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Educational Modality

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Broken Business Model of American Higher Education, Part VII: Exponential Growth Will Require Disruptive Action

from Presenter Media

In the most recent post of this series, Broken Model of American Higher Education, Part VI: Incremental Growth Will Not Be Enough, I left American Higher Education (AHE) hanging on the edge of a cliff by its fingernails. In that post, I claimed that American higher education will need exponential growth to meet the demands and expectations of those in the economic, political and higher education arenas, as well as the American general public.

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I also implied that historically, exponential growth has only occurred in American higher education as a result of disruptive actions, either on the national or international stage. In other words, exponential growth hasn’t occurred naturally. It has required a little help from our friends (or enemies).

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As I continue to fight off the remnants of a battle with mild aphasia, I was using the word disruption in a positive way. My initial reaction was that the word disruption wasn’t necessarily a negative term. Thus, in my mind, I was having a full-fledged battle over the idea that disruptive innovations were automatically bad. I was envisioning a number of positive results from the numerous discontinuities that I saw coming. From what I could remember, I thought disruption was a term that just meant a break in a continuum. However, as I researched the word I found that it has a much darker and more violent past. The word is derived from the compound Latin word, disrumpere, which comes from the Latin prefix dis- which means “apart” and the Latin verb rumpere which means “to forcefully break.” Thus, the word disruption implies an emphatic, hostile action on the part of someone or something. Therefore, I will admit that labeling something as a disruptive innovation is tantamount to throwing it under a bus or on a trash pile of junk.

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With that background, I am beginning to see why the word disruption has recently engendered as much negative press in higher education and political circles as it has. In higher education and political circles, disruptions are seen as major threats to the status quo. When you are part of the status quo, disruptions are particularly annoying and bothersome. Throughout history, disruptive individuals have been compared to gadflies, those persistent, irritating insects that rove around biting humans and farm animals, stinging sharply, sucking blood and transmitting diseases to their victims.

Drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman, placed in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the earliest written reference to gadfly may be the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 46:20 in the King James Version, we read “Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.” Where is the gadfly in this verse? In the New International Version (NIV), this verse reads “Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly is coming against her from the north.” The Hebrew word : קֶ֫רֶץ , transliterated as qarats,  which is translated as destruction in the KJV, occurs only this one time in the Bible. Somewhat surprisingly, the KJV does use the verb gad one time. It is in Jeremiah 2:36, as part of the word of rebuke that the Lord had given Jeremiah for the people of Israel. Jeremiah asks the Israelites, “Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.“ However, the English translation “gaddest about so much to change thy way” is really לְשַׁנּ֣וֹת מְאֹ֖ד תֵּזְלִ֥י in Hebrew. The transliteration lə·šan·nō·wṯ mə·’ōḏ tê·zə·lî literally means “you go about so much changing your ways.” Thus, this reference is is not directed at the gadfly, whose sole purpose is to cause problems. It refers to an individual who roams from place to place in an irresponsible manner, without a fixed physical or ethical mooring. 

From non Biblical sources, in addition to the connotation of extermination or utter destruction, qarats may also be translated as nipping or biting, hence the translation “gadfly.” Another ancient reference to the gadfly occurs in Plato’s Apology where Socrates describes himself as a social gadfly that flies around and stings the lazy horse that is Athens. Socrates was trying to speed up the stalled change that he thought was absolutely necessary if Athens was to maintain its place as a world leader. Where is the modern day Socrates, prodding the seemingly intractable American higher education into action so that it can maintain its place as a world leader? Does the above make those of us who are saying that American higher education must change if it is to maintain its place as a world leader and the agent of social improvement into gadflies? If so, I am ready to accept that mantle.

In some circles within American higher education the concept of disruptive innovation has almost become synonymous with the picture of the heinous, atrocious, and monstrous and despicable leper who must be banished from the clean society of tradition-bound higher education. In Ancient Israel, lepers were required to warn “clean citizens” of their presence and the danger that they represented. Lepers were isolated from clean society so as not to infect the general population with this insidious condition. In the 17th Century woodcut below depicting the cleansing of the ten lepers by Christ, the lepers are shown with warning clappers, letting everyone know that they were unclean. Were these clappers the precursors to today’s trigger warnings, which many in educational circles find aggravating and totally unnecessary?

