Transcript The Liberal Arts and 21st Century Careers A View from Liberal Arts

The Liberal Arts and 21st Century Careers
A View from Liberal Arts Colleges
Stanton Green
Dean
McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Monmouth University
Rethinking Success
Wake Forest University
April 2012
MY CASE:
THE LIBERAL ARTS ARE ALL ABOUT
PREPARING STUDENTS FOR CAREERS.
THE ISSUE IS MAKING THIS CLEAR TO
OUR STUDENTS, AND THE PUBLIC –
THE CORPORATE WORLD ALREADY
KNOWS THIS.
TO DO THIS WE NEED TO MOVE FROM:
Typical Perceived Career Path
of a Liberal Arts Major
Discipline
Self Employed
Corporate
Academia
State Agency
Non-Profit
NGO
Discipline
Self Employed
Corporate
Academia
State Agency
Non-Profit
NGO
Why the Recommended
Career Path??
Because that is where many if not most of the Jobs
and Careers are --
Where Do Liberal Arts Majors Find
Jobs?
Well – It really depends on
where they look for them Case Example:
Anthropology Masters Graduates
How do we convince faculty to advise
students toward the the opportunistic
path?
Fear Tactic
Have the Faculty read
Frank Donoghue’s The Last Professors
Prediction of McDonalds University
Writing in 1842, Francis Wayland, president of Brown
University, offered an astonishingly prescient speculation
about the future of American higher education.
If the colleges did not provide the training desired by the
mercantile and industrial interests, he argued, businesses
would set up their own competing schools.
Thorstein Veblen 1912
… the university does operate like a
business, but more radically, it serves as a
comprehensive and uniform credentialing
service for all business interests.
OR
Convince the Academy and the
Professoriate that the Liberal arts can be both
The doorway to a well education person
&
A well prepared career path.
Student vs. Faculty Views
It seems impossible for students not to think of
jobs and careers as the price of a college
education escalates and they plan for a life of
work after graduation.
Faculty in the humanities cannot help resenting a
corporate culture that has permeated
universities, often marginalizing their disciplines
and managing their work lives
Perceptions Aside Who actually is Being Hired?
From the late 1980s through the mid–1990s, “when three-fifths
of undergraduate degrees…were awarded in professional
programs, almost half of new hires continued to be in the arts
and sciences fields.
The corporate world seems to understand that the liberal arts are
doing the job – it is ironically the academy that seems not
to….
Examples
PNC Bank
Wall Street Journal Article (April 5 2012)
Companies say they need flexible thinkers with innovative ideas
and a broad knowledge base derived from exposure to multiple
disciplines.
While most recruiters don’t outright avoid business majors,
companies in consulting, technology and even finance say they
are looking for candidates with a broader academic background
Which Company has been consistently
the largest Employers of College
Graduates?
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
From their Web Page:
Regardless of university major or professional experience,
nearly 100% of our employees start out as Management
Trainees allowing everyone to learn the business from the
ground up. As you progress, you can continue along that
managerial track or you can explore other exciting
opportunities outside of rental.
What Do We need to Do in the Classroom
Move from Content to
Context driven learning
(Colleges that Change Lives)
With a focus on explicating the
Skills and Competencies
that students learn in liberal arts classes
Recruiters want graduates who have
the requisite skills
to be able to perform and to learn
on the job
and therefore have excellent career
potential
Employers are not usually interested in
what students majored in –
They want to know
What students can do and
&
What they have done
That are related to the job for which
they are applying
Do Liberal Arts Students Have
the Necessary Skills?
It depends on who you ask.
Faculty Assessment of Student Skills
Students can do this very well
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Faculty and Student Perceptions
of Student Skills
Rated as good to extremely good
Understand oranization power structure
Understand Financial Concepts
Data: Construct Graphs
Data: Interpret Graphs
Writing: Demonstrate Concepts
Student
Reading Analyze information
Faculty
Reading: Compare
Reading: Id Cause
Reading: Id Facts
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Reality may Lie
Somewhere Between these
Perceptions
Consider the kinds of questions asked by
HR offices when screening candidates for
entry level position
And think about these in terms of the kinds
of learning objectives we have for liberal
arts curricula
Skills Questions
Taken Directly from HR interview screening sheets
When Reading, can you
Identify the main facts and ideas?
Identify cause and effect relations?
When Writing, can you
Demonstrate concepts in a variety of settings?
When Listening, can you
Distinguish fact from opinion?
