By's Musings

Teaching and Learning

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The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University

I have invited a friend and former colleague, Erik Benson,  to offer the first guest post on By’s Musings.  I first met Erik when I hired him at Cornerstone University in 2005. I was immediately impressed with this history instructor who brought history to life in the classroom and in the field. Less than one year later when I started CELT, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University,  he was an obvious choice to be part of the faculty leadership group.  He has continued to impress students and colleagues at CU, where in 2013, he was voted “Professor of the Year.” He is currently Associate Professor of History, at CU, and Principal of ipsative, a company focusing on educational consulting and faculty development. If you would like to find out more about ipsative, please visit their website at ipsative.

This post grew out of a challenge that I set before Erik. Since I have been working on a project attempting to represent the many cultures that come together to form a university, I asked him to describe the ideal culture of history within the university setting. He eagerly took the challenge and expanded it to set history within the broader category of humanities and the liberal arts. This is the Erik that I knew at Cornerstone University. At least once a month, he would come by my office near the close of the day, stand in the open doorway, and ask, “Do you have a minute?” I almost always said, “Yes”, even though I know that the minute would end up more like an hour. Erik always had challenging questions about higher education in general and our university in particular. Together, we were working toward solutions for the tough, intractable problems facing higher education and our students. Some of those discussions are among my most memorable memories of my days at CU.

Without further ado, here is Erik’s post.

For what it’s worth: the value of the liberal arts to the university.

The last year has seen a seemingly endless stream of controversies in higher education. Among these were proposals to channel more government aid to students studying in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, at the expense of those studying in the liberal arts. In Kentucky, the governor recently suggested that students studying “French literature” should not receive any state financial aid.

Debt, jobs, and basements…
The arguments are pretty straightforward. STEM fields are more promising in terms of jobs for graduates, and there is an unmet demand in the US for people trained in these fields. Amidst public concerns about escalating college costs and the resulting student debt, governments ought to insure that they fund fields best suited to meet the needs of both employers and graduates.
There is a certain logic to this. The public concern about tuition and student debt is undeniable. Furthermore, evidence abounds that there is indeed a demand for workers in STEM fields that promise large salaries upon graduation. (In fact, there is high demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a college degree at all. A Michigan factory owner recently told me recently that he cannot hire enough skilled tradespeople, even though he actively recruits throughout the US and abroad.) In turn, the numbers are less promising for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. The anecdote of the humanities graduate moving back into the parents’ basement has become popular lore. In sum, the desire to channel students toward STEM majors seems a perfectly reasonable response.

Not so fast…
Yet in fact this response is ill-considered. For one thing, it is based on the premise that US colleges are churning out a slew of (unemployed) liberal arts majors. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, between 1971 and 2012, the number of graduates with degrees in English fell from 7.6 to 3.0 percent; the number of business graduates rose from 13.7 to 20.5 percent. Only one-third of all degrees were in fields that could be classified as “liberal arts,” and this number was matched by business and health majors alone. In short, the stories of hordes of unemployed liberal arts graduates living in their parents’ basements are exaggerated.
Beyond this dubious premise, the fact is that the liberal arts approach in American higher education has served students well. Zakaria contrasts it with European higher education systems, in which students are channeled into specific vocations well before they reach college age; those that go to college are few, and they receive a rather narrowly focused training in a field. In the US, college education has historically been more “general” in focus due to being in a dynamic, changing economy and society. In short, the liberal arts have prepared American graduates to be more responsive and flexible in a changing world.
Zakaria points to a real strength of the American liberal arts education, as both anecdotal and statistical evidence attests. Numerous studies reveal that graduates with liberal arts degrees actually have fiscally rewarding careers. One such study, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, found that while liberal arts graduates initially lagged behind professional and pre-professional peers in salaries, over time they caught up and passed them. The study noted that this was due in no small part to graduate degrees earned by liberal arts majors, which enhanced their earning ability. (Interestingly, even in pre-professional and professional fields, a comparable percentage had a graduate degree, suggesting they too received an earnings boost from this.) Still, only the most short-sighted of people would argue a degree outside the liberal arts is a better financial bet; in fact, considering the investment a college education entails, one ought to be considering long-term earnings forecasts rather than merely the entry-level job, which seems to be the focus of the moment.

