Ivory Tower Blues: Rescuing the Liberal Arts .

Ivory Tower Blues: Rescuing the Liberal Arts. • The crisis • System overload • Disengagement • Grade inflation • What to do? www.ivorytowerblues.com

The benefits of a university education (research conducted from 1950s thru 1990s) • Monetary • 10-30% annual rate of return • $1,000,000 over lifetime (average) • Non-monetary • Liberalism & technical skills • Long-term career success • Humanities vs. Applied Degrees • Citizenship roles, intellectual growth, and a broad awareness of the world?

The crisis • These benefits in jeopardy because of a system overload • The liberal arts are being diluted and degraded by a flood of unmotivated students expecting high grades for little effort • Liberal arts benefits come from the ability to critically analyze arguments and communicate ideas • Not the memorization of facts and procedures (~vocational training)

… crisis • Lower human capital production because of lower standards of performance • Disengaged students learn/retain little • Moderate ability students not transformed • High ability students less likely to reach potentials • Credibility • Employers • Disengaged students are conditioned to become poorly motivated workers • Professional and graduate schools • Skeptical of the integrity of grades

1. System overload • Introducing job training mentality into liberal arts programmes capitalizes on their cachet, but dilutes their value • Creates massive problems in student-environment fits • A source of confusion over the role of exams and what grades mean (contributes to inflation) • “consider the social justice implications of X in the context of Y, by contrasting theory A and B” • Vs. • “here what you need to know about X and Y for the test”

2. Academic disengagement • A source • Attempts to retain most students in academic programmes by: • dropping standards • increasing immediate rewards (easy grades) • Both lead to grade inflation (compression) • A downward cycle ensues • Students expend less effort • But expect high rewards • Faculty lower standards further

Liberal Arts and Research-intensive universities (NSSE 2006)

… ripple effect • The attempt to reduce high-school dropout using this approach has infected many universities as students have arrived expecting high grades for little effort • Universities in turn reduce standards to attract and retain students • Result • Less human capital development • Less personal transformation • Less is value added by higher education

A student from York Universitywho wanted a more engaging education (Psynopsis, 2007): • Total challenges from 2nd and 3rd year courses: • 1 essay, 1 report, 3 literature reviews, 2 group projects, 2 research proposals, and 26 multiple-choice tests • Feels his BA in Psychology qualifies him for “Jeopardy or hitting the North American Trivial Pursuit circuit” • Resents paying $20,000 for what he “could have acquired by reading an encyclopaedia”

Grade Inflation: Changes in university student grade expectations (Runté, 2006)

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2004):% of students reporting As or Bs

Grade compression:The case of Harvard University • Over 90% are now awarded honours grades (A or B) • Summa cum laude now limited to top 5% • but this requires a cut-off at 3 decimal places • might as well use a lottery to determine the top honours

An ex-student from Calgary(“My best marks were in partying 101; Globe & Mail, 2006): • “Taking only one step up a mountain, when there are thousands more to go, and then being told that one step is more than enough, seems to cheat one out of reaching the summit and seeing the valley below.” • “It is my own fault for not taking more steps and getting closer to the mountaintop, but it is not my fault for receiving a higher mark than I deserved. I was not given a chance to work hard for something, because slight efforts were enough.”

The slow boil of grade inflation and disengagement: It is time to pay attention

WHAT TO DO? • Solutions require acknowledging the problems and a willingness to address them • Getting past denial and massaging the facts • We need about 20% of the labour force to exercise critical thinking and high-level verbal/written communications

Reactive strategies • Solutions with current resources: • End the disengagement compact • Require more of students beginning in first year • Return to core curricula (reasoning abilities) • add capstone courses • offer electives in applied topics • Require more of professors through curriculum control (essays, tutorials, better teaching methods)

System-wide measures to restore the credibility of the undergrad education • Audit individual high school standards for admissions • Convert grades to a common standard • European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) • 10% As; 25% Bs = 1/3 above average • Set system-wide grading standards (e.g. ECTS) • Reward teachers for high standards • Quality control of student assessment • Higher-order intellectual capacities; oral and written communication skills

Proactive strategies • Call for additional resources by pushing the envelope • E.g., Nation-wide lobbying of governments as one voice • Threaten admission cut-offs at 15-1 student-teacher ratios • Would almost double youth unemployment rate • Governments know it is cheaper to fund education than to deal with a massive youth unemployment problem

Toward 2023: Long-term strategies • Market on the basis of quality • Base branding strategies on academic strengths • Agree on division of specialties among schools • Admissions strategies • Deemphasize grades • Bolster recruitment systems • PSE sector set up educational and career-goal counselling in high schools • Establish individualized entrance exams in competitive programmes • Assess motivation and willingness to engage

Market quality • Schools that promise personal & intellectual transformation can tap different markets • Western - has the “best student experience” but is it intellectually stimulating? • Exit surveys: only 65% find it so • Target motivations in recruitment that will bring in students willing to meet the system “halfway” …

Give students the chance to find purpose and direction “Help me find my way.” Establish lived educational missions to help students find their purpose and direction, and lay a basis for them to reach their goals

Take engagement to a new level • Think of the whole student as a total package, from recruitment through to their careers • Connect recruitment with later alumnae involvement • Establish a quid pro quo with each student (e.g., personal supervisor-of-studies) • Personally transformed graduates will be loyal and generous alumni

Thank you for your attention

Ivory Tower Blues: Rescuing the Liberal Arts .