A few more skills
When Speaking, can you
Concisely report factual information accurately
Effectively express your opinion
When working with data, can you
Construct graphs?
Interpret graphs?
Can you work effectively as a team member?
Can you work effectively as a team leader?
So How Do We Bring the Liberal
Arts and 21st Century Career
Preparation Together?
The School
of Humanities and Social Sciences
Career Advisement Initiative
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chair: Develop Career Advisement Modules
Dean: Integrate Career Advisement within curricular advisement
structure
Dean: Coordinate Academic and Career Services Offices
Chair: Coordinate Skills, Syllabi and curricula
The Departmental Level:
Career Advisement Modules Examples
Career courses
FAQ’s on careers for all advisors
Department career fairs and networking events
Restructuring of Advisement
Merge Department Advisement Coordinators
&
Career Advisement Coordinators
Coordinate Academics
with Career Services
One example: Convince career services that:
Liberal Arts Job Fairs should grow to include corporations
Networking events such as those used for Business majors
work as well for liberal arts students.
At the Course Level
Explicating Skills in Course Syllabi
Example 1: English Capstone Course
Assignment
a. Short response paper
settings
b.
Research Paper
Skill
When writing: demonstrate
concepts in a variety of
When Reading: analyze
information from documents/
draw conclusions
Example 2: Psychology Thesis Course
Assignment
Skill
– Construct Poster for Symposium Interpret and Communicate
data and results
– Conduct survey and analyze data Construct and Interpret charts
and Statistics
Example 3: Psychology Field Course
Objectives
Become familiar with an
Employment setting
Skills
Work within an organization:
understand structure
Archaeology Field School
Assignment
Keep detailed journal
Skill
Demonstrate writing in a variety of
settings
Excavate a pit; survey a
Field
Team membership/leadership
Map square or field
Construct chart
Maintain inventory of
Equipment and supplies
Understand budgeting concepts
Identify and analyze artifacts
Data analysis and Interpretation
Some tangible outcomes
Some good, some slow
Good:
Chairs started to think about the Career Advisement as part of what they
normally think about as Advisement
Slow:
Some Chairs hesitant/resistant to being involved in “job preparation.”
Good:
Student Services and Academic Affairs starting to speak the same language–
i.e. translating job search talk into career preparation and how this ties into
academic programming
Slow: Recent career fair included no corporations, rather the Marines, the NJ
Cops, the Secret Service and a Mental Health Services Agency
Culture Change at the
University Level
The provost reassigned the networking/career
consultant from the Business school the the
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
The Trustees have begun to realize the utility of
the liberal arts in terms of their corporate
mindset (vast majority from corporate world, a
few from medical, legal and other professions).
Thank you very much
for your attention
Skills Correspond To What the
Positions Require
How many Dicken’s Novels Do You Have to Read to
Demonstrate that You Can:
1. Read Critically
2. Effectively Present Your Argument Verbally
3. Provide an Effective Written Presentation of Your
Position
4. Accurately Depict a Story’s Time Line
What Expectations
Are You Expected to Meet?
Liberal Arts in the News
 A mother speaks her mind and no one responds!!!
 What Governor Scott Believes!!!
Do You Believe Philosophy Majors
Can Find Jobs???
 A Rhetorical Question
MONMOUTH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
WITH
BA, BS
WITH DEFINITIVE PLANS FOR EMPLOYMENT OR POST
GRADUATE SCHOOL AT COMMENCEMENT
Science
Social Work
Nursing/Health studies
Part Time
Humanities and Social
Sciences
Full Time
Education
Business
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
2011
Monmouth University Masters students
reporting full time employment at
Commencement 2011
Social Work
Science
Nursing and Health Studies
Humanities and Social Sciences
Education
Business
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Masters Degrees in Anthropology
Why Not GPA?
 GPA is Important But Most Often as a Threshold Requirement

Do you have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA?
What we did to move this agenda
1.
2.
Chairs Retreat (the preceding slides)
Faculty and Student Surveys
Culture Change: Up and Down
Issues We Have Encountered as We
Proceed with the Program
 List issues here
 Amplify on some on following slides
What Steve Jobs had to say “I’d say Microsoft and Google have a lot in common.
Microsoft never had the Humanities and the Arts in the DNA.
It’s pure technology company. And they just didn’t get it. Even when
they saw the Mac they couldn’t even copy it well. How dumb do you
have to be to not see it, once you see it? You know? But Google’s the
same way. They just don’t get it.” - Steve Jobs
Thank you very much for your
attention