Woodcut of ten lepers with clappers approaching Christ and His disciples; image in public domain and is made available from the historical holdings of the world-renowned Wellcome Library, the images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

In a number of recent conversations I have complained bitterly to friends that society and culture are pulling words “right out from under my feet.” I thought that disruption was going to be an excellent example. However, I was mistaken and I must apologize to those friends with whom I argued. It wasn’t society that was changing or evolving the definition of words. My mind was playing tricks on me. If I can’t use the word disruption, what term can I use? My search for a replacement has been arduous and without much success. The best alternative that I have so far is discontinuity. So instead of disruptive innovations, going forward I will talk and write about discontinuous innovations. However, I am not completely satisfied with this choice. It almost sound superfluous and doesn’t have the ring of disruptive innovations. Readers, do you have any suggestions?

In looking at the history of American higher education, what were the innovations or events that created discontinuities in the fabric of American higher education? When the United States federal government instituted land grant colleges in the last half of the 19th century, that created a huge discontinuity in traditional, liberal arts education. When the unemployment rate in the United States shot up from less than 5% in 1928 to more than 20% in the early 1930s, that was another discontinuity. When the United States entered World War II, that caused another tear in the continuum of American higher education.  When more than 10 million soldiers returned to civilian life after World War II, looking for jobs, that was a discontinuity. The G.I. Bill providing them the wherewithal to go to college was an innovation that created a huge discontinuity that had lasting effects for years.

Are there pedological changes and technological advances that will challenge the stubborn fabric of American higher education? The rise of the for-profit educational sector, online education, and andragogy have opened the eyes of a large segment of Americans, seemingly forgotten by traditional American higher education, the non-traditional students which are in dire need of education. It has created a pented up demand for educational opportunities previously unavailable and seemingly withheld from these individuals. This has opened the door for another possible huge discontinuity in American higher education.

The Barnes & Noble College report Achieving Success for Non-Traditional Students: Exploring the Changing Face of Today’s Student Population  predicts that between 2016 and 2022, there will be an 8.7% growth in traditional students, but a 21.7% growth in non-traditional students. The report goes on to suggest that non-traditional students are two times more likely to prefer on-line courses over the face-to-face courses preferred by traditional students. 

The Barnes & Noble (B&N) study defined at risk students as students who met at least one of three conditions. The conditions were: 1) a low sense of connection to the school; 2) low confidence of completing the program; and 3) negative feelings about current situations at school. The B&N study found that 29% of current (2015) non-traditional students were at risk while only 17% of traditional students were at risk. This difference was statistically significant. 

The B&N Study also suggested that schools could maximize their effectiveness in helping all students complete programs if they would address six key challenges. These challenges were: 1) know your “at-risk” students;” 2) increase access to affordable materials/learning solutions; 3) offer expanded career counseling support; 4) offer services that will help students deal with their stresses; 5) act as their support system and help engage more deeply; and 6) provide clear, proactive communication and information about the support services offered. All of these challenges make eminent sense. Schools that best mitigate the challenges of at risk students will help more of them complete programs.

The one startling fact that I found missing from the B&N report was any reporting of the current rates of success of students completing programs. From studies by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we know that the national average of traditional students completing programs is about 55%; while the average completion percentage for non-traditional students is about 33%. If B&N found 17% of traditional students and 29% of non-traditional students were at risk, but we know that at least 45% and 67%, respectively, are not completing programs, why weren’t there 28% more traditional students and 38% more non-traditional students at risk? I would suggest that there are at least this many more current traditional and non-traditional students who are at risk. The difficulty is that we don’t know how to identify them. If we can’t identify them, we certainly can’t help them.

However, identifying these obvious candidates for improving the educational picture in America will not necessarily be the panacea to solving all of our problems. The University of California system of higher education is a prime example of more of the problems within American higher education. The California system says that it is overloaded. With current facilities and staffing, the system claims that it can’t adequately serve the students that it now has. If we have more students completing programs, where will we “teach” these students and who will teach them? If the system doesn’t have the funds to hire more teachers or build more classrooms, where will the state or institutions get that money? I have already offered my take on the idea of how acceptable raising tuition will be with prospective students and those responsible for the tuition bills of these students.

If you are within higher education, be prepared for the coming discontinuities. You may even have to be prepared for disruptions. Without changes, we can’t and will not meet the coming demands and expectations.