On second thought…
Why liberal arts degrees offer such long-term earning possibilities is an interesting question. The answer seems to lie in what Zakaria points out—they better prepare one for a changing environment. Vocationally focused educations prepare one for a specific job or career track that can be lucrative at the entry level, but may limit one’s advancement possibilities over time. (Put simply, one might be trained to press certain buttons, but that likely will not lead to workplace advancement.) Worse, as technological and business advances change the workplace, jobs and entire career tracks can come and go. As Thomas Friedman points out in The Earth is Flat, many programming jobs in the US have easily been outsourced to Asia, and won’t be coming back any time soon in light of the cost differentials. This is why many who train in narrowly tailored fields have found it necessary to return to college later in life—their education did not prepare them for the change. Lest we think we can anticipate much of this change, consider how many jobs and fields exist today that educators and politicians could not even fathom 20 years ago. As a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities admitted, “We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road.” It is simply not a reasonable expectation.
My wife’s career experience attests to many of the above points. A graduate of a liberal arts college with a major in history and international studies, she went on to earn an M.A. in Mass Communication. She since has worked in both higher education and marketing, and currently has a thriving business in content strategy and writing. Her mass communication degree offered her hands-on experience in the then-emerging field of web design and development, which cued her into the new forms of media. That said, a significant portion of the technical knowledge she gained is now outdated because of the rapid advances in the last decade. She actually points to her B.A. as being more valuable and foundational for her career. Her studies in history and global culture ingrained in her a broader, more strategic perspective. She also credits them for making her a good writer, which is her “bread and butter” today. Finally, they made her more self-aware and confident, all of which led her to easily transition between jobs and career tracks without need of returning to school. In short, she epitomizes what Zakaria says about the liberals arts—it made her responsive and adaptable in a changing world.

Making the case…
While studies exist of the earning power of the liberal arts, and many faculty can cite numerous anecdotes of successful graduates, there has been a general failure to “sell” this to politicians and the public. Many in “liberal arts” fields lack an interest in informing potential students, their parents, and the public at large the career possibilities (or even proudly resist the idea). Too often, the “case” consists of rather ethereal assertions about the value of the liberal arts, the “life of the mind,” and avoiding vocational obsession, none of which are wrong, but which are not applicable for many considering college, with its expense and commitment. In short, we need to do a better job making the case.
In my case, I have occasion to meet with prospective students and parents who visit our campus. I emphasize that the study of history offers them much in terms of “life of the mind,” but also in terms of career preparation. In addition to citing studies on earnings (which many do not know), I explain specifically what history offers to them—highly transferable skills in research, critical thinking, and communication which will be proven useful over time in a constantly changing job market. I point out that these not only work for someone who might pursue a traditional career in the field (e.g. academia), but also someone working in marketing or government. I encourage them to think of how they might pair the study of history with a major or minor in another field, such as business. I even encourage students in other majors (such as business) to meet credit requirements with an applicable history course; I’ve had a number of graduates tell me this turned out to be one of the most useful things they did in college. In short, I can show them the practical benefits of their study—and they usually come to see the value.
Ultimately, in considering the issue of financing higher education and the liberal arts, the real consideration ought not be mere cost, but value. People will pay more for something they believe is worth it; they are bothered when they feel they have paid for something that is not worth it. We in academics need to make a better case for the value of the liberal arts to students.

References:
Patricia Cohen, “A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding,” New York Times (22 February 2016), B1.

Thomas Friedman, The Earth is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006).

Beckie Supiano, “How Liberal-Arts Majors Fare over the Long Haul,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 January 2014). http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133 (Accessed 1 March 2016).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Co., 2015).

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Teach Me! I Dare You!

Some might say that my teaching career got off to an auspicious, if not unusual start. My first experience in a real classroom was as a senior in high school. I taught three sections of 9th grade algebra for six weeks, as a substitute teacher. This came about when one of our high school math teachers became seriously ill and the district couldn’t find a long-term math sub. I was available because I had completed all the necessary requirements for graduation except three credits. Therefore, I only had three classes and three study halls my senior year. The two remaining math teachers at my high school didn’t like teaching 9th grade algebra. I was an excellent math student who was successfully tutoring a number of students, so they talked the principal into putting me in front of the algebra classes. They provided lesson plans and I taught their lessons. To have the “necessary adult in the classroom,” the district hired an English sub to sit in the back of the room “to keep order.”   I enjoyed teaching. I think I did a good job at it. The students in my sections all passed the district’s 10th grade math readiness exam.

