The Baccalaureate Degree:
Meaning, Integrity, and Quality
Southern Association of Colleges & Schools
Commission on Colleges Annual Meeting
Atlanta, GA
December 7, 2009
Carol Geary Schneider
Questions about Degree
Integrity Are Proxies
The real Question is Whether
Graduates Are Developing the
Capabilities They Need for Their
Future and Our Shared Futures
Overview
Historical Perspective
Contemporary Pressures to Raise the
Quality of Learning
The Academy in Transition—Ensuring
Integrity and Capability in 21st Century
Contexts
Issues We’re Avoiding—But Need to
Address
“Robert’s” Story –
The Laissez Faire Curriculum
Issues in Robert’s Story
Every Course Is an Island
Absence of Shared Expectations about
the Goals for Advanced Work
Grades and Credits Masking Vastly
Different Expectations for Student
Effort
Underdevelopment of Student
Capability
Historical Perspective:
Changing Designs for
College Learning
Changing Designs for
College Learning
The Nineteenth Century College
A Common Core Curriculum
(All learning is “general and liberal
education”)
The Twentieth Century University
Breadth + Depth
(Breadth = General Studies; Depth =
Majors; “liberal education” becomes
synonymous with “general education”)
Changing Designs for
College Learning
The Twenty-First Century Academy
A Curriculum in Transition:
Rethinking educational purposes and
practices to better prepare students for
• global interdependence
• innovation in the workplace
• diverse democracy
The World Itself is
Demanding More…
Disruptive Global and Social Change
Diversity as a Daily Reality
Epochal Choices Facing U.S. Citizens
– e.g., Sustainability, Inequality, Energy,
Education
Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions
The World Itself Is
Demanding More…
(continued)
An Economy Absolutely Dependent on
Knowledge and Innovation
Employer Anxiety about Finding Highly
Capable Employees
Productivity Is Now
Tied to Learning…
Half Life of Industries, Companies, Jobs, and
Skills Decreasing
Today's Students Will Have 10-14 Jobs by the
Time They Are 38
50% of Workers Have Been With Their
Company Less Than 5 Years
– 25% Less than 1 Year
Breadth, Depth, & Applications of Academic
Preparation Are Expanding
DOL-BLS
Key Capabilities Open the
Door for Career Success
and Earnings
“Irrespective of college major or
institutional selectivity, what matters to
career success is students’
development of a broad set of crosscutting capacities…”
Anthony Carnevale, Georgetown University
Center on Education and the Workforce
The Growing Demand for Higher Order Skills
Source: Council on Competitiveness, Competitiveness Index
“[Employers] generally
are...frustrated with their inability to
find ‘360 degree people’ who have both
the specific job/technical skills and the
broader skills (communication and
problem-solving skills, work ethic, and
ability to work with others) necessary to
promise greater success for both the
individual and the employer.”
From Peter D. Hart Research Associates,
Report of Findings Based on Focus Groups Among
Business Executives (AAC&U, 2006)
LEAP
Bringing Educators and Employers
Together Around the Learning—i.e.
Capabilities—Students Need
2000-2005 – Greater Expectations –
A National Dialogue About
Goals for College Learning
2005-2015 – Liberal Education and
America’s Promise (LEAP)
Campus Action
Public Advocacy
Useful Evidence
Narrow Learning is Not Enough!
The Essential Learning Outcomes

Knowledge of Human Cultures and
the Physical and Natural World

Intellectual and Practical Skills

Personal and Social Responsibility

Integrative Learning
Employers Want Colleges to
Place More Emphasis on All
the Essential Learning
Outcomes
The Academy in Transition:
Ensuring Degree Integrity and
Capability in 21st Century Contexts
Five Crucial Priorities
Putting Learning Outcomes at the
Center
Setting Standards for Expected Levels of
Learning
Using High Impact Practices that Help
Students Develop Essential Outcomes
Designing Assessments that Put Students’
Own Work at the Center
Facing and Changing the Inequities
WITHIN Each Campus (Robert’s Story)
Putting Learning
Outcomes at the Center
Thanks to Accreditors, This Is Happening
But Students Have Been Left Out
of the Loop
How many of your students understand your
institution’s intended goals or outcomes for
undergraduate learning?*
Not many
Almost all
Majority
Some
* Among members at institutions with learning outcomes for all undergraduates
Setting Standards for
Expected Levels of Learning
Integrating General Outcomes with
Specific Fields’ Outcomes
AAC&U’s VALUE Rubrics—
An Important Beginning, but Only
a Beginning
High-Impact Practices
First-Year Seminars and Experiences
Common Intellectual Experiences
 Learning Communities
 Writing-Intensive Courses
 Collaborative Assignments and Projects
 “Science as Science Is Done”/Undergraduate Research
 Diversity/Global Learning
 Service Learning, Community-Based Learning
 Internships
 Capstone Courses and Projects
High Impact Practices:
What They Are, Who Has Access
to Them, and Why They Matter
by George D. Kuh
(LEAP report, October 2008, www.aacu.org)
Outcomes of High Impact Practices
for Underserved Students:
A Review of the Literature
Lynn Swaner and Jayne Brownell
(Forthcoming AAC&U report, 2010)
The Good News
High Impact Practices Do Foster
the Essential Outcomes –
and Persistance as Well
Assessments that Put Students’
Own Work at the Center
Turning High Impact Practices into
Sources of Authentic Evidence
e.g., Research; Collaborative Projects;
Internships; Capstones; e-Portfolios
Issues We’re Avoiding—
But Need to Address
The Sanctioned Rise of Colleges Committed
to Narrow Learning
“Career Programs” – Designed to Allow
Minimalist Designs for General Education
and the Erasure of Liberal Education
The Unacknowledged Obsolescence of the
“Terminal Degree” Concept and Its Close Tie
to Minimalist Designs for General Education
The Continued—but Outdated—Distinction
Between Liberal Education and Career
Education
An Outcomes Focus Can
Forge New Synergy Between
Liberal Education and
Preparation for Careers
Our Commitment to
Outcomes Can—If It Goes
Deep—Restore and Renew
the Integrity of the Degree
But Will the Outomes
Movement Go Deep?
Or Will We Continue as We
Are—A House Divided—
Producing Many Liberally
Educated Graduates and...
Many Others Who Lack
Fundamental Preparation for
21st Century Realities?