Unacknowledged Obsolescence of the “Terminal Degree” Concept and Its Close Tie to Minimalist Designs for General Education

The Continued—but Outdated—Distinction Between Liberal Education and Career Education

An Outcomes Focus Can Forge New Synergy Between

Liberal Education and Preparation for Careers

Our Commitment to Outcomes Can—If It Goes Deep—Restore and Renew the Integrity of the Degree

But Will the Outomes Movement Go Deep?

Or Will We Continue as We Are—A House Divided—Producing Many Liberally Educated Graduates and...

Many Others Who Lack Fundamental Preparation for

21st Century Realities?