Academic Conference 2014
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SUMMARY – Compiled by Praveen Soni, ASCSU
Questions for Thought – Kevin Finneran’s Presentation
HOW CAN HIGHER EDUCATION BE CONCEIVED BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF
THE “TIME LIMITS” OF THE ACADEMIC DEGREE, AND HOW IS THE CSU
UNIQUELY POSITIONED TO GUIDE AND LEAD SUCH EFFORTS?
STUDENTS:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Link faculty to students as mentors to keep students involved in their fields.
Outreach to 3 million alumni and marketing of the CSU.
Expansion of career advising and services to alumni for lifelong connections and success.
Create meaningful public private partnerships for continual education of the workforce.
Allowing students to create their own majors and minors.
FACULTY:
6) Finneran: “The only thing to change that might be political outrage”. Invest time and
energy in preparing political activists.
7) Treat degrees as a process not an event.
8) Learn the obstacles for URM and change administrative attitudes.
9) Implement continuing education programs to meet individual and community needs.
10) Life Long Learning – Provide opportunities for graduates to return and share experiences
and to learn from faculty about new trends and practices.
11) Think of alumni and kids as “legacies to be courted and retained.”
12) Provide alumni a discount on extension classes.
13) Build meaningful and lasting ties to community organizations that help reinforce the idea
of education as an ongoing, organically developing, interactive and rooted, visible,
valuable process. Our local community students advantage the CSU since they stay in
their communities making them broadly expansive.
14) Eliminate degrees and provide for skill sets making it a continuum of lifelong education.
15) Stress lifelong learning and provide opportunities for this to occur.
16) Reject the 4-year model as a success measure and create innovative cultures of extended
learning.
17) Invest in outreach programs for alumni with academic/intellectual value.
ADMINISTRATION:
18) 4-6 year degrees and lifelong learning opportunities. No time limits on learning.
19) Need to continue to retool and learn new technologies over the course of students’
careers. Include economic forecasting and industry predictions to keep curricula current
and prioritize allocations.
20) Transform what a degree means – learning objectives achieved producing students with
competencies that allow them to be adaptable and serve their community.
21) Prepare students for careers not jobs. Educate the whole person – co-curricular matters.
22) Applied masters and certificate programs allow us to contribute to lifelong learning.
Partner with local industry to offer programs and classes.
KEVIN FINNERAN CALLS FOR GIVING STUDENTS A “MIXTURE” OF
KNOWLEDGE, NOT “NARROW TOOLS.” HOW MIGHT THE CSU
STRENGTHEN ITS ABILITY TO PROVIDE A WELL-ROUNDED
EDUCATION? WHERE IS IT DOING THIS RIGHT?
STUDENTS:
1) Provide incentives for acquiring vocational skills.
2) CSU should make diversity-ethnic studies a requirement for the GEs because it will allow
exposure to an array of subjects and areas ones may have never been exposed to. Student
government environments such as CSSA bring a diverse body of students together.
3) Encourage general education that is designed around creating a well-rounded student.
4) Make general education applicable to “narrow skills.”
5) Broaden major requirements in addition to a diverse GE pattern. Need cross discipline
courses to help find more creative solutions to complex problems in our society.
6) Strengthen department collaboration of general education courses. Encourage minors
and double majors.
7) Make extra-curricular activities part of the academic process.
8) Require students to have a service learning project or community engagement, aspect.
9) Have introductory classes for different majors that can help students choose best for them
and get best of the money they’ve invested.
10) Provide incentives for students to be “life-long learners”
FACULTY:
11) Interdisciplinary cognition in the courses we teach. Engineering students could have
assignments in which they narrate their project. English students could find statistical
repetitions of words in a short story. History students could do a sales marketing project
for a museum.
12) Provide lots of mini classes (1 unit classes taking 5 weeks) that expose students to many
disciplines.
13) Sounds like the old concept of a “liberal arts major”
14) A. Community engagement; integrated curriculum; “soft” skill acquisition; co-curricular
requirements
B. Freshman/Sophomore cohort learning; GE patterns; peer mentors; undergraduate
research
15) Define courses as mixtures of knowledge rather than tools that could become rapidly
outdated.
16) Additional counseling might be of value as well as greater interactions with individuals in
various disciplines.
17) Open classes for students in various fields of study as options outside their majors.
18) Broaden what is valued in the faculty.
19) Strike a balance between a broad liberal arts education, and disciplinary/professional
education.
20) Combining with broader GE courses and community based service.
21) Make GE exciting and demonstrate its importance for their future flexibility. Use
Alumni to bring this message. Allow double majors and enriched minors – Give up the
idea of providing extensive discipline knowledge since every field will continue to
change.
22) Our breadth offerings in GE are ways to attain the well-rounded education. Convey to
our students and “stakeholders” the value of a liberal-arts education paired with careercentric training.
23) Stop requiring all programs to be “fixed” at 120 units – allow room for exploration, broad
general education and focused major courses.
ADMINISTRATION:
24) Review and possibly re-envision GE.
25) Our simple mutation of general education and the golden 4 provides students with
breadth and depth, and varied perspectives before (and during) students major in
professional degrees.
Do a better job of helping students and their parents/guardians understand that the
knowledge and skills acquired while earning their BA/BS can be applied to a wide
variety of work and professions. We should market better the knowledge and skills.
26) Do a better job of marketing general education so that students see its relevance.
27) The CSU should increase service-learning courses, expand and increase access to study
abroad programs and increase internship programs for our students. Learning takes place
both in and out of the classroom.