Is It Time to Kill the Liberal Arts Degree by Kim Brooks

新闻

Making College 'Relevant'

时间： 2010-01-03 00:00:00 来源：New York Times

THOMAS College, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself as Home of the Guaranteed Job! Students who tin't find work in their fields within vi months of graduation can come back to have classes free, or take the college pay their student loans for a year. The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is eliminating its philosophy major, while Michigan State Academy is doing away with American studies and classics, after years of declining enrollments in those majors. And in a class chosen "The English Major in the Workplace," at the Academy of Texas, Austin, students read "Death of a Salesman" but also acquire to network, write a r�sum� and come off well in an interview. Even before they arrive on campus, students � and their parents � are increasingly focused on what comes later on college. What's the return on investment, especially as the cost of that investment keeps rising? How will that major translate into a job? The force per unit area on institutions to respond those questions is prompting changes from the admissions function to the career center. Just even as they blitz to show their relevance, colleges and universities worry that students are specializing also early, that they are and then focused on picking the perfect major that they don't permit time for cocky-discovery, much less late blooming. "The phrase drives me crazy � 'What are you going to do with your degree?' � but I see increasing concerns about that," says Katharine Brooks, director of the liberal arts career middle at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of "You lot Majored in What? Mapping Your Path From Anarchy to Career." "Specially as money gets tighter, people are going to demand more than accountability from majors and departments." Consider the change captured in the annual survey by the Academy of California, Los Angeles, of more than 400,000 incoming freshmen. In 1971, 37 per centum responded that information technology was essential or very important to be "very well-off financially," while 73 percent said the same almost "developing a meaningful philosophy of life." In 2009, the values were virtually reversed: 78 percent identified wealth equally a goal, while 48 percent were later on a meaningful philosophy. The shift in attitudes is reflected in a shifting curriculum. Nationally, business organization has been the virtually pop major for the last 15 years. Campuses too report a boom in public health fields, and many institutions are building up environmental science and just near anything prefixed with "bio." Reflecting the new economic and global realities, they are adding or expanding majors in Chinese and Arabic. The University of Michigan has seen a 38 per centum increase in students enrolling in Asian linguistic communication courses since 2002, while French has dropped past 5 percent. Of course, universities have e'er adjusted curriculum to reflect the changing world; Kim Wilcox, the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan Land, notes that universities, his included, used to offer majors in elocution and creature husbandry. In a major re-examination of its curriculum, Michigan Land has added a dozen or so new programs, including degrees in global studies and, in response to a growing industry in the state, moving picture studies. At the same fourth dimension, it is abandoning underperformers like classical studies: in the last four years, only thirteen students have alleged it their major. Dropping a classics or philosophy major might accept been unthinkable a generation ago, when knowledge of the slap-up thinkers was a cornerstone of a solid education. But with budgets tight, such programs have come to seem like a luxury� or mayhap an expensive antique � in some quarters. When Louisiana's regents voted to eliminate the philosophy major last spring, they agreed with faculty members that the field of study is "a traditional cadre plan of a broad-based liberal arts and science institution." Only they noted that, on boilerplate, 3.iv students had graduated as philosophy majors in the previous 5 years; in 2008, there were none. "One cannot help simply recognize that philosophy equally an essential undergraduate program has lost some credence among students," the board concluded. In one recent survey, two-thirds of public institutions said they were responding to upkeep cuts with extensive reviews of their programs. Just Dr. Wilcox says curriculum changes at Michigan State take just as much to practice with what students, and the economy, are demanding. "Nosotros could have simply reduced the campus operating budget past X percent," he says, "merely we wouldn't have positioned ourselves whatever differently for the future." In Michigan, where the recession hit early and hard, universities are particularly focused on being relevant to the job market place. "In that location'south been this drumbeat that Michigan has got to diversify its economy," says Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan. Dr. Coleman says she had an "aha" moment five years agone, when the manager of admissions was describing the incoming form and noted that 10 per centum � some 600 students � had started a business concern in high school. The university has responded with about 100 entrepreneurship courses beyond the curriculum, including "Financing Inquiry Commercialization" and "Applied science Social Venture Creation," for students interested in creating businesses that not only exercise well financially but too practice order good. Next year, the university will begin offering a main'due south to students who commit to starting a high-tech company. At the same time, Dr. Coleman is