Oblinger.+For+the+Next+Generation.

= Oblinger, Diana G. “For the Next Generation”. =  EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 46, no. 1 (January/February 2011): 16–33

==**Abstract** == The landscape of higher education—the growing variety of higher education institutions, the cultural environment, the competitive ecosystem—is changing rapidly and disruptively. The higher education landscape is metaphorically crossed with fault lines, those fissures in the landscape creating potential areas of dramatic change, and is as "seismic" as it has been in decades. Below we identify ten such fissures or fault lines in the larger landscape of higher education. Unlike the //Horizon Report,//1 which looks largely at technology trends, we are looking at a context and environment wider than IT departments. Indeed, most of the fissures noted below are not technological, although they encompass significant technical implications. Those of us in information services and information technology need to be aware of these larger changes and the impact they will have on college and university IT departments and on academic computing. Consider this article advanced warning of potentially tectonic change. ==Argument == Many readers of //EDUCAUSE Review// may envision innovation in higher education arising largely as a result of rapid changes in technology and new media. But focusing strictly on technology trends blinds us to other environmental factors that are drivers for change in higher education. Indeed, these trends will likely have an impact on IT departments. For example, as colleges and universities alter their connections with alumni, developing lifelong relationships and continued service models, these institutions will need more robust tracking tools and metrics to assess their students' career paths. Invisible college networks will surely require reliable IT platforms. IT professionals will need to reassess pedagogy and curriculum as programming and coding join the roster of general education competencies. Those colleges and universities that understand how to harness and leverage these tectonic shifts in the larger environment will be best positioned to lead disruptive innovation in higher education. ==Key Passages == In survey after survey, corporate executives and the heads of their human resources departments say that they are looking to hire college graduates with well-developed writing, oral communications, and interpersonal skills and with global cultural awareness and understanding, whatever the graduates' majors might be. At the same time, these surveys suggest that employers have identified a deficit of these skills among college graduates. "While many businesses understand the value of hiring liberal arts graduates," notes Mark William Roche, "many hire business majors and then lament that their new employees lack the most important quality they seek: communications skills."5 Students, assuming that employers are interested only in their majors, frequently dismiss their general education courses. Faculties, for their part, are loath to conceptualize their general education and liberal arts courses as career-preparation and skills-building endeavors. In other words, there are disconnects among employers' stated preferences for graduates with the skills typically developed in the general curriculum, employers' commitment to hiring graduates who have demonstrated ability in these subjects, students' seriousness of purpose for their general education courses, and faculty's commitment to see general education in practical, vocational terms. "General education," or the core curriculum, is in many ways a vestige of the nineteenth-century common curriculum—the subjects, studied in sequence, that defined a college/university education for every student. The rise of the elective system at the turn of the twentieth century meant that students could concentrate on a subject of their choice, a change that challenged the philosophy that all students should master a common set of subjects. General education was meant to maintain at least the spirit of that older curriculum, mandating classes that would provide all students with a broad grounding in a variety of subjects that would enable a generally educated person to work and live in the world. After World War II, as more and more students streamed into colleges and universities, the elective system became wedded more closely to post-graduation employment needs: students majored in a subject they expected to pursue as a career. In the current globally competitive, highly dynamic environment, job preparation is even more important to students, and the general education curriculum can appear tangential to those needs. General education has been defined both as a curriculum for broadening the mind—one of the hallmarks of an educated person—and as a way to prepare for active participation as a citizen. Students, however, seem less persuaded by these goals and apparently are not hearing from employers that the skills developed in the core curriculum have value. Students are hearing that these courses are a hoop to jump through before getting to the "real" coursework that is more directly applicable to real-world career preparation. Indeed, some colleges and universities, responding to what they perceive to be students' lack of interest, deemphasize general education. (At least one college has advertised to prospective students by telling them: "You're not required to take unnecessary courses. Every course is directly related to your chosen career path."6) Colleges and universities typically define general education in terms of content subjects: history, literature, sociology, the sciences, the arts. Indeed, the liberal arts are frequently held as the center of the core curriculum. Yet there is an emerging sense that general education should focus more on the key attributes that employers value as needed by a generally educated person: critical thinking, writing, speaking, arguing, researching, and mathematical reasoning. In addition to introducing a broad variety of subjects, general education should exercise skills and habits of mind. Robert Sternberg contends: "We can do a much better job of college admissions, as well as instruction and assessment, if we think about student abilities in a broader way than we have—in particular, by valuing, assessing, and teaching for analytical, creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills."7 Thinking in these terms has clear implications for how we imagine the general education curriculum. In addition to courses in history and physics, general education might also include coursework in areas such as analytical and verbal skills, creativity and innovation, entrepreneurship, the appreciation of complexity and ambiguity, and leadership.8 At a time when most people will have a number of jobs before middle age and when many jobs have yet to even be developed, how can one train in a major that may not yet exist? The emerging skills-based general education curriculum provides an answer. Once thought of as issues of character—and thus unteachable—attributes and skills such as leadership and creativity will come to define the new general education curriculum.