Although it’s been many years, I still recall my first class as a college professor. I remember observing students walking into that class as if it were yesterday. Unfortunately, I have lost track of many of those students. Although I tried to be the teacher that they needed, sometimes I wish I could go back and respond to them differently.

There were two in particular who were as different as night and day. One was from a well-to-do family. This student had everything he or she could have wanted. All this student had to do was ask. The student had a fancy car that daddy bought. The student had the latest in trendy fashions. The student had a job waiting in the family business immediately upon graduation from college. The student was intelligent, good looking, and athletic, a celebrated, all-conference player.  In everything to do with classwork, this student’s attitude and expressions shouted the questions: “Why do I have to study? Why do I have to work in class? I have everything I need.”  Every day this student would walk into class with that attitude that said, “Teach me! I dare you!”

The second student was the child of a successful athletic coach at another small college. However, this student was anything but athletic. The student was unattractive, lacked many social graces. and had a complete lack of coordination. Be an athlete? This student could trip over the sideline chalk. The rumor was that this student was enrolled at our school because the father was embarrassed to have this student around his school. This student threw him/herself into studies and barely got C’s. No matter what he/she did, it wasn’t good enough. So the student developed this enormous chip on his/her shoulders. When the student would walk into class, you could see in his/her eyes the lack of hope. You could almost hear the stutter, “I-I-I can’t do-do-do anything. Go ahead and te-te-teach me! I d-d-dare you!”

Through more than 40 years of working with students, these two students were just two of the many examples I have seen. Student after student would enroll in the colleges where I worked and walk into classes or my office, and by the attitudes they expressed, say, “Teach me! I dare you!” They had many different stories.

“No one loves me so why should I bother?” “My parents were supposed to be this perfect Christian couple. They were the pillars of our home church. I go away to college and they get a divorce. What’s the point? God let my family down. He is not going to care about me.”

“I want to be an artist, but my parents insist that I go into business. I’ll show them. If I flunk out or just barely graduate, nobody will hire me when they see my grades. I will be a failure in my parents’ eyes. However, I will be free to be the artist that I am meant to be.”

“I don’t see why I need this class to be a [fill in the blank]. Why do I have to take it? It’s not important for my major. I’ll never use this stuff as a [fill in the blank].”

“God has called me into ministry. I’m leaving school at the end of the semester to follow His calling, and do His work full-time.”

“I have done something terrible. I can’t forgive myself. God won’t forgive me. I am worthless. What’s the sense in trying to make something out of myself?”

Some were whispering; some were crying; some were shouting. “Teach me! I dare you!”

I was a teacher. What should have been my response to these students? Could I, or should I ignore them? After all, I had 10, or 30, or 90 other students in the class who really wanted to learn. As a teacher, I had a responsibility to help students learn. There were students in the class that really wanted to learn. They did the assigned work. They went far beyond the minimum. Those students expected me to help them. They were grateful when they realized that they had learned something.

Helping students learn is the ministry that God assigned to me. Teaching is what God called me to do. Teaching is what I studied and trained to do. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. (And it still is.) Isn’t it enough to work with those students that really do want to learn?  At the end of the day, I could cash my paycheck with no regrets and no second thoughts. Or could I?

I can’t get the faces of the myriad of students with problems out of my mind. Students that one way or another sat in front of me and said, or screamed, or cried, “Teach me! I dare you!” I had a responsibility to those students to get to know them; to understand their problems; to be engaged with them and determine what they needed and how best they could learn; to value them and help them value themselves; to love them because they were people. If I did that, I would have the right and the responsibility to stand in front of them and say, “Okay, I accept your challenge…if you accept mine. I double-dare you to learn.” With some, I was successful in that classroom scene. With others, I have often wondered if something I said or did planted a seed that would later grow fruit. If it didn’t, was there something else I should have done? I know that teaching and learning are mutual responsibilities, and that students share in the process. However, I was the teacher and that is supposed to mean something.