wary of preparation students for just one thing � "creating them to do some little widget," as she says. Michigan has begun a speaker series featuring alumni or other successful entrepreneurs who come in to talk about how their careers benefited from what Dr. Coleman calls "core knowledge." "We believe that we practice our best for students when nosotros give them tools to be analytical, to be able to get together information and to determine the validity of that data themselves, specially in this world where people don't filter for you anymore," Dr. Coleman says. "We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice." These are the skills that liberal arts colleges in particular have prided themselves on teaching. Simply these colleges also say they have the hardest time explaining the link between what they teach and the kind of chore and salary a student can look on the other end. "There's no immediate impact, that'southward the problem," says John J. Neuhauser, the president of St. Michael's College, a liberal arts school in Vermont. "The humanities tend to educate people much farther out. They're looking for an impact that lasts over decades, not just when you're 22." When prospective students and their parents visit, he says, they ask most placement rates, internships and alumni interest in job placement. These are questions, he says, that he never heard 10 years ago. St. Michael's, like other colleges, has adapted its curriculum to reflect demand. The college had to create new sections of chemistry labs and calculus on the spot during summer registration, and it raised the cap on the number of students in a biological science lab. "I'd say, given the vagaries of the concern cycle, people are looking for things that they know volition always be needed � accountants, scientists, mathematicians," says Jeffrey A. Trumbower, dean of the college. "Those also happen to be some of the nigh challenging majors academically, and then we'll run across how these trends concord up." Nonetheless, Dr. Neuhauser finds the careerism troubling. "I recall people change a great bargain between 18 and 22," he says. "The intimate environment small liberal arts colleges provide is a great place to grow upwards. But in that location's no question that smacks of some measure of elitism now." There's evidence, though, that employers also don't want students specializing besides soon. The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently asked employers who hire at least 25 per centum of their workforce from ii- or four-year colleges what they want institutions to teach. The answers did not suggest a narrow focus. Instead, 89 percent said they wanted more emphasis on "the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing," 81 pct asked for better "disquisitional thinking and analytical reasoning skills" and seventy percent were looking for "the ability to innovate and be creative." "It's not about what yous should major in, just that no affair what you lot major in, y'all demand good writing skills and proficient speaking skills," says Debra Humphreys, a vice president at the association. The organization has conducted focus groups with employers before and heard the same affair. With the recession, she says, they weren't sure the findings would agree. "But it's even more intense. Companies are enervating more of employees. They actually want them to have a broad set of skills." She adds that getting employer feedback is the association service that "college leaders find the most valuable, considering they can answer the question when parents enquire, �Is this going to assistance in getting a job?' " Career advisers say that colleges and universities need to do a improve chore helping students understand the connection between a caste and a job. At some institutions, this means career officers are heading into the classroom. Concluding fall at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the career office began integrating workplace lessons into capstone inquiry seminars for humanities majors. In one of three classes taught by Anne Scholl-Fiedler, the director, she asks students to develop a thirty-second commercial on their "personal brand." "When somebody asks, �How are y'all going to use that English caste?' y'all need to be able to clearly articulate what you are able to do," she says. "If you lot don't know, employers probably won't either." At the University of Texas, Ms. Brooks says, many parents drop their children off freshman twelvemonth asking, "How tin my child transfer to the business organisation school?" She tries to establish the value of the liberal arts with a serial of courses chosen "The Major in the Workplace." Students draw what she calls a "major map," an inventory of things they have learned to do around their major. Using literature � "The Great Gatsby," mayhap, or "Expiry of a Salesman" � she gets students to think about how the themes might use to a workplace, then has them read Harvard Business concern Review instance studies. The goal, she says, is to become students to think about how an English language major (or a psychology or history major) might view the globe differently, and why an employer might value that. "There's this linear notion that what y'all major in equals your career," Ms. Brooks says. "I'm certain it works for some majors. If y'all want to be an electric engineer, that major looks pretty darn practiced. "The truth is," she says, "students think too much about majors. But the major isn't most as important as the toolbox of skills you lot come up out with and the experiences yous have." Kate Zernike is a national reporter for The Times. Rachel Aviv contributed reporting.

kingflarapt.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.chinaeducation.net/cn/newsitem.php?id=34

Share this post