OPPORTUNITIES FOR LIBERAL LEARNING
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
by
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Liberal Learning in the Twenty-first Century
W. David Baird, Chair
Thomas G. Bost D’Esta Love Jennifer Farley Brase John Nicks Isaac Bright Cynthia Novak Mandy Broaddus Don Thompson Ron Highfield Norman Fischer Douglas Kmiec exofficio
PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY
1997
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword ...... 3
Chapters
1. Development of Curriculum at Seaver College ...... 6
2. Definitions and Assumptions ...... 14
3. The Environment of the Twenty-first Century ...... 21
4. Qualities, Skills, and Knowledges Required for Productive Lives in the Twenty-first Century ...... 26
5. Learning Experiences Necessary to Provide the Qualities, Skills and Knowledges Required to Live Lives of Usefulness in the Twenty-first Century ...... 29
A. General Education (with Recommendations 1-11)...... 30
B. Specialized Education (with Recommendations 12-18) ...... 34
C. Co-Curriculum (with Recommendations 19-26) ...... 37
6. Delivering Learning Experiences in the Twenty-first Century (with Recommendations 27-36)...... 40
7. Conclusion...... 44 3
FOREWORD
In December 1995, President David Davenport gy, cultural diversity, and globalization have established the Blue Ribbon Commission on become the order of the day. New delivery sys- tems like three-year programs and on-line de- Liberal Learning in the Twenty-first Century. grees are appearing. It is likely that higher edu- He named as members Seaver College profes- cation will experience more change in the next sors Ron Highfield (Religion), Cynthia Novak decade or two than at any time in this century. (Humanities), and Don Thompson (Mathemat- How should Seaver College prepare to face ics); D’Esta Love, Seaver College Dean of Stu- the challenges of the Twenty-first Century dents; Professor John Nicks of the Graziadio while remaining true to its mission of providing high quality liberal arts education? Happily, School of Business and Management; Professor George Pepperdine pointed to a polar star for Douglas Kmiec of the School of Law; Thomas navigating the seas of change when he said that G. Bost, Chair of the Pepperdine University he was founding his college to help prepare Board of Trustees; Mandy Broaddus and Isaac students for lives of usefulness. The education- Bright, Seaver College students; Jennifer Farley al needs of students have always been the focal point of educational planning at Pepperdine. Brase, Seaver College alumnus. Norm Fischer, Our challenge is to anticipate what these needs Director of Institutional Research, agreed to will be in the Twenty-first Century. What will serve as an exofficio member and staff person, students need to know, do, and become in order while W. David Baird, Howard A. White Pro- to live lives of usefulness in this new era? How fessor of History and Chair of the Division of may we best provide an undergraduate expe- rience which will appropriately prepare them Humanities and Teacher Education at Seaver for what is ahead? College, accepted the responsibilities of chair- The pace of change seems to be out-stripping ing the commission. the capacity of regular planning process. It is On January 26, 1996, President Davenport important to take a global look at undergraduate charged the Blue Ribbon Commission with the education for the new century to supplement this process and provide it a comprehensive following: reference point. This will be the task of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Liberal Learning in We live an in era of unprecedented change. the Twenty-first Century. This Commission, Knowledge doubles almost yearly. Soon, the comprised of faculty, students, staff, alumni and years may become months. Today’s graduates board members, will be asked to study and re- must expect to change careers several times port on the educational needs of today’s and during their working lives. Technological ad- tomorrow’s college students. The Commis- vances are transforming virtually every existing sion’s report should help the University assess profession. Meanwhile, the world is shrinking the curricular and co-curricular experiences a and its peoples and institutions are becoming Pepperdine graduate will need to be prepared increasingly interdependent. Most issues have for a life of usefulness as we enter the new cen- important global and cultural dimensions. tury. What will it mean to provide a high quali- The students who come to college to prepare ty education in a Christian environment for for this world come with increasingly different these students? What information, ideas, values backgrounds and levels of preparation. Dra- and skills will Pepperdine wish to send with matic changes in the family and in K-12 educa- them as they graduate? tion, for example, have resulted in a wider va- The report of the Commission is not expected riety of values-based experiences and academic to be a final implementation plan for change at readiness than ever before. Pepperdine. That must emerge through the Colleges and universities are already expe- normal processes of campus decision-making. riencing the stress which accompanies these The report will, however, provide a springboard changes. Major campus initiatives in technolo- from which discussions about educational pro- 4
