Make the Connection!: General Education, the Humanities and the

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Make the Connection!General Education, the
Humanities and the Real WorldMelissa A. Fitch
(CUHK, University of Arizona)Hong Kong Baptist
UniversityOctober 18, 1-230
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• How many GE teaching workshops have you attended
  in the last three years? If you havent attended
  any, why not? Of those attended, how much of the
  information or how many of the teaching
  strategies presented have you incorporated into
  your classes?

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• They keep asking us to do more and more with less
  and less. Soon they will be asking us to do
  everything with nothing.
• From Ann S. Ferrens Investing in Quality
  Presentation March 4, 2011 AACU Conference

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• Art Garfunkel, musician Mathematics?
• Michael Eisner, former CEO, Walt Disney
  ?English
• Po Chung, founder DHL Hong Kong Fishery
• Bruce Lee, martial artist/actor Philosophy
• Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard
  Medieval History and Philosophy
• Martin Luther King Sociology
• Sally Ride, Astronaut first woman in space
  ?English
• Steven Spielberg, director ?English
• Mia Hamm, retired professional soccer player
  ?Political Science
• Gene Simmons The Demon from heavy metal band
  KISS Education

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Outcomes for Todays Workshop

• Explain the relationship between the skills
  learned in GE classroom and those most requested
  by employers in the real world, and see
  examples of specific class activities that
  address those skills.
• Identify specific examples of success stories
  from former students, both your own and those of
  your colleagues.
• Learn of ways to help build and sustain ties to
  graduates, integrating their success stories
  directly into your own GE courses to provide
  models and inspiration to future students.  

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• The Bad News
• Most students and many parents see college
  exclusively in terms of getting a job instead of
  gaining the skills for them to succeed no matter
  what profession they pursue.
• Many college and high school students do not have
  a clear sense of the knowledge and skills set
  that employers value most when seeking to hire
  recent graduates.
• Studies have consistently shown that many
  graduates will change jobs numerous times over
  the course of their life. Indeed, many jobs for
  which students are being trained at present will
  no longer exist, and new jobs we cannot even
  imagine are just on the horizon. Our students
  must be flexible, adaptable, creative and
  risk-takers. They must have a greater global
  awareness and be able to speak confidently about
  their ideas.

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HKBU Objectives (the good news!)

• Promote Whole Person Education through exposure
  to a range of transferable skills, guiding
  principles, and attitudes that students will need
  in their future professional and personal lives
• ??????(??????????)

• Assist students in constructing a deeper
  understanding of the world around them by making
  connections at personal, societal, and historical
  levels
• ???????

• Help our students to realize and determine where
  to best contribute their unique talents within
  the complex and ever-changing global community
• ?????????,????

Prof. Reza Hoshmand, 9/20/2011
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GE Objectives at HKBU
Our ultimate aim is to support the Universitys
aspiration to help students develop the HKBU
Graduate Attributes (?????).
Citizenship Communication Knowledge Learning Skill
s Teamwork Thinking
Prof. Reza Hoshmand, 9/20/2011
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• Today more than ever, we need college graduates
  who possess well-developed intellectual and
  practical skills, knowledge of multiple
  disciplines, ethical sensitivity and judgment,
  and understanding and appreciation of diverse
  perspectives. Nationally and internationally, we
  need college graduates who can generate fresh
  approaches to solving both perennial problems and
  the unanticipated, unscripted challenges of the
  future. (LEAP)
• It is thus a prerequisite for success in the
  competitive global economy that Hong Kong should
  have a population sufficiently capable of
  operating at the level of skill required. As
  knowledge-based economies drive rapid evolution
  and self-transformation, this population needs to
  be agile (and to be able to access support for
  re-skilling over time). Moreover, one consequence
  of economic globalization is that Hong Kong needs
  an adequate supply of citizens capable of working
  productively in non-local environments.
  (Aspirations 1.6, 14)

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Edmond Ko, HKUST 10/1/11
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Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education
Liberal Learning for the Profession (Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, May
2011)

• Reports authors (Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich,
  William M. Sullivan and Jonathon Dolle), spent
  three years studying the literature surrounding
  business schools as well as making visits and
  conducting interviews at 10 business schools with
  different approaches to liberal arts integration.
• The undergraduate education in many business
  programs is too narrow to support the creativity
  and flexibility they will need to be innovative
  business leaders.

• Students need to be able to think analytically
  about a subject, see it from multiple
  perspectives, and reflect back on its meaning.
• In Academically Adrift (2010), Richard Arum and
  Josipa Roksa found that students who take more
  courses in traditional liberal arts and sciences
  disciplines scored better than students in
  professional business majors on a national test
  designed to measure critical thinking, analytic
  reasoning and other skills.

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Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. conducted
research in 2007, interviewing 301 employers to
find out the level of satisfaction with
employees. How Should Colleges Prepare Students
to Succeed in Todays Global Economy?