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Distance Eduction Begins at Twelve Feet

Most people think of distance education requires instructor and students to be physically separated by time, distance or both. I would like to offer a new definition that permits instructors and students to be in the same room at the same time. Under my definition, in addition to being separated in time and space, the separation may also include psychological separation, also known as cognitive distance. I have indicated this by suggesting that this psychological separation can typically begin at twelve feet. Why twelve feet? Twelve feet is the usual distance between the teacher’s station and the second row of seats in a typical lecture style classroom with tablet-arm chairs. Many instructors find it difficult to generate and keep cognitive connection with students outside the front row of a class. Most instructors have found that if a class has “open seating, without assigned seats,” the students who sit in the front row are usually very interested in the class. Students who are less interested will tend to sit further back in the classroom. This means instructors will have to work harder to keep those students connected, interested and learning in the class.

Most surveys of faculty and students indicate that the lecture modality is the most used course delivery system today. There are other modalities, such as discussion, seminar classes and blended modalities that are gaining in popularity, but lectures are still number 1. In the 1970’s, surveys of students and faculty suggested that in as many as 90% of all courses, the predominant teaching mode was the lecture. Even with the emphases of the 1990’s on active learning and using teaching styles geared to student learning styles, as late as 2000, surveys of students and faculty were showing that still in approximately 75% of all courses, the dominant teaching mode was the lecture.

A straight lecture modality can be characterized as a “jug and mugs” approach. In such an approach, the instructor brings a jug that is full of ideas or content to the classroom and has the students hold out their individual mugs, and the instructor fills them up from the big jug. It has derisively been described as the transfers of knowledge from the instructor’s notes to the students’ notes without touching the minds of either. If we really consider the operational aspects of this approach, there is no necessity for the instructor to be physically present. Why have faculty remained loyal to the lecture? I believe the lecture is the most popular modality because instructors are most comfortable with this style. It was the way they were taught and the way they learned. They are just modeling what their instructors and mentors did. Plus, there are few rewards to experiment with different modalities. Instructors have little or no access to developmental resources to do something different. Short of no preparation, where the instructor goes into class and “wings it,” the lecture is the easiest modality for which to prepare and to use. It is hard work trying to come up with learning artifacts or objects to engage students in compelling problems that direct their learning in other ways toward the desired goal of learning specific things or ideas.

The “jug and mugs” pedagogy grows out of a “tabula rasa” or “blank slate” approach to teaching, where the teacher has all of the knowledge and the students possess blank slates that the teacher then writes on. This model of education is not congruent with the best of today’s or even yesterday’s theories of learning. From brain and learning theory research, we know that students are more apt to remember and understand things in which they have a real interest and things of which they have had some experience. We have to link new knowledge to current knowledge and we need a reason to do so. Brain research also suggests that we are more able to make connections if we perform activities related to the item or idea. Confucius knew this 2500 years ago when he said, “If I read or hear something, I forget it, if I see it, I remember it. If I do it, I understand it.” Current research with well-functioning adults has found that after three months, these adults retain only 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50 % of what they see and hear, and 70% of what they say or write. These are great rules of thumb to use in the preparation of lesson plans and presentations. If you can involve the audience in the topic, they will have a much greater chance of remembering what you were trying to say. However, the research goes on to show that these adults will retain more than 90% of what they say while doing something that illustrates it. This should become our guiding force in the preparation of learning assignments.

Dr. William Pfohl, former president of the National Association of School Psychologists in discussing how adults and children learn has said, “The best process to ensure learning take places is to guarantee the individual sees it, hears it, and then gets some experience using it. And that way it’s most likely to stick.”

If distance learning begins at twelve feet because it is difficult to connect with students in the second row when they are in the same room, then wouldn’t that suggest that distance learning via other means is impossible?  I don’t think so. There is a whole body of literature that speaks to engaging students via distance learning technologies. Conversely, if we can engage students that are hundreds of miles away, why can’t we engage students, that are physically in our presence in the same classroom? We can and must do a better job in both venues.

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Can Faculty Learn from a Broadway Musical

An article that first appeared in the July 4, 2010 e-edition of the Technology Section of The Chronicle of Higher Education was repeated in the July 9, 2010 e-edition of Academe Today. The article was entitled “Linked In With: A Writer Who Questions the Wisdom of Teaching with Technology.”  Because I was familiar with Carr’s writings, this article caught my attention and I had to read it, even though I was confident of what I was going to find. The author of the article, Marc Parry, was talking about and interviewing Nicholas Carr, the author of a book entitled, “The Shallows,” and many articles, including “IT Doesn’t Matter” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“As usual, Carr was questioning the efficacy of technology in assisting in the teaching and learning process. This article was vintage Carr.

