Month: January 2023

Higher Education, Reflection

The Power of Collaboration

Missy Alexander

Universities and colleges are frequently (and accurately) accused of living in silos. From external accusations of ivory tower thinking to internal challenges to interdisciplinary or cross-divisional collaboration, we struggle to move ideas forward with any kind of unity of purpose. Even as we work together to agree on missions, visions, values, and strategic plans, the coordination of efforts can be elusive. There are good reasons for this: We are a culture of experts.

To start, every single faculty member is an expert in their discipline. Our doctoral degrees and their equivalents (MFAs, for example) are designed to build a depth of knowledge that no one without that advanced educational experience can possess. That depth of knowledge helps us see the world through our disciplinary lenses and forms the basis for how degrees are organized. At the same time, each of us engaged our discipline from the perspectives of our graduate institutions, and ultimately from the perspective we developed in our dissertations. These differences in perspectives can be wonderful, opening the door to research collaborations or exposing our students to deep debates in the field. They can also be the source of petty feuds.

We do honor some parallel experiences in professional fields because they are meaningful and often beneficial. We may recruit a successful artist, journalist, or nurse practitioner without a doctoral degree because we are committed to connecting what we teach to the world beyond the academy. Enriching our faculty in this way can lead to new approaches to teaching, new connections with the external community, and an increased sense of relevance in the material for our students. It can also be a source of disagreement about meaningful research or other university expectations that are largely defined by folks who have gone the academic rather than professional route to teaching. In other words, even within departments with shared expertise, there are real differences in ideas about what is important.

Universities are also made up of experts in student affairs. Leadership in these areas have advanced degrees from a variety of fields. Whether they focused on advising practices, socio-emotional development of students, approaches to academic support, or fostering student engagement, each one brings specialized knowledge and expertise to their areas. Just like faculty, student affairs personnel attend conferences to learn about emerging trends and interesting innovations. Their knowledge is an important part of student success at a university. Whether connecting students to the help they need at any point in their undergraduate or graduate experience, developing great activities and events to support a vibrate campus environment, or facilitating transitions into and out of the university, student affairs can be a wonderful partner to academic affairs. Or it could be left on its “side” of the university, without the opportunity to fully develop strategic priorities in partnership with academic affairs.

There are also professionals in admissions, registration, and financial aid. The specialized knowledge of this group is essential for the health of the university. They are charged with managing the intricacies of system, state, and federal regulations. They rely on input from academic and student affairs to maintain compliance with these regulations. They also identify local policy problems that trip up our students, keeping them from enrolling or graduating. This group has to keep a close eye on changes in academic programs in ways that faculty do not see. They are aware of internal logic problems (like inconsistent prerequisites) and external barriers to new programs like regulations about certificates vs. degrees. This group is incredibly important to the success of the university and can be a fount of information as we develop new programs, revise existing programs, or plan our student support strategies. Or they can be left out of the planning and asked to clean things up after the fact.

I could continue and remind everyone of the importance of the experts in facilities, information technology, human resources, and finance and administration, and so on. Every one of them matters in every decision we make. They need to be included in the development of strategic plans, to be sure, and they usually are. It is the coordination after the plan that is the rub.

The trouble with all the expertise is that it often keeps us from being good collaborators. To our credit, we are a culture with a penchant for individual initiative and problem solving. This inspires us to move forward on ideas that are immediately concerning or interesting, without looking at how it integrates with the whole. We tend to do our homework, planning from our specialized perspectives, which speaks well of our work-ethic. Unfortunately, it often leads to the duplication of efforts (at best) and undermining of efforts (at worst). It also tends to leave out important perspectives because, in our rush to solve a problem or move an interesting idea forward, we forget that our colleagues with complementary or just plain different expertise are there.

I love the diverse group of experts that shape universities. As provost, I am lucky to interact regularly with colleagues in every department and I learn from every single conversation. Over the years, I have tried to connect people across disciplines and divisions, with some successes. But it has not been enough. We are still operating in silos and they have outlived their usefulness.

There is plenty of evidence that supporting students requires collaboration across disciplines and divisions. From emergency funding to problematic course sequences to planning co-curricular activities, shared understandings, ideas, and interventions are the best way to create great educational experiences and improve outcomes. Sharing ideas and aligning strategies can help us avoid duplication of efforts and keep us from developing initiatives that end up cancelling each other out. It can also help us better understand how the ideas and expertise of our colleagues can inform and improve our own ideas and expertise. There is power in collaboration and coordination of efforts. It is time to re-imagine our processes so that the power of collaboration can be harnessed for a better future.

Liberal Arts, Serendipity, Workforce Development

Transformation

Missy Alexander

To begin you need to know that I am 100% in favor of integrating career preparation into undergraduate degrees. I think that quality micro-credentials can bolster short- and long-term goals for our students opening doors and providing timely economic opportunities while they are pursuing their degrees. Experiential learning opportunities of all kinds make good the promise of connecting theory to practice and they open up professional pathways. Stackable credentials allow interests to grow and evolve while supporting some immediate learning and employment goals. From entry level certificates to post-graduate certifications, the stackable credential model can be truly transformational.

I also need to state clearly that this should not be at the expense of liberal arts education. The learning experiences that focus on a narrow set of skills or those that endeavor to transfer classroom learning to the workplace are a piece of education that can be very powerful, but the long-term promise of education is a promise of transformation that transcends employment goals.

Employers know this is true. We can see it in their consistent plea for college graduates who are strong critical thinkers, clear communicators, able to collaborate with colleagues from all different backgrounds (and time zones). Even as some industries have removed the BA requirement from the check boxes that get people interviews, they are still looking for those “soft” skills that contribute to creating great colleagues. Even as they opt to offer boot camps and micro-credentials of their own, they are examining the gaps in knowledge and behaviors that these narrowly focused learning opportunities ignore.

In other words, they know it is a balance and so do we. For some insight into the balance, I recommend the most recent “What Employers are Saying About Higher Ed” in The Chronicle. This isn’t an either/or other situation. It is actually about something we hold very dear in higher education: preparation for lifelong learning. That preparation is one part technical (knowing how to find things, sort things, do things, and synthesize things) and one part magical. That magic comes with a reading, and discussion, and interaction that shakes up our world views. Magic can come anywhere in this learning pipeline, but at some point it requires a level of abstraction that helps students connect some dots and reimagine their worlds.

As I work with my colleagues to imagine how best to weave micro-credentials and meaningful applied learning experiences into our liberal arts curriculum, I want to be sure that we also attend to the magic. Since we aren’t actually magicians, that has to mean creating the conditions for magic to occur. Today, I am remembering three magical moments that I experienced as an undergraduate. These moments were so powerful that I knew even then that I was transformed.

The first magical experience was as a voice major at Hartt School of Music. I didn’t last long in this program – my eyes were focused on NYC and I soon departed. But in that very first year I studied the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For the uninitiated, IPA is a decoder ring that unlocks the sound structures of all languages. Singers study it because we frequently sing in other languages. I could see the usefulness of this decoder ring immediately (entirely practical skills). But the magic happened as I started to see the patterns of stereotypes in cartoons and films and television based on those sound structures. Caricatures of people from far flung places were built on the sounds of their languages. Knowing that made me hear the world differently. As I listened for traces of a first language in my interactions, the stereotypes I had encountered were replaced with a keen interest in not just those sounds, but also the worldviews that signaled.

The second magical moment came when I returned to college after several years of working as a singer. I was ready to finally earn that undergraduate degree and started taking classes at Hunter College as a non-matriculated student. This means I had to register last and one of the only courses still open was informal logic. This wasn’t some nice intimate lecture with lots of conversation and papers to develop. No, Dr. Freeman’s class was in a largely full 2-300 seat lecture hall, with short answer exams and only occasional input from the students. Even in that context, the material changed my life. This class organized my thinking, helped me see the power of good arguments and identify the strategies of bad ones. Where I once had intuition that something was wrong in a persuasive statement, I now had the tools to find the fallacies and irrelevant evidence. Every single class, every paper, every project, and every job I have had since has been supported by what I gained in this class. It is impossible to overstate how profound this transformation was for me. Not only did I feel more confident about making arguments, I found better ways to listen to arguments others were making.

The last experience came in a graduate class on the roots of mass culture with Dr. Stuart Ewen. We discussed a fascinating range of topics from laughter as a subversive act to the power of electricity to reorganize culture, but the moment of transformation came when we watched a video about graffiti artists in NYC. The documentary interviewed people who were painting walls, subways, and well, the city (it was the 1980s). We were tasked with writing a response paper and for some reason I was struck by the swearing. I am no stranger to swearing and it was not taboo in my home growing up, but it seemed to form an important part of the identities of the people interviewed. In my paper I asked why this was the choice. Dr. Ewen responded directly and concisely, “It is also choice not to swear.” My world shifted. I had yet another decoder ring that illuminated class structures and social rules and stereotypes.

These moments were magic. Some of that magic was in the professor and the material. Much of it was in the way I connected it to other classes and the world around me. None of the classes had careers attached and only one of them was a requirement. Each of them transformed me into a better citizen, a better employee, and a better person. These were serendipitous experiences, fortunate moments in an education that had room for a little exploration. They helped me see the world from different perspectives, which undoubtedly gave me very practical skills. They also enriched my life.

I would not have minded a few courses that focused on some immediately marketable skills in my undergraduate experience. Like many of the students I serve now I had no money, so an obvious connection to a job would have been helpful. But I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to explore the more abstract, theoretical, and just plain interesting. Those experiences have served me well in my career and in my life.

So, as we think about weaving career connections into our liberal arts curriculum, I think it is important to acknowledge that both things are transformative. Let’s not pit credentials and career experiences against the liberal arts; let’s figure out how to get the balance right. I think we can if we just think it through. We need to map it out, test the arguments, examine the evidence.

Dr. Freeman, I’m using your class again.

equity, Higher Education

The Cadence of We

Missy Alexander

The alignment of Martin Luther King Day with the start of the spring semester has always seemed fortuitous to me. For a communication scholar, whenever the world takes a moment to reflect on great speeches is a win. In the “I Have a Dream Speech” it is easy to see that the message is created from the words, the context, the cadence, and the messenger. It is a rhetorical work of art, and it never fails to inspire. But it isn’t my discipline that excites me about the alignment of new semesters and MLK day, it is the feeling of hope and unity that this day of reflection brings for me.

Today I am struck by what I would describe as the cadence of we. King builds his argument for civil rights with the language of history, the details of the present struggle, and the rhythms of the church. Drawing on the words and the presence of Lincoln, we remember our Emancipation Proclamation and the struggle for a just society so far. Invoking our Declaration of Independence and the stated inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” he argues that undoing the ravages of racism and segregation is a debt owed to all oppressed people. Repeating the phrase “I have a dream” he builds a world that must reject the hideousness of Jim Crow, revealing a possible future where all people are truly free.

Every time I read the text I weep. How can I not? In a message that does not shrink from describing the horrors that flow from racist policies, practices, and prejudices, he helps us see a path forward. The call to action is meaningful and possible, empowering his audience to join this good fight. The dream he describes builds a world that is honest, wholesome, and just. It is a world that frees us from the cognitive dissonance that must arise if we take the promise of those inalienable rights seriously. And despite the terrible biases that we are still fighting today, many of the images that King describes have come to pass. Reading it today gives me the strength to persevere and the confidence that we can do better.

What I find most interesting is how King uses the “I” to create the feeling of “we.” This is a powerful strategy. In describing his dream, he describes people and circumstances that reflect the kind of just society to which all of us should aspire. By invoking our shared history and common documents, it is clear that his dream must be our dream, or we betray ourselves. The I becomes the we.

At this moment in history, finding that we seems incredibly challenging. We have gotten so good at finding distinctions between us that the path to common goals can feel impossible. Social media are sorting us with their (our) algorithms, and we are sorting ourselves into teams. Bumper stickers are frequently cruel, and flags have become weapons. Finding common ground seems impossible.

Ironically, some of these divisions are arising from our efforts to be more inclusive. As we discover the gaps in our histories, we see the differences between our experiences more clearly. This can leave us feeling that trying to draw throughlines that bind us is reductive at best. Seeking common ground feels like trivializing the important differences that we are endeavoring to understand. This is a conundrum to be sure.

I am happy that we have become more attuned to the ways in which the stories we tell often neglect important details about the lives and experiences of so many people. If we’re honest, the stories of my youth actually left out most people. The stories my children learned included more people, but there were still many who were missing. We are on to the next generation and have established a habit of discovering the gaps in our stories. This is a good thing. But we can’t just stop at identifying the gaps. We have to build new visions of a shared future, weaving our stories together. We must not lose the we.

So, why do I see the timing of MLK Day and the start of the semester as fortuitous? Because it is an invitation to think about how to transition from I to we, and the role education must play in that transition. In 1963, King delivered his most famous speech, the world was incredibly divided. King’s vision was for a better world than the violent and segregated spaces in which he lived. If he could see the better world in that context, surely, we can see a better world as well. Surely, we can find a path to the we again.

King describes the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as a promissory note, a debt that must be paid. Education can help us pay that debt. It is the place where we should build shared understandings, even as we challenge the status quo. It is a place where we must learn and unlearn our histories, broadening our understandings of how our values and our institutions differentially impact communities. It is a place where, as we uncover the things that we’ve overlooked in science, in art, in economics, and literature, we do not leave discouraged, but inspired to solve problems together.

Education promises a path to freedom for the individual, while building a better understanding of the experiences of the many. Those new understandings must serve as a call to action, revealing possible paths forward so that all of us are truly free. I have a dream that education can create a new sense of we, helping us rise above the divisiveness of this moment in history, and inspiring us to collaborate for a better future for everyone. Let’s make it so.