• Key findings Recent graduates demonstrate solid
  skills in the areas of teamwork, ethical judgment
  and intercultural skills, but employers are less
  convinced of their preparedness in terms of
  global knowledge, self-direction, and writing
  (1-2) and in their capacity for advancement.
• Students were viewed as weakest in the areas of
  adaptability (30) critical thinking (31),
  writing (37), self-direction (42) and global
  knowledge (fully 46 agreed they were not well
  prepared).

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• It has been found consistently over the last
  thirty years that employers rejected the narrow
  focus on specific fields, but rather felt that
  there must be a balance between major fields and
  General Education.
• This same interest in General Education is not
  exclusive to business, but rather it has also
  expanded to the medical profession, law and
  engineering fields.

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• Assessment practices that employers value to
  determine if students are meeting the learning
  outcomes
• Internships
• Community service experiences
• Individual student essay tests
• Electronic portfolios
• Comprehensive senior projects
• Employers had the most confidence in assessments
  that demonstrate graduates ability to apply
  their college learning to complex, real world
  challenges, as well as projects or tests that
  integrate problem-solving, writing, and
  analytical reasoning skills.

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• Plucked from Obscurity SCMP , October 9, 2011
  Elaine Yao
• Employers look for personality that shows
  all-round development. Josi Mazaraki, career
  coach.
• Many students look to careers in financial
  services that underpin Hong Kong status as a
  centre of international commerce. But despite
  their technical strengths, locally trained
  candidates sometimes find themselves at a
  disadvantage when compared to those who graduated
  abroad, career counselors and human resources
  experts say.
• Local students tend to be weaker in articulating
  what they want to do. They are shy and more
  reserved than their overseas counterparts says
  Mazaraki, a former chief operating officer for
  the UBS investment banking arm in Asia A lot of
  international firms look for outspoken and
  confident people. American and British students
  are better at communication. Hong Kong students
  have a strong work ethic and good language and
  technical skills. If they can improve their
  communication skills, they will be fantastic.

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(No Transcript)
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Edmund Ko, HKUST
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• It would be a mistake to regard universities
  strictly in terms of direct utility to the Hong
  Kong economy. Of course it is true that research
  can and does result in solutions and innovations
  that are applicable specifically in Hong Kong. It
  is equally true that courses taught can be and
  are designed to produce particular complex skills
  appropriate to Hong Kong and its vision of the
  future. Nonetheless, a strictly utilitarian
  measure of the actions and outputs of
  universities would significantly fail to
  recognize the diverse ways in which they energize
  their society and advance its future. (UGC
  Aspirations 15)
• and yet.

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• The College Payoff a study by Georgetown
  Universitys Center for Education and the
  Workforce (2011) found that people with more
  education, in general, made more money. However,
  they also found that
• At all levels of educational attainment, those
  who make a career out of helping others receive
  very little financial reward. (9)
• These include teachers, nurses, social workers,
  counselors, clergy, personal health care aides.
• If universities continue to measure their
  success strictly in terms of the earnings of
  their graduates, they are essentially devaluing
  the choices of their own students who may have
  elected to pursue a profession that is not as
  financially lucrative.

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How to Change the World Social Entrepreneurs and
the Power of New Ideas. David Bornstein. Oxford
UP, 2004
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• Do you have former students who may be considered
  a success story? How do you define success?

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American Dreams

• I am sitting in my UA office looking over the
  program from a recent concert by Geneva Vasquez,
  who has just received a Grammy award for her
  globally popular music. Some of the money she has
  earned from her last release she has donated to
  Dr. Natalia Billias campaign to eradicate
  malnutrition among children in her hometown of
  Tucson. On my desk is a postcard from Sanjana
  Budhatoki in Nepal, where she is working for
  environmental conservation in her country. I have
  heard that another student, Dr. Kalee Easter, who
  has just returned from Africa where she has spent
  the last two years providing medical care for
  children. I am looking at photos from my trip to
  China last month, where I visited Xiaohe Liu in
  Shanghai. She has made her fathers company in
  the cosmetics industry one of the most successful
  in the world! While in China, I took a side trip
  to South Korea to see Ryan Fung in Seoul, where
  he is conducting pharmaceutical research for the
  Green Cross. The phone rings and it is David
  Guefen calling from Israel, asking if I still
  plan to visit him during the holidays. I promise
  that I will but first I must visit Dr. Frank
  Herbert in New York, where he is playing
  professional basketball for the Knicks. He was so
  sweet to get me courtside seats for their game
  against the Miami Heat. Im astonished that he
  has been able to continue to play while
  completing med school to become a pediatrician.
  My assistant enters my office and brings me the
  latest Time magazine, where I see that Zuleima
  Jimenez has been named Person of the Year. for
  her work as a Catholic missionary. Who would have
  guessed that so many TRAD 104 alumni would become
  so successful? I am humbled by my students
  talents and accomplishments. 

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GE Course at UA Latin American Society and
Popular Culture TRAD 104

• A slide montage of some of my beloved former
  Latin/o American Popular Culture students from
  the last ten years, interspersed with images of a
  few of the topics we'll be covering this fall in
  that course. The slides are set to Amy
  MacDonald's "Don't Tell me that it's Over"
  because of the refrain repeated in the song
  "It's only just begun." I want the new UA
  students--most of them in their first year of
  college-- to be inspired by those who have gone
  before them and become doctors, lawyers,
  teachers, activists, business leaders, one pro
  golfer, a librarian, a member of the U.S. Foreign
  Service and a graduate of trapeze school.

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• How can we use information the success stories of
  our past students to inspire our current
  students?
• Social media
• Newsletters
• Guest lectures
• Mentoring
• Other ideas?

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Outcomes for Todays Workshop

• Explain the relationship between the skills
  learned in GE classroom and those most requested
  by employers in the real world.
• Identify specific examples of success stories
  from former students, both your own and those of
  your colleagues.
• Learn of ways to help build and sustain ties to
  graduates, integrating their success stories
  directly into your own GE courses to provide
  models and inspiration to future students.  
• Have we achieved the outcomes?
• Feel free to email me with any additional
  questions or comments!
• mfitch_at_email.arizona.edu

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• References
• Arum, Richard and Josipa Roksa. Academically
  Adrift Limited Learning on College Campuses
  (Chicago U of Chicago P, 2010)
• Aspirations for the Higher Education System in
  Hong Kong The University Grants Committee,
  December 2010.
• http//www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/report/h
  er2010/her2010.htm
• Carnavale, Anthony P., Stephan J. Rose and Ban
  Cheah. The College Payoff Education,
  Occupations, Lifetime Earnings. The Georgetown
  University Center on Education and the Workforce.
  cew.georgetown.edu August, 2011.
• Colby, Anne, Thomas Ehrlich, William M. Sullivan
  and Jonathon Dolle, Rethinking Undergraduate
  Business Education Liberal Learning for the
  Profession (Carnegie Foundation for the
  Advancement of Teaching, May 2011)
• College Learning for a New Global Century A
  Report from the National Leadership Council for
  Liberal Education and Americas Promise
  Washington D.C. Association of American Colleges
  and Universities, 2007

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• Glenn, David. A Dean Brings Humanities into
  Business Education Chronicle of Higher
  Education. August 21, 2011.
• Grant, V.J Making Room for Medical Humanities
  Medical Humanities 2002. 28 45-48.
• How Should Colleges Prepare Students to Succeed
  in Todays Global Economy? (Survey of 510 recent
  college graduates and 305 employers) Peter Hart
  and Associates. December 2006
• Unseem, Michael. Liberal Education and the
  Corporation The Hiring and Advancement of
  College Graduates New York Aldine de Gruyter,
  1989.
• Yao, Elaine. Plucked from Obscurity South China
  Morning Post , October 9, 2011.

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• Employers Priorities for College Education (LEAP)
• Integrative Learning (the ability to apply
  knowledge and skills to real-world settings
  through internships and other hands-on
  experiences (73)
• Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and
  natural world. Concepts and new developments in
  science and technology (82) global issues and
  developments and their implications for the
  future (72) the role of the United States in
  the world (60) Cultural values and traditions
  in America and other countries (53).
• Intellectual and Practical Skills. Teamwork and
  the ability to collaborate in a diverse group
  (76) Effectively communicate both orally and in
  writing (73) Critical thinking and analytical
  reasoning skills (73). The ability to locate,
  organize and evaluate information from multiple
  sources (70) the ability to innovate and think
  creatively (70) the ability to solve complex
  problems (645) the ability to work with numbers
  and understand statistics (60).
• Personal and Social Responsibility. Teamwork
  skills and the ability to work in diverse groups
  (76) Global issues and implications for the
  future (72) a sense of integrity and ethics
  (56) cultural values and traditions in America
  and other countries (53).

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• Liberal Education is an approach to learning that
  empowers individuals and prepares them to deal
  with complexity, diversity, and change. It
  provides students with broad knowledge of the
  wider world (e.g., science, culture, and society)
  as well as in-depth study in a specific area of
  interest. A liberal education helps students
  develop a sense of social responsibility, as well
  as strong and transferable intellectual and
  practical skills such as communication,
  analytical and problem-solving skills, and a
  demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and
  skills in real-world settings.
• Liberal arts Specific disciplines (the
  humanities, social sciences, and sciences).
• Liberal arts colleges A particular institutional
  typeoften small, often residentialthat
  facilitates close interaction between faculty and
  students, and has a strong focus on liberal arts
  disciplines.
• General Education The part of a liberal
  education curriculum shared by all students. It
  provides broad learning in liberal arts and
  science disciplines, and forms the basis for
  developing important intellectual, civic, and
  practical capacities. General education can take
  many forms, and increasingly includes
  introductory, advanced, and integrative forms of
  learning.
• http//www.aacu.org/leap/What_is_liberal_education
  .cfm