The challenges that a liberal arts education faces in today’s environment became apparent to me in a new way this week. I noticed for the first time a television ad for a for-profit college that features a young man explicitly asserting that he did not gain job skills in college, so now he is training at this for-profit educational company. Beyond the ideological challenges that public institutions face in today’s climate, a clear monetary incentive exists for some to question the relevance of what happens in liberal arts institutions. The combination of for-profit educational institutions, online education, and the business model for public education together heighten the need for clear articulations of the relevance of fields that do not have simple answers to the employability debate.
Assessing Assessment
Does the move toward assessment provide support for the Humanities and Social Sciences or threaten them? Cary Nelson, the final speaker in our series on the Relevance of the Humanities and Social Sciences, published a provocative essay in which he described the move towards assessment as a threat to the “fierce humanities,” which he describes as “teaching that seeks not merely learning, but unlearning, that seeks to unsettle knowledge and assumptions in ways more fundamental than any exam can or should test.” Continue reading “Assessing Assessment”
Assessments: To Embrace or Resist?
In what fields do students learn the most? The traditional liberal arts demonstrate the highest gain in student ability, according to data from the 2007 College Learning Assessment test, with the natural sciences and math scoring slightly higher than the humanities and social sciences. Matthew Yglesias argued in a blog post last month, in the wake of the UVa debacle, that recent attacks on the liberal arts as being of little value are misplaced (reproducing a chart from Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (U of Chicago Press, 2011)). As this assessment data suggests, the humanities and social sciences, along with the natural sciences and mathematics, provide real educational value for students. Continue reading “Assessments: To Embrace or Resist?”
Relevance of Research for Teaching
As the posts earlier this week emphasize, research in the Humanities and Social Sciences have improved our ability to analyze society and operate within it. Highlighting more examples of these contributions from Humanities and Social Science scholars is important in detailing the relevance of these fields today. However, another related benefit of research is its contribution to our teaching. Continue reading “Relevance of Research for Teaching”
Engaging the Employability Debate
When engaging in the employability debate (which is problematic in its own right), many departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences need to challenge what Gregory Alles calls the “narrow managerial mentality,” the assumption that qualifying for a career requires an undergraduate degree in the field of one’s career. In raising this issue, Alles distinguishes between careers that require “a high percentage of non-transferable ‘hard skills’” and careers that “require the acquisition of a larger percentage of highly transferable ‘soft skills’ and a knowledge base that has both breadth and depth. Most of the specific skills that are needed can be learned on the job, indeed, are probably best learned there” (Religion [2011] 41:2, 219-220). Continue reading “Engaging the Employability Debate”
Is Bigger More Efficient?
In discussions about efficiency, different conceptions of the nature of education become significant. If education is about transferring pieces of knowledge from a learned person to a student, then the difference between a 400 student lecture course, a 30 person classrooms, a 15 student seminar, or an unlimited enrollment in an online course may be limited (although more personal interaction, in my experience, can enhance the acquisition of knowledge). However, if education is about more than becoming a walking encyclopedia, then the interaction with and feedback from a professor can be much more effective in developing skills and exploring, as briefly discussed in the previous post. The small group dynamics of a seminar, along with individual attention and advising, can be vitally important, perhaps even more efficient, for encouraging a student to explore and training him/her to approach topics in news ways and to think creatively and critically. Those skills become much more difficult to develop with large enrollments and online courses. Continue reading “Is Bigger More Efficient?”
The Benefits of Inefficiency
The murky imbroglio that engulfed the University of Virginia contributed to significant reflection on the relevance of academic institutions and various approaches for the future, including cuts, a corporate model of governance, and the financial benefits of online content delivery. Despite the current resolution with the reinstatement of President Sullivan, these particular issues are part of the conversation about the relevance of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Despite emphasizing examples of scientific discoveries and innovations that developed at research universities, Siva Vaidhyanathan highlights the value of the inefficiency of the university model. An undergraduate education allows time and space to explore new areas of study and new questions, and important innovations require the opportunities to explore creative solutions that fail as well as ideas that work. This point should be pushed further, though. Skills that develop within less marketable disciplines, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity (which many humanities professors excel in teaching), can be transferred into developing innovation in other fields, whether as entrepreneurs, doctors, scientific researchers, or film makers, and through voluntary contributions to civic discourse and social problem solving. These skills take time to develop and do not always demonstrate an immediate or marketable gain, but they can make a difference in society. A focus on the short-term bottom line and quick or guaranteed research success overlooks much of what innovation and an improving society requires.
What is the Purpose of Education?
In the current economic environment, with government budget shortfalls and both public and private universities facing cutbacks, departments and disciplines must demonstrate their own necessity. For example, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said that his state did not need “a lot more anthropologists in this state” but should train university students in “those type of degrees that when they get out of school, they can get a job” (Tampa Bay Times). In response, groups, such as some students from the University of South Florida, emphasized the jobs that anthropology majors do and their contributions to the state of Florida. While that response was particularly appropriate for the political discourse, a focus solely on the jobs that graduates can obtain may concede too much to a narrowly pragmatic view of education. Is a university education primarily about getting a job?