 

 

 

 

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What Can the Academy Learn From Temple Grandin and Her Cattle Chute Designs?

Who is Temple Grandin? She is the author of Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, the subject of the HBO film “Temple Grandin”, and the designer of one-third of the livestock-handling facilities used in the United States today. According to the flyleaf of her book, Thinking in Pictures:
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who…also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.

So what? My question remains: “What can the academy learn from Temple Grandin and her cattle chute designs?” I am persuaded that we can learn much. However, I don’t believe I will be suggesting what you’re probably thinking right now. I am convinced that many people reading this are saying to themselves: “The obvious purpose of cattle chutes is to herd cattle in an inexpensive and efficient way into or out of holding pens, with the last set of chutes leading to the slaughter house.” The above analogy would suggest that students are cattle and that institutions of higher learning are either holding pens or slaughter houses. Although I have heard people seriously make those comparisons, I am not going there.
I want to focus on several ethical values, design principles and practices that Temple Grandin employed in her work that were highlighted in the book and movie. I originally picked up the book because of neurological changes in my life. Due to several traumatic brain episodes, I have found myself living in the land of metaphors instead of the land of words and analytic, quantitative and sequential thinking in which I grew up and resided for more than 40 years of work in the academy. As I read the book and watched the video, a number of images jumped out of the book and off the screen, and caught my attention. If we were to use Grandin’s values, principles and practices as we design and operate our institutions of higher learning, I believe that they would be more humane, inexpensive, efficient and more effective in producing the learning in our students that we all desire.

The principle that drove Temple’s designs was that form was to follow function. First we define what we want to do. Then we design our processes and instruments to achieve the desired end.
The first value to be emphasized was respect for life. Temple respected cattle and pushed cattle ranchers and meat packers to respect the cattle. By force of her will, she was able to demonstrate that respecting cattle produced better and more efficient results in moving cattle from one place to another, right up and through the point of slaughter. Our students are alive. Shouldn’t we respect them?
The first of Temple’s practices I want to emphasize is the practice of looking at the product or process through the eyes of the intended user. In designing her cattle chutes, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the operating chutes to see what the cattle saw and encountered. In this way, she was able to find the places where the cattle stumbled, where they were confused, where they balked, and where things went smoothly. How many of us have crawled through the obstacle courses that we run our students through? Do we know where the path is too dark to see the potholes? Do we know where outside light confuses our students?

The second of Temple’s practices involved changes that Temple made to the then prevalent chute design. Temple changed the design of her chutes from straight lines with right-angle turns to curved lines. How did she figure this out? She studied how cattle behaved. She noticed that they were calmer and more responsive when moving in arcs rather than straight lines. How many of us have studied our students’ behavior and changed our pedagogy to get more responses from our students?
A second change Temple made in chute design was to replace slatted sidewalls with solid side walls. Why? Because she noticed that the cattle were distracted by outside interference like uneven sunshine producing glares and shadows that the cattle didn’t understand or recognize. Temple was challenged on this change by the cattlemen because of costs (solid walls were more expensive to build) and the fact that the slatted walls gave the handlers the opportunity to prod the cattle along when they got all tangled up. Her response was measured. She pointed out that since the cattle liked the arc movement and solid walls, there would be far fewer roadblocks, meaning less work for the handlers and more contented cows which meant more and better beef.
So what can the academy learn from Temple Grandin’s design of cattle chutes? We can learn: 1) Respect for our students, 2) Define our desired outcome and design our forms to achieve the desired functions, 3) Study our students, and look at learning through their eyes. 4) Remove unnecessary obstacles to make not only their life easier, but ours also. 5) Contented students will produce more and better learning.