I believe education is meeting students where they are and helping them to get to where they want and ought to be. If where they want to be is not where they ought to be, then our first job in education is to help them see where they ought to be. I believe every prospective teacher should watch the musical, “My Fair Lady.” Can teachers learn anything from a Broadway musical? I think they can if they are paying attention, especially if they are asked to reflect on one particular scene. The scene takes place in the Professor’s study, when he and the Colonel are celebrating Eliza’s triumphant debut at the gala. Colonel Pickering keeps saying, “You said that you could do it, and you did it.” Professor Higgins replies:”Yes I did it.” But did you see Eliza in the corner of the room crying and sobbing, “What have you done? “ They replied:”We made you a lady.” Eliza responded, “I never asked to be a lady. All I wanted was to be able to speak well enough to sell flowers at the corner shop. Now that I am a lady, there is nothing left for me to do, but to sell myself and marry a gentleman.” The Professor and the Colonel used good pedagogy and “taught her well”, but they didn’t listen to what she wanted, and they definitely didn’t help her understand what it was to be a lady and why that was important.

The following exchange between Perry and  Carr reminded me of that scene from “My Fair Lady:”Perry asked Carr: “If the Internet is making us so distracted, how did you manage to write a 224-page book and read all the dense academic studies that much of it is based on?” Carr responded, “It was hard. The reason I started writing it was because I noticed in myself this increasing inability to pay attention to stuff, whether it was reading or anything else. When I started to write the book, I found it very difficult to sit and write for a couple of hours on end or to sit down with a dense academic paper.” I have found that most of our students today don’t know how to sit down for a couple of hours to read or write. They mentally and physically can’t sit for a couple of hours to read or write. They definitely don’t know how to sit down and read a dense paper. They also don’t know why that should be important. It is not enough for us to tell them just to do it, because it is important and it is good for them. How often to our question of why, do we accept the answer, “Because I told you so; besides it is good for you; or you ought to do it.” At one point in the article after renouncing the use of the internet, Carr says, “my abilities to concentrate did seem to strengthen again. I felt in a weird way intellectually or mentally calmer. And I could sit down and write or read with a great deal of attentiveness for quite a long time.” Our students don’t know why that is important for them unless we help them learn that. Just telling that it is good and that it works for us is not enough. If we want to reach these students, we need to meet them where they are and help them see the benefits of the reflective pursuit of knowledge and truth for them. If we don’t do that, these students might well be like Eliza, sitting in the corner crying that we didn’t listen to them, and we haven’t. The other more likely possibility is they will give up, walk away and never engage in the reflective pursuit of knowledge.

My next question may sound like heresy coming from someone within the academy, “Is the reflective pursuit of knowledge the only way to obtain knowledge? The ancient Greeks allowed and even encouraged at least three different ways of knowing, theoria, poiesis and praxis. Theoria is the word from which we get our words theory and theoretical. In ancient Greece, it meant contemplation or seeing by observation. It developed into the idea of the theoretical pursuit of knowledge and truth through contemplation or reflection. Poiesis is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria  was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.

I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may not at first seem comfortable to us?

is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.
I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may at first not seem comfortable to us?

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Centralized or Decentralized Online Learning Offices

In a June 30, 2010 news item in the Wired Campus Section of Chronicle of Higher Education, Marc Parry wrote: “One university’s decision to close its central distance Education office has stirred a national debate over the best way to operate online programs.”

Continuing he remarked, “Under a restructuring of Texas A&M University at College Station, individual colleges will now manage online learning. And tuition paid for those programs will flow directly through those colleges.”

That last phrase captures at least half if not most of the debate. The various colleges want their piece of the revenue pie, if not the whole pie; however, they still expect the university to pick up all the infrastructure costs. The other major portion of the debate is control of the courses offered.