grams and policies might be launched over the for the report at a fourth retreat held in January next several years. 1997. Professor Linda C. Mitchell edited the report for publication. In response to President Davenport’s The report of the Blue Ribbon Commission charge, members of the commission undertook a on Liberal Learning in the Twenty-first Century year-long study of the environment in which is presented in the pages that follow. Entitled students are likely to live and work in the Twen- “Opportunities for Liberal Learning in the ty-first Century. The commission also studied Twenty-first Century,” the report is organized the ways that Pepperdine University in general, into seven different chapters. The first provides and Seaver College in particular can better pre- a history of the development of the liberal arts pare students for lives of usefulness in that curriculum at Seaver College in the context of unique environment. They accentuated an am- both national and local developments. In the bitious reading program by four weekend re- second we articulate the definitions and assump- treats and one dinner meeting. At its first retreat tions implicit to the report. Included in this held in early March 1996, commission members chapter is our effort to describe and characterize struggled to understand what the Twenty-first the student that will likely enroll in Seaver Col- Century might look like economically, political- lege at the dawning of the Twenty-first Century. ly, socially, technologically, and religiously. In Chapter three seeks to sketch the environment this task we were guided by Roger Benjamin, a (economic, political, social, technological, and RAND corporation consultant, and Wade Clark religious, among others) Twenty-first Century Roof, a sociologist of religion at the University graduates will encounter, while chapter four of California, Santa Barbara. In June, the identifies the qualities, knowledges, and skills second retreat of the commission focused on graduates will need if they are to live lives of discerning ways in which a liberal arts institu- usefulness in that environment. tion with a unique mission like Seaver College Chapter five is the heart of the commis- could and should respond to the challenges of sion’s final report. There we grapple with iden- the Twenty-first Century. Michael Dolence, an tifying the learning experiences that Seaver Col- organizational and information technology lege must make available if its students are to planner, and Thomas E. Dillon, president of have the qualities, skills, and knowledges (iden- Thomas Aquinas College, acted as consultants tified in chapter four) which will help assure on this occasion. The commission also devoted productive lives in the next century. In three some time to understanding the qualities of and large sections we examine general, specialized, debate over so-called “Generation 13.” and co-curricular education, offering in each In August, members of the commission had section recommendations that envision both ad- an opportunity to spend a stimulating evening justments and changes. How Seaver College with George Keller, renowned educational con- might best realize or deliver these opportunities sultant, who was in town to address the Seaver is addressed in chapter six. Chapter seven pro- faculty on the importance of strategic planning. vides a brief conclusion to the report. Keller caused the members both to refine the It is important to know that members of the objectives and to rethink the structure of the Commission embarked upon their study of lib- document we expected to produce. In Septem- eral learning in the Twenty-first Century with ber when the commission met in its third retreat, considerable enthusiasm and dedication. Over members responded by dividing into small the course of twelve months, there was no wan- groups to begin the difficult task of drafting ing of that interest and commitment, although segments of the final report. In subsequent the enormity and importance of the task grew weeks, Professor Baird folded the results of that upon us; indeed, it sobered and humbled us. We cooperative endeavor into a single draft. Mem- are not futurists, experts in curriculum design, bers of the commission adopted final language 5 technological wizards, or organizational special- truth and light. President Davenport has said ists. What we lacked in expertise, however, we that when you put good people together in a counterbalanced with a rich diversity of expe- room, good things happen. In this case there rience, extensive reading in the relevant litera- were good people in a room, and good things ture, affection for each other, support for the did happen. We pray that this report was one of unique experiment that is Pepperdine Universi- those things. ty, and recognition that God is the source of all 6
CHAPTER 1
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CURRICULUM AT SEAVER COLLEGE
When George Pepperdine established his col- lemma. In 1909, for example, Harvard required lege in 1937, he and his advisers organized a students to “concentrate” their studies in a given curriculum with two purposes: to “fit the student discipline or an assemblage of closely related for life” and to prepare the student “for...the life disciplines, that is, to select an academic “ma- activity” in which he or she “expect[ed] to en- jor.” This concentration of subject matter gage after leaving college.”1 In designing such would provide depth of content, acting as an a course of study, they drew upon more than a antidote to intellectual shallowness. Simulta- century of American educational tradition. neously, Harvard also required its students to Moreover, they also set a precedent, now sixty take courses in three fields outside their major years in duration, whereby curriculum devel- area of study; in other words, to “distribute” opment within the institution would be informed their courses across a range of subjects in the but not dominated by national debates and sciences, arts, and humanities. The distribution trends. requirement assured breadth of coverage, coun- The first four decades of the twentieth cen- teracting any inclination to study one subject to tury witnessed a remarkable flurry of curricular the exclusion of all others. Most educational reform and experimentation in American higher institutions in the United States quickly em- education. Reaction to the elective principle braced the “concentration and distribution” pioneered at Harvard after 1869 explained much model of course selection. Nearly thirty years of this activity. Permitting undergraduates to later, George Pepperdine College would do the select their own patterns of study, this system same thing. 