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Overview of By’s Musings

You have reached my blog, which I intend to use for writing about my passions. I am working on a schedule of publishing a new post at least once a week, usually on Monday mornings. Please check back regularly or subscribe to be informed of new posts. Currently you will find blogs in the following major categories:

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Weeping over Books

Yesterday was a hard day as My wife and I prepared to down size and pack to move to be closer to our family. We went through about half of my library and we culled over two hundred books that we are donating to our local library instead of packing and moving them 600 miles to have them set in a storage unit since we won’t have room in our new apartment for the book cases needed to hold all of my books. As I held each book, I recalled why I had the book and what it meant to me when I first read it. Some of them almost brought tears to my eyes. I know some of you would be surprised to know what books I kept and what books I decided to donate. I kept several books about the Dodgers who have always been my favorite baseball team. Of course they were “da bums” of Brooklyn when I started rooting for them. However, I donated the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Ibsen. The stories of Duke Snider and the other boys of summer were important to me growing up in ways that other people wouldn’t understand. However, Poe and Ibsen can be of more help to others right now if they would take the time and make the effort to read them.

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Experience Is the Best Teacher of Patience and Wisdom

Two of the greatest virtues that humans can possess are patience and wisdom. The following photograph illustrates how the two virtues can be reluctantly brought together. Given the expression of utter frustration on the dog’s face, I am confident that the dog did not learn the patience and wisdom needed in this situation from a stint in obedience school. He knew that he had to give that skunk a wide berth and access to the food bowl. Most likely, he learned the lesson in the experiential school of hard knocks.

 Skunk eating dog's dog food

What’s the relationship among experience, wisdom and patience? Three quotes may help us.

1. By three methods, we may learn wisdom: fIrst by reflection, which is noblest; second by imitation; which is easiest; and third by experience which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)

The expression on the dog’s face reflects a very bitter experience. It certainly helped the dog learn the wisdom of not crossing a skunk.

2.“All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.” (Alexandre Dumas).

Although the word patience is not present in the Dumas quote, the close synonym “wait” is front and center. Obviously in the picture, the dog is waiting for the skunk to finish its meal, and hoping that there will be some food left.

3. “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” (Aldous Huxley)

Your experiences are not the events that swirl around you. They are the lessons that you learn and appropriate.

To summarize the importance of wisdom, let us go to one of the wisest individuals to ever live. Listen to King Solomon:

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7 KJV)

I was drawn to the above picture for two reasons. The first reason is my recent experiences with skunks. Since my TBI’s in 2009, I have only smelled the telltale aroma of a skunk once. I no longer “smell” skunks. I see skunks. This is one of my dysesthesia (cross-sensory perceptions). When the aroma of a skunk is in the air, it causes me to see the vision of a dead skunk on an unidentified road. This particular dysesthesia has its own advantage. It protects me from a very unpleasant odor.

The only time I smelled a skunk is another story. One day as my wife and I were riding in our car. I “really” saw a dead skunk along the side of the road. Suddenly, I smelled the pungent aroma. I exclaimed to my wife, “Well, what do you know, I smelled that skunk!” She hesitantly replied, “Honey, I’m sorry but there’s no skunk odor.” She continued by saying that she saw the dead skunk and was very surprised that there was no aroma emanating from it. So instead of ridding myself of this particular cross-sensory perception, I had picked up another hallucination. My memory of skunks had kicked in. The sight of the dead skunk triggered the repressed memory of a non-existent odor.

The second reason this picture fascinated me was the fact that it reminded me of the pet dog I had for 17 years, as I grew up. All he needed was one encounter with a skunk that he had when he was still a puppy. He never messed with one again. Experience was a great teacher, and my dog learned well. Although he was a small fox and rat terrier mix-breed, he was feisty and very jealous of his domain. He was accustomed to chasing any four-legged creature no matter how big or fierce that dared to venture into our yard, except skunks. It was funny watching him trying to herd the cows from our neighbor’s farm back into their own pasture. I often wish I had the foresight to capture the looks of shame and resignation on the faces of the cows as they slowly meandered back into their pasture, and the look of joyful victory on the face of my dog as he barked a couple of taunting “Goodbye and good riddance”  from his side of the fence. He had proudly defended his territory again. He had no fear of huge cows, but he steered clear of skunks.

All of this reminded me of a quote about learning that is usually attributed to Mark Twain: “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” Please believe, I am not advocating carrying a polecat by the tail unless you want to learn something you and anyone else who comes in contact with you with never forget. I may not be able to “really” smell a skunk now. However, I do remember what their odor smells like, and I do not wish to tempt my sensory perceptions that far.