==**Selected Works Cited** == 1. //2010 Horizon Report:// <[]>. 2. James V. Koch, "The Multifurcation of American Higher Education," in Gary A. Olson and John W. Presley, eds., //The Future of Higher Education: Perspectives from America's Academic Leaders// (Boulder, Co.: Paradigm Publishers, 2009), p. 27. 3. "Who Are the Undergraduates?," //Chronicle of Higher Education,// December 12, 2010, <@http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Are-the-Undergraduates-/123916/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en>. 4. Ben Wildavsky, "Yes, McDegrees Are Worth Taking Seriously," //Chronicle of Higher Education,// November 29, 2010, . 5. Mark William Roche, //Why Choose the Liberal Arts?// (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), p. 13. 6. "Welcome to Bryan College," <@http://www.bryancolleges.edu/>. 7. Robert J. Sternberg, //College Admissions for the 21st Century// (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2010), p. x. 8. Roche, //Why Choose the Liberal Arts?,// pp. 52–53. 9. On faculty status, see "Trends in Faculty Status, 1975–2007" (compiled by the American Association of University Professors), <@http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/B0D26AE9-D1BA-4E7C-B228-5D05347B9CAA/0/TrendsinFacultyStatus2007.pdf>. On perceptions of tenure, see Cary Nelson, "Parents: Your Children Need Professors with Tenure," //Chronicle of Higher Education//, October 3, 2010, <@http://chronicle.com/article/Parents-Your-Children-Need/124776/>. 10. As noted in Ben Wildavsky, //The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World// (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 27. 11. Ibid., pp. 29, 198. 12. Caroline S. Wagner, //The New Invisible College: Science for Development// (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), pp. 4, 5. 13. Anya Kamenetz, "How TED Connects the Idea-Hungry Elite," //Fast Company//, issue 148 (September 2010), <@http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/148/how-ted-became-the-new-harvard.html>. 14. William Clohan, "What Does It All Mean," session at the APSCU (Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities) Symposium 2010, Washington, D.C., December 9, 2010. 15. Kelly Field, "Lawmakers Focus Ire on Accreditors for Abuses at For-Profit Colleges," //Chronicle of Higher Education//, August 4, 2010, <@http://chronicle.com/article/Lawmakers-Focus-Ire-on/123771/>; Mike Lillis, "Enzi Blasts 'Gainful Employment' Proposal on For-Profit Schools," Healthwatch blog, //The Hill,// September 20, 2010, <@http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/other/119769-enzi-blasts-gainful-employment-proposal-for-for-profit-schools>; Doug Lederman, "Sector Under Siege?," //Inside Higher Ed//, June 11, 2010, <@http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/11/cca>. 16. Paul Solman, "Malemployed College Graduates Cope with Discouragement," //The Business Desk,// December 6, 2010, <@http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2010/12/more-from-the-dog-walkers-to-d.html>. 17. Harry J. Holzer and Robert I. Lerman, "America's Forgotten Middle-Skill Jobs: Education and Training Requirements in the Next Decade and Beyond" (Skills2Compete, November 2007), p. 4, <@http://www.urban.org/UploadedPdf/411633_forgottenjobs.pdf>. 18. Harry J. Holzer and Robert I. Lerman, "The Future of Middle-Skill Jobs" (Center on Children and Families, Brief #41, February 2009), p. 1, <@http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/02_middle_skill_jobs_holzer/02_middle_skill_jobs_holzer.pdf>. 19. Camille Paglia, "Revalorizing the Trades," //Chronicle of Higher Education,// August 29, 2010, <@http://chronicle.com/article/Revalorizing-the-Trades/124130/>. 20. James J. Duderstadt, //The View from the Helm: Leading the American University during an Era of Change// (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 145. 21. Dan Berrett, "Wharton, Rebooted," //Inside Higher Ed,// December 7, 2010, <@http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/12/07/wharton>.