I have seen this debate played out at two different universities. The primary arguments for centralization that I have seen are: 1) A centralized office is more likely to be more economical for the university in terms of equipment and software costs. Bundling the hardware and software needs, the university is more likely to get better pricing and usage discounts from its vendors. Working with fewer vendors usually provides quicker and better service. 2) A centralized platform and centralized course management system is more student friendly. In situations where students may have to or want to take courses from different colleges (e.g. general education requirements), it is much easier for the students to have to learn only one platform. 3) A centralized office is more likely to avoid scheduling conflicts and more widely publicize the whole range of offerings. 4) Expenses are paid from one checkbook. A particular college can’t decide to skip payment of a particular bill (e.g. extra storage or bandwidth to cover usage, upgraded software and new or upgraded servers to handle the new software, or extra personnel to cover programming needs, course design assistance, and help desk features) and thereby curtail or eliminate online learning for that college. 5) It is easier to plan and provide for redundancy requirements, e.g.,( if one college is not using enough bandwidth all the time to warrant the expense of that extra bandwidth, there is the possibility of time-sharing among the colleges). If one server goes down, it is easier and quicker to off-load the work to other servers. Just ask students what they think of your program if they experience a week, a day, or even an hour of down time waiting for you to restore service.

In addition to the revenue argument, other major arguments for a decentralized approach are control of course content and faculty assignments. The various colleges want to make sure the assigned faculties are qualified to teach a given course and that the assigned faculties include all the “appropriate content” and none of the “inappropriate content.”

These are good arguments both for and against a centralized approach. With as much intellectual genius that exists in our institutions, it seems as if we should be able to design a workable hybrid approach. Such an approach would allow the separate colleges to participate in some of the revenue intake, still have some control over individual courses and faculty, and yet makes the whole process economically feasible for the university and accessible to both internal and external audiences of students.

Along with the revenue and expense questions, “To whom are the online courses targeted?” If the target of the online courses is only currently enrolled campus-based students, a decentralized approach may work. If the targeted audience includes a wider audience focusing on part or primarily on external students, a centralized or partially centralized approach makes more sense. External students not familiar with the university structure will be put off with what they view as a runaround, going from college to college to get what they need or want, and they will go to another university they view as more convenient. Internal students may complain about the “runaround” but they will negotiate the winding path to reach their desired goals. To make the online programs economically feasible, it makes more sense to make the intended audience as wide as possible. As in any compromise, both sides will not get everything they want and will have to give up something. That is the nature of compromise. Each university will have to decide what its negotiable items are.

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Charcteristics of an Ideal Major

Characteristics of an Ideal Major
What does the ideal major look like? Almost all undergraduate programs today consist of three parts: General Education, Major, Electives. The major is the primary area of study that the student wishes to pursue. In forty years of academic work, I have had the privilege of helping many programs or departments design and construct majors. In any building job, contractors and builders will tell you that it is absolutely necessary to have a plan before you start building. Those plans may be hand-drawn or put together by architects. In either case, the drawer or the architect begins the plans with a style or a philosophy from which to work. My philosophy of building an ideal major includes the following characteristics.

Definition: a major is a combination of related courses and competency requirements that upon completion will permit the student to pursue further study in the area or obtain an entry job in the area.

Necessary Characteristics:

1. Discipline: A major should be built upon a recognized academic discipline, interdisciplinary area or multidisciplinary combination.
2. Structure: The basic structural design of a major is linear, with a beginning, middle and end.
a. Beginning: Foundational courses introduce students to the primary subdivision of the discipline, and the prerequisite content and skills necessary for success in the discipline.
b. Middle: Core courses build upon the introductory courses providing breadth and depth in the discipline. These courses should include work with the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture and language of the discipline. They should include increasing development of content, methodologies and skills of the discipline.
c. End: Capstone courses permit students to engage in in-depth work within the discipline. They should also introduce and engage the student in the process of integration of the discipline with other disciplines. Since all of my work has been at faith-based institutions, in the context of these institutions this integration should include the integration of faith and the discipline.
3. Coherence/Cohesiveness/Connectedness/Current: Each major should be designed in such a way that the requirements and topics studied are coherent (logically consistent and holding together as a harmonious and credible whole), cohesive (the requirements and topics studied stick or hold together working as a united whole), and connected (requirements and topics are joined or linked firmly together, having something in common). Each major should also represent the most recent views and interpretations of the discipline.
4. Breadth: The major should permit students to see and explore the breadth of the discipline in terms of content sub-divisions, and in terms of the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture, language, methodologies, skills and values associated with the discipline
5. Depth: The major should provide enough in-depth work to permit students upon the completion of the major, the opportunity to begin engagement in graduate study within the discipline or a closely related discipline, or to obtain employment in an initial position.
6. Experiential Learning: Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to participate in an experiential learning component within the framework of the major. The major should develop experiential learning components that include a foundation for the experience, the experience itself which is based upon well-defined learning objectives, and a reflective component after the experience that provides an opportunity to tie together the achieved learning objectives. If credit is given, it is not to be given for the experience itself. It should be given for the completion of specified learning objectives in connection with the reflective component.
7. Service Learning: Each major should introduce the general principles of service learning and the specific principles of service associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to engage in service learning within the framework of the discipline, and encourage students to participate in a service learning experience. If credit is given it is not to be given just for the service; it is to be given for the learning component of the service learning experience.
8. Leadership: Each major should introduce the general principles of leadership and the specific principles of leadership associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to test his or her leadership potential, and encourage every student to aspire to appropriate leadership positions.
9. Multi-cultural/Cross-Cultural: Each major should provide students with the opportunity to become involved in a multicultural/cross-cultural or global experience within the framework of the discipline. Each major should encourage every student to take advantage of these offered experiences.
10. Thinking Skills: Each major should provide students with an understanding of and practice in the critical and creative thinking skills associate with the discipline. Upon completion of the major, each student should have been exposed to and required to demonstrate appropriate skill in the higher level thinking skills of evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application and understanding within the context of the discipline. Each student should have had adequate practice in creating, evaluating, analyzing, applying and understanding within the context of the discipline.
11. Communication Skills: Each major should provide students with an introduction to and practice in the various communication modes indigenous to the discipline. At a minimum, the major should have at least one writing intensive course required of all students. At a minimum, the major should have at least one course in which the student is required to make oral presentations.
12. Problem Solving Skills: Each major should introduce students to the main problem solving methodologies used by the discipline. Students should have adequate practice in solving typical problems of the disciplines.
13. Cooperative Learning/Collaboration: Each major should provide students with opportunities to engage in cooperative learning. Students should be encouraged to collaborate within the normal framework of the discipline.
14. Research Skills/Scholarship: Each major should introduce the students to the normal research practices of the disciplines. Students should be encouraged to engage in scholarship within the bounds of the discipline.
15. Career Planning: Each major should introduce the students to the normal career paths of individuals working within the disciplines. Each major should provide opportunities for students to career shadow a professional within the discipline. All students within the major should be encouraged to tentatively lay out career plans for themselves.
16. Portfolio Development: Each major should introduce students to the typical portfolio designs used within the discipline. Students should be encouraged to begin a professional portfolio that they could begin to use after graduation.
17. Ethical Concerns of the Discipline: Each major should introduce the students to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline. Students should be introduced to and required to read something from the primary authors who address ethical concerns within the discipline. All students should be required to begin to think about what position or positions they should take related to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline.
18. Lifelong Learning: Each major should encourage and instill within every student the understanding of the necessity for and the desire to engage in lifelong learning.
19. Citizenship within the Discipline: Each major should introduce students to the expectations of behavior of professionals within the discipline toward each other and toward the community. Students should be given opportunities to practice aspects of citizenship before they graduate.
20. Economical: Each major should be designed in such a way that it is as efficient and economical as possible for both student and faculty. It should offer the necessary courses to achieve the mission and goals of the major, but not require, or even offer a proliferation of unnecessary courses.
21. Resources: Each major should have the necessary resources (personnel, facilities, equipment, library material, and technology) to achieve its goals and mission and satisfy the fulfillment of these characteristics.
Since my entire career has been in faith-based institutions, for such institutions I would add another characteristic.
22. Integration of Faith and Learning: Integration of faith and learning refers to the process of combining a discipline and one’s faith in such a way that the process gives meaning to or helps interpret isolated facts or makes connections between one’s faith and the discipline. It is an attempt to synthesize knowledge. Integration approaches knowledge and problems from interdisciplinary and/or multi-disciplinary points of view. The key questions in integration are: a)”What do the findings mean?”and b)”How do they provide a larger, more comprehensive understanding of the discipline and/or one’s faith? The major should not only help the student to begin the process of integration of faith and learning, but should also help the student engage in the process in some meaningful way.