The Liberal Arts and 21 st 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 Academia Non-Profit
NGO Self Employed State Agency
Corporate

Discipline Academia
Self Employed
Corporate
State Agency
Non-Profit
NGO

Because that is where many if not most of the Jobs and Careers are --

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

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

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

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
Reading Analyze information
Reading: Compare
Reading: Id Cause
Reading: Id Facts
Student
Faculty
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

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?

st

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Career Advisement Initiative
1.
Chair: Develop Career Advisement Modules
2.
Dean: Integrate Career Advisement within curricular advisement structure
3.
Dean: Coordinate Academic and Career Services Offices
4.
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 b.
Research Paper
Skill settings
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
Excavate a pit; survey a
Field
Map square or field
Skill
Demonstrate writing in a variety of settings
Team membership/leadership
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

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).

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

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

M ONMOUTH U NIVERSITY S TUDENTS WITH BA, BS
WITH DEFINITIVE PLANS FOR EMPLOYMENT OR POST
GRADUATE SCHOOL AT COMMENCEMENT 2011
Science
Social Work
Nursing/Health studies
Humanities and Social
Sciences
Education
Business
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Part Time
Full Time

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.
Chairs Retreat (the preceding slides)
2.
Faculty and Student Surveys

Culture Change: Up and Down

 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