3 had produced curricular incoherence and intel- An alternative approach to achieving curri- lectual fragmentation. Indeed, the elective prin- cular coherence focused upon what came to be ciple had fostered so much specialization of called “general education.” John Dewey argued interest and professionalism that education of a as early as 1902 that overcrowded courses of more liberal character and any notion of a study were deficient in terms of organizing shared culture were in danger of disappearing. structure or a larger frame of reference. He The challenge for educators was to prevent in- proposed that they be presented holistically so tellectual dilettantism and to avoid narrow over- that interrelations among their constituent ele- specialization.2 ments would become more apparent. How to do Bold and controversial experiments even- this was debatable, but Dewey suggested “a tually produced a practical solution to the di- survey...of the universe in its manifold phases from which a student can get an ‘orientation’ to the larger world.” One of the more celebrated 1 George Pepperdine College Bulletin, 1939 (Los attempts to implement this idea occurred at Co- Angeles, Calif.: George Pepperdine College, 1939), 9. lumbia University in 1919 when all entering Although curriculum development is not its focus, Ri- chard T. Hughes’ “Faith and Learning At Pepperdine freshmen were required to take a core course University” (an unpublished essay prepared for the Lilly Foundation, 1996) is a useful complement to this chapter of our report. 3 Ibid.; Arthur Levine, Handbook on Undergraduate 2 Christopher J. Lucas, American Higher Education, Curriculum (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, A History (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1994), 212. 1978), 508. 7 entitled “Introduction to Contemporary Civiliza- With regard to formulation of curriculum, tion.” Offering a vehicle for the integration of the leaders of Mr. Pepperdine’s new college had fragmented knowledge, the year-long grandfa- a century of educational traditions and innova- ther of all Western civilization courses was, tions from which they could draw. More expli- over time, replicated and enhanced by colleges citly, they borrowed ideas and structures from and universities across the nation, including the Occidental College and UCLA. And given the one established by George Pepperdine.4 experience of President Batsell Baxter, they also General survey courses that examined drew from “sister” institutions like David Lips- Western civilization, the humanities, or the comb College and Abilene Christian College. sciences were not above criticism, especially for In 1937 the Pepperdine faculty announced a sacrificing depth in the interest of coverage. curriculum requiring four years of study, with Yet surveys also brought much-needed cohe- each year divided into four ten-week terms, or rence to a curriculum that usually verged on ex- quarters. To meet breadth requirements, it re- cessive specialization. The faculties of most quired students during their first two years to American colleges and universities, consequent- take five lower-division courses, among them ly, restricted the first two years of a student’s world civilization and foreign language. When educational program to survey courses, which added to three required religion courses, the they then characterized both as “general educa- general education component of the curriculum tion” and “lower-division” courses. It followed equaled 30 percent of the whole. The course of that students then devoted most of their remain- study announced by the faculty also required ing two years of collegiate study to taking “up- students to concentrate some 45 percent of the per-division” courses in the major. Predictably, total units necessary for graduation into a major the curriculum announced by George Peppe- and a minor field. Significantly, the curriculum rdine College in 1937 embodied these organiza- left some 20 to 25 percent of the prerequisites tional principles. for any degree open to student choice 6 An even more extreme form of general In the immediate post-World War II era, the education occurred after 1928 at the University faculty hardly modified general education re- of Chicago. There President Robert Maynard quirements. Rather than take a smorgasbord of Hutchins sought to revive the “classic” liberal natural science courses, students had to focus on arts tradition by instituting a common, or core, one (chemistry, botany, or home economics, for curriculum based upon reading and discussing example). They had to complete year-long original sources, the so-called Great Books of courses in world civilization and in United Western civilization. In them, he insisted, man- States history to meet the social science requi- kind could find a “common stock of fundamen- sites. They also had to take four units of physi- tal ideas” to overcome the “disunity, discord, cal education. The sharpening of the curricu- and disorder” of the modern world. Hutchins lum, however, hardly increased the total number and the Chicago Plan generated great intellec- of units any student devoted to general educa- tual excitement and inspired a generation of tion. The proportion of courses devoted to ma- educational leaders. Among the latter was E.V. jor and general education courses did not Pullias, a member of the original faculty and change even in 1949 when the faculty adopted long-time dean of George Pepperdine College.5 the semester academic calendar (fifteen week terms) and required 128 credits for graduation.7 In the years after 1953, the curriculum was more dramatically restructured to accommodate 4 Dewey is quoted in Lucas, 213. See also Levine, 330-33; and Timothy P. Cross, An Oasis of Order: The Core Curriculum at Columbia College (New York: Co- 6 George Pepperdine College Bulletin, 1937-1938, lumbia College, 1995), chpt. 1. 1938-1939, and 1939-1940. 5 Lucas, 215-19; Levine, 347-50. 7 Ibid., 1947-1948 and 1949-1950. 8 the veterans of the Korean War. In this endea- graduation, a 20 percent increase from previous vor, the faculty was certainly influenced by the requirements. The percentage of units devoted well-known Harvard University report pub- to courses in the major and the minor remained lished in 1945 that defined general education as unchanged (thirty-six units for the major, with distinct from specialized education. General twenty-four of them upper division units; eigh- education, the report argued, embraced the hu- teen for the minor, with six being upper division manities, natural sciences, and social sciences credits). Although the changes were dramatic, and emphasized continuities rather than for some reason no general education goals changes. Its objective was to help people “‘to were clearly articulated, setting a precedent that think effectively, to communicate thoughts, to prevails to this very day.9 make relevant judgments, [and] to discriminate For the next two decades, the structure of among values.’” General education further both general and special education at George aimed at developing the whole person, affec- Pepperdine College varied only in degree and tively as well as intellectually, and at reconcil- configuration. In 1960, foreign language and ing the needs of the individual and the society.8 social science requirements were eliminated, The first bulletin of George Pepperdine College while mathematics and speech were added. The stated that general education was “to fit the stu- net effect was a ten-unit reduction in the total dent for life.” number of general education credits necessary The Harvard report did not deny the impor- for graduation. By 1965, however, both foreign tance of “special” education. The part of the language and three units of one of the social curriculum devoted to that endeavor was to pre- sciences had returned to the curriculum. The pare students for their unique and personal func- total number of general education credits now tions in life, that is, to give them competence in exceeded 50 percent of all those necessary for some profession or occupation. Of course, that graduation. Other than English composition, objective had shaped the curriculum at Peppe- speech, and religion, none of the courses, how- rdine College from the beginning. The recom- ever, were taken by all undergraduates.10 mended model of undergraduate education pro- The founders of the general education posed by the Harvard report, therefore, reaf- movement in the early twentieth century saw it firmed the appropriateness of Pepperdine’s cur- as a means of helping students to orient them- ricular objectives. Yet within those parameters, selves to different ways of knowing and then to it was clear that substantial refinements could integrate what they had learned into some kind and should be made. of coherent whole. Fundamental to this concept Dean Pullias and his colleagues instituted was instruction that transcended disciplinary major curriculum change in the Fall 1953. The lines and that assumed there was unity of all fifty-four to fifty-eight units devoted to general knowledge and truth. Ironically, George Peppe- education were distributed among six different rdine College was more capable of delivering academic groupings: communication (twelve to this kind of education when its doors first eighteen units), social science (twelve units), opened than after three decades of operation. natural sciences (eight units, including one lab Over the years, the drive to make the academic course), history (eight units, with six in Western major and its sponsoring department the func- civilization), humanities (eighteen units, includ- tion and focus of the curriculum became an irre- ing eight for religion), and physical education sistible force, especially in the aftermath of the (four units). Within those groupings, students launching of Sputnik in 1957. By 1970, sixteen could select from one of several different offer- academic departments offered thirty-eight dif- ings. The new general education program con- ferent degrees to a student body of 2,430. And stituted 48 percent of the total units required for 9 George Pepperdine College Bulletin, 1953-1954. 8 Levine, 359-63; Lucas, 250-51. 10 Ibid., 1960-1961 and 1965-1966. 9 general education requirements that assumed a proach complex social problems with insights unity of knowledge were met by a variety of from multiple disciplines; 4) to encourage course options. Integration of knowledge had teaching as the primary task of the faculty; and given way to fragmentation, and an interdiscip- 5) to avoid the limitations of over- linary curriculum had defaulted to a disciplinary specialization. Moreover, Pepperdine-Malibu one. Trained in research universities, some would build the academic program not around members of the faculty saw this development as traditional disciplines as on the Los Angeles progress. Others saw it as a reversion to the ni- campus, but around four new divisions, specifi- neteenth century when over-specialization and cally Communication, Humanities, Natural educational dilettantism characterized courses Science, and Social Science. The Religion and of study of individual students.11 Fine Arts divisions were added within a year.12 Following a decade of student activism, To earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, the only Pepperdine University opened its Malibu cam- one to be offered, students would have to com- pus in 1972. This notable event in the history of plete 128 semester units of course work. Since the institution was accompanied by vigorous all courses would be valued at four units, it debate as to the curriculum and organizational would require thirty-one courses to graduate. structure of the new facility. The discussion Ten of those courses would have to be upper ranged between two poles: would the campus division; four one-unit physical education provide pre-professional training with enough courses would also be required. The lower divi- general education requirements to give it the sion component of the general education curri- appearance of a liberal arts college, or would it culum would consist of fourteen broad and in- offer liberal learning experiences premised upon tensive common learning experiences (fifty-six the integration of knowledge and guided by an units) that crossed interdisciplinary lines. Each interdisciplinary faculty? For answers, planners of the six divisions would provide at least one of such as James Wilburn, Grover Goyne, Paul the large integrated lecture courses,13 while all Watson and Ed Rockey informed themselves of but one of the divisions would also offer a series curricular experiments occurring nationwide, of small elective seminars. Some divisions, ad- namely those at the University of California at ditionally, provided self-paced courses. To Santa Cruz, Brown University, Chicago Univer- complete the core curriculum, students would sity, and especially Hampshire College. By the need to take one upper-level, cross-divisional end of the 1969-1970 school year, they devel- course during their senior year to provide a cap- oped a fairly clear concept of the kind of curri- stone experience for their entire education. culum and school they wanted at the Malibu General education courses would comprise 50 campus. percent of the proposed curriculum. In keeping Above all, Pepperdine-Malibu (renamed with the mood of the 1970s, neither mathemat- Seaver College in 1975) would be a liberal arts ics per se nor foreign languages would be a part school as opposed to a pre-professional one. Its of the core curriculum. academic program would be interdisciplinary, Given their objectives, planners envisioned the object of which would be to unify know- majors not only in traditional liberal arts areas ledge rather than to fragment it. Specific goals but in interdisciplinary programs as well, not to would be 1) to integrate the Christian religion mention student-initiated contracts. So long as into the total university curricula, unifying knowledge around Christian truth; 2) to em- 12 phasize the basic ideas underlying all know- Pepperdine University Bulletin, Malibu Campus ledge as a foundation for new knowledge that a Catalog, 1972-73, 12-13. 13 These included “Culture and Communication,” student will acquire after graduation; 3) to ap- “Introduction to Fine Arts,” “The Western Heritage I and II,” “Man and Science,” “Introduction to the Bible,” and 11 Ibid., 1971-1972. “Man and Society.” 10 the course of study included six upper-division Division. After a dozen years of adjustments, classes (twenty-four units), the student would be the curriculum instituted in 1972 was less inter- given fairly wide latitude in the choice of disciplinary and less committed to the integra- courses. The same was true in the selection of tion of knowledge than when it was initially as many as eight electives. No minor concentra- conceived. It was also more committed to ca- tion was initially envisioned. reerism. Those changes aside, the original Initially, the Malibu campus was planned as structure of the curriculum remained un- a small, experimental and innovative program changed.14 with a student body capped at 450. The larger Considerations both external and internal to liberal arts campus would remain in Los An- Seaver College dictated a review of the curricu- geles. A pilot program was launched in 1971 on lum. In the mid-1980s, for example, major stu- the L.A. campus as a “school within a school.” dies by the National Endowment for the Hu- When fund raising exceeded expectations, ad- manities, the Association of American Colleges, ministrators took advantage of their good for- and the National Institute of Education focused tune and elected to make Malibu the primary nation-wide attention on the state of undergra- campus. When the altered plans were presented duate education.15 These studies expressed con- for their consideration, the L.A. faculty was de- cern with deficient writing skills, disinterest in cidedly unenthusiastic. Whether their antipathy foreign languages and cultures, and disregard sprang from deep-seated opposition to a second for self-discovery, critical thinking, and values campus, to the minimized role of the L.A. cam- clarification as educational outcomes. They al- pus, or to the innovative curriculum proposed so decried on the part of the faculty an absence for Malibu is unclear. One thing is certain, of commitment to general education and a fail- moreover, the lack of enthusiasm foreshadowed ure to impart shared values and knowledge that a fairly sustained faculty effort to modify the bound the population together as a society.16 Malibu program once it was in place. Indeed, Within Seaver College, a new dean, John the history of the Seaver College curriculum is a Wilson, and the Academic Programs Task Force story of one attempt after another to modify the of the Strategic Planning Committee of Seaver interdisciplinary model