Higher Educationin the 21st Century:

Living in Pasteur’s Quadrant

Judith A. RamaleyAAC&U Network for Academic

Renewal ConferenceMarch 4, 2004

Premise

Our approach to undergraduate education mustBe developed with a clear understandingOf the educational goals of our students,

Their patterns of participation and enrollment,And their expectations.

How can we ensure that all students experienceA coherent and engaging education?

Education in the 21st Century

What will it mean to be educated in the 21st century?

What kind of educational environment must we provide to support a 21st century education?

What will be the societal role of higher education in the 21st century and who will decide?

How do Federal and state policies, and Federal R&D priorities, shape the contemporary university?

Envisioning Education in the 21st Century

Adapt to new environments Integrate knowledge from different sources Continue learning throughout their lives Thrive in a complex world.

The Greater Expectations National PanelReport calls for a practical liberal

education in which college studentsbecome intentional learners who can…

The Intentional Learners Envisioned By The National Panel Should

Become…

Empoweredthrough the mastery

of intellectual andpractical skills

Informed by knowledgeabout the natural and

social worlds andabout forms of inquirybasic to these studies

Responsible for their personal actions and civic values

How Can We Set High Expectations For All?

How are student patterns of enrollment changing?

How will these patterns of participation affect the kind of education that students receive?

If the conditions within single institutions no longer define the experience of a majority of undergraduates, what additional steps must we take to ensure a coherent and purposeful educational environment for all students?

Who are our faculty?

In 1987, 67% of faculty were full-time and 58% had tenure.

In 2002, 55% were full-time and 45% had tenure. Full-time tenure and tenure-track faculty are

being replaced by part-time and fixed term faculty.

Part-time faculty primarily teach (89%); full-time faculty play more complex roles.

Source: U.S. Dept. Education

Who Are Our Students Today And How Are They Participating In

Higher Education?

Patterns of Enrollment and Pathways to a Degree Have Become Extremely

Complex

Source: Adelman, C., Principal IndicatorsOf Student Academic Histories in

Postsecondary Education, 1997-2000.U.S. Department of Education

Few Traditional Age Students (18-26 years old) Obtain Their Education

From One Institution

57% attend more than one school as undergraduates

35% cross state lines to do so

20% earn acceleration credits by examination or dual enrollment

62% attend during summer terms

22% are stop-outs and 14% are enrolled for less than a year

Of those who earn more than 10 credits, 64% earn a credential of some kind

Pathways Through Higher EducationAre Now Very Complex

26% attended two or more 4-year schools

9% were true reverse transfers

22% transferred from a 2-year to a 4-year school

14% alternated between 2 and 4-year schools

12% took a few community college credits in addition to attending a 4-year school

11% attended two or more community colleges

The Pipeline vs Multiple Pathways

Pipeline: a clear and uninterruptedroute from high school to collegeand from college to advanced study

Pathways: complex patternsof enrollment that involvemore than one institution

What will be the societal role of higher education in the 21st

century and who will decide?

1. To prepare students to be good citizens by providing them ways to help the institution itself be a good citizen while learning to be good citizens themselves;

2. To foster and renew bonds of trust in the community; i.e., “social capital” and to use the neutrality of the campus to provide a common ground where differences of opinion and advocacy for particular points of view can be addressed in an open and constructive ways and where people with similar goals can come together and create ways to work together.

What will be the societal role of higher education in the 21st

century and who will decide?3. To create leadership development opportunities

for students and to foster a commitment to social and civic responsibility;

4. To enhance the employability of graduates by providing opportunities to build a strong resume and to explore career goals;

5. To promote learning both for students and for community members;

6. To play a role in creating capacity in the community to work on complex societal problems.

What will be the societal role of higher education in the 21st

century and who will decide?

7. To design a more effective way for the campus to contribute to economic and community development;

8. To build support for public investment in higher education, both to provide access and opportunity for students of all backgrounds to pursue an education and to generate knowledge that will address critical societal needs;

9. To accomplish a campus mission of service.

What kind of educational environment must we provide to

support a 21st century education?

Rethinking the Idea of a University Broadening the Definition of Scholarship Building Genuine Scholarship into the

Undergraduate Experience

The Idea of the University

“…the cultivation of the intellect, as an end whichmay reasonably be pursued for its own sake…

Truth of whatever kind is the proper objectof the intellect.”

“The high protecting power of all knowledge andscience, of fact and principle, of inquiry and

discovery, of experimentation and speculation;it maps out the terrain of the intellect.”

Cardinal Newman

The Idea of the University

The modern university “is not outside,but inside the general fabric of our era.

It is not something apart, somethinghistoric, something that yields as little aspossible to forces and influences that aremore or less new. It is, on the contrary,

…an expression of the ages, as well as aninfluence operating upon both present

and future.”

Abraham Flexner, quoted in Clark Kerr’s The Uses of the University

The Multiversity

“The Multiversity is an inconsistent institution.It is not one community but several…

Its edges are fuzzy.”

“Hutchins once described the modern university asa series of separate schools and departments held

together by a central heating system…I havesometimes thought of it as a series of individual

faculty entrepreneurs held together by a commongrievance over parking.”

Cark Kerr, The Uses of the University

The Engaged University

The primary purposes of the 21st centuryengaged university are to conduct research onimportant problems, ideas and questions, to

promote the application of current knowledgeto societal problems and to prepare its

students to address these issues through acurriculum that emphasizes scholarly work

that has consequences both for the studentsand for society.

The Engaged University

Success in the university of the future willbe defined by the rigor of scholarly work,

by the quality of the educational experienceof undergraduate, graduate, and professional

students, by the effectiveness of thepartnerships that link the university with the

community, and by the impact of the institutionon the quality of life of citizens of the state,

the nation, and the world.

Engaged Scholarship Is…

Research and learning that is conducted with the community rather than on behalf of the community;

that reframes research, teaching and service as discovery and learning conducted in an engaged mode;

that connects the goals of scholarship (to develop theory and advanced understanding) with technology (to solve practical problems and develop useful products);

while taking its inspiration from both a scholarly context and the experience of the community and its challenges.Ramaley, J.A. (2002)

Engaged scholarship is conducted in Pasteur’s Quadrant.

Pasteur’s QuadrantWhere Basic Science & Technological Innovation

Meet……for the research community and students to promote the public

good and enrich educational experiences

Pure Basic

Research[Bohr]

Use-InspiredBasic Research

[Pasteur]

Pure AppliedResearch

[Edison]

Considerations of Use? No Yes

Ques

t for

Fun

dam

enta

l Und

erst

andi

ng?

No

Yes

The Boyer Model of Scholarship

“At no time in our history has the need beengreater for connecting the work of the academy to the social and environmental challenges beyond the campus.”

Ernest Boyer (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered

Scholarship of Discovery: contributes to the human stock of knowledge and to the intellectual climate of a college or university.

Scholarship of Integration: makes connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in larger context—often educating nonspecialists

Scholarship of Application: Life in Pasteur’s Quadrant where knowledge is responsibly applied to consequential problems and addresses both individual and societal needs and where societal realities inspire and challenge theory.

What Will It Mean To Be EducatedIn The 21st Century?

All Students can and should participate in discovery as well as integration and application

of knowledge to problems of broader societal significance.

Examples: Research experiences for undergraduates;internships; service-learning; pursuit ofintegrated studies and capstone experiences.

Introducing the Boyer Model of Scholarship Into The Curriculum

Know How vs. Know Why

All forms of experimentation seek the same end: moving from superficial knowledge to deep

understandingKnowing how is superficial knowledge based on

norms of behavior, standards of practice andthe technologies available.

Knowing why is deeper. It captures underlyingcause-effect relationships and accommodates

exceptions, adaptations and unforeseen events.

From David Garvin, Harvard Business Review, 1993

Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to

College (2002) calls for

“a philosophy of education that empowers individuals, liberates the mind and cultivates social

responsibility.”

Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College (2002)

How can we provide a meaningful education for both pipeline and pathway students?

First, what should education entail?

Challenging encounters with important issues More a way of learning than specific content Prepares students to be intentional learners who

can adapt to new environments, integrate knowledge from different sources and continue to learn throughout their lives

Prepares graduates who will be intentional, empowered, informed and responsible.

A practical liberal education lies between these two poles of direct experience and timeless purpose, thought and action, self-realization and social responsibility. It liberates the spirit and feeds the soul while preparing students to make informed and responsible decisions.

Plato: The purpose of education is to cultivate the intellect, pursued for its own sake, in order to uncover the universal themes and natural laws that the prepared mind can discern beneath the surface confusion of life.

Isocrates: The purpose of an education is to prepare citizens to participate in public affairs.

Marrou, H.I. (1956) A History of Education in Antiquity

How Is Scholarship Changing And What Does This Mean For Undergraduate

Education?Pure vs. Applied

There is an inexorable shift from the traditional mode ofresearch that is pure, disciplinary, homogeneous, expert-led,supply-driven, hierarchical, peer-reviewed, and almostexclusively university-based to a new research mode thatis more likely to be applied, problem-centered, trans-disciplinary, heterogeneous, hybrid, demand-driven,entrepreneurial, and network-embedded.

[Gibbons, et al., 1994]

Disciplinary traditions, subject-centered hierarchies, and organizational boundaries

are melting rapidly in the scholarly community but not in the undergraduate

curriculum.EXAMPLE

Convergence and Complexity in the Sciences

There are signs that the disciplines are converging, drawntogether by common mathematical and computationalparadigms.

As this happens, the areas of greatest interest transcendtraditional academic disciplines and the structure of theacademic department and draw increasingly from manydisciplines.

Convergence and Complexity in the Sciences

[cont.]Advances in computational capacity are changing ourworld-view.

World One: discrete, static, sequential, mechanistic,separable, universal, homogeneous, regular,linear, superficial, single

World Two: continuous, dynamic, simultaneous, organic,interactive, conditional, heterogeneous,irregular, nonlinear, deep, multiple.

The structure of the undergraduate major as well ascourses for general education have generally not keptpace with these developments.

The NRC Report Bio2010 shows that “[t]heconnections between the biological sciences and

thephysical sciences, mathematics and computer

science are rapidly becoming deeper andmore extensive.” (p.1)

To compound the changes even more, scientists now

take advantage of cyberspace to interact with each

other differently, to gather and interpret theirfindings and to communicate their work in new

ways.

Is any of this new way of doing science and communicating about science

reflected in the curriculum and in the experiences of undergraduates?

Not much! According to Bio2010, the teaching ofbiology has not changed substantially in over two

decades. Meanwhile, the science itself has undergonea remarkable transformation. The gap betweenthe biology that students study and the realitiesof the most exciting and advanced work in the

life sciences is a matter for deep concern.

Implications of Greater Expectations and the Changing Nature of Scholarship for the

Undergraduate Experience of Pathway Students

Pathway students are less likely to have a coherent experience or to obtain an intentionally designed education. Pathway students are less

likely to have time to participate in the more integrative activities that are available to full-time students taught by full-time faculty who pursue a scholarly agenda.A significant proportion of

underrepresented students enroll in a pathway mode.

The Experience of Underrepresented Students

While 91% of high school graduates from high-income families apply to four-year institutions, only 62% of college-qualified high school graduates from low-income families attempt a four-year college education.Many of these lower-income students come from socio-economic groups that are much less likely to complete a degree even if they do enroll in college.

A higher proportion of Hispanics enroll than donon-Hispanic whites. However, they tend topursue paths that are associated with lower

chances of attaining a bachelor’s degree or ahigher degree. Many enroll in community

colleges or attend part-time and others delayfurther education until they are older. This

is also true for African-Americans andNative Americans.

The pattern of participation of underrepresentedstudents in higher education is partly driven bycost, partly by reactions to the culture ofacademic disciplines and partly by the lack ofaccess to social networks that smooth the wayinto college.

Critical Next Questions

What do pathway students study? How are their experiences different from

those of pipeline students? What effect do these differences have on the nature of the education they receive and what they learn?

What are their educational goals and do their goals change as they progress?

How can we design a coherent and intentional educationfor all students, including both traditional (pipeline) and

nontraditional (pathway)?

Critical Next Questions [cont.]

What public policies might smooth movements across institutions and enhance the intentionality and integrity of the curriculum that pathway students encounter?

How can we close the gaps in participation and outcomes for different participants in our educational system?

How can we promote greater success for students who take pathway routes through higher education? What Federal and state policies might we consider and how might we implement them to ensure access, quality, educational purposefulness, and affordability?

The Beginnings of an AnswerLessons from Learning Organization

Models

“A learning organization is an organization skilledat creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge

and at modifying its behavior to reflect newknowledge and insights.”

“Insights are the trigger for organizationalimprovement…Without accompanying changes

in the way that work gets done, only thepotential for improvement exists.”

David Garvin, 1993

Beginnings of an Answer…

Argyris and Schön, Organizational Learning II (1996) p.xxii-xxiii

“ Our focus is on organizational inquiry. We use this termin the Deweyan sense as a highly general characterization

of the exercise of human intelligence in the world—theintertwining of thought and action by which we move

from doubt to the resolution of doubt.”

“We distinguish between coming to see things in new waysand coming to act on the basis of insight.”

“We give special importance to the experience of surprise,The mismatch of outcome to expectations, which we seeas an essential process by which people can come to see,

think, and act in new ways.”

Principles of Learning Organizations May Offer Insights on How to Design

a Curriculum and Expectations for Non-Traditional (Pathways) Students.

1. Rethink how to create an environment conducive to learning that does not depend upon the design of a single curriculum or set of requirements developed by one institution or the expectation of continuous enrollment.

Principles of Learning Organizations May Offer Insights on How to Design a

Curriculum and Expectations for Non-Traditional (Pathways) Students.

2. Open up boundaries and stimulate the exchange of ideas using some of the strategies of learning organizations:

a) Use learning forums-events designed with explicit learning or discovery goals in mind (e.g., consider designs from research experiences for teachers or teacher institutes; cohort models of graduate study)

b) Engage students in studying changing societal issues and link learning to societal concerns.

Principles of Learning Organizations May Offer Insights on How to Design a

Curriculum and Expectations for Non-Traditional (Pathways) Students.

c) Use student-generated audits/progress reports on learning, guided by a set of intentional learning criteria (e.g., Alverno College model).

d) Offer symposia that bring together students, researchers and practitioners to learn from each other and share ideas.

e) Develop learning communities on the web.

Conclusions

1) Our concepts of undergraduate education are based on two key assumptions that remain true only for pipeline students. Most students now study at more than one

institution. Most students now exhibit at least one

“nontraditional” characteristic: part-time, over the age of 25, non-residential, work full or part-time.

2) There is evidence of a growing disconnect between how research and scholarship are conducted and how we approach undergraduate education.

Therefore…

1) We must create an educational environment that works across institutional boundaries since students cross these boundaries regularly.

2) We must rethink the undergraduate curriculum and ensure that it reflects the changing nature of scholarship and incorporated a full range of scholarly experiences for all students, both “pipeline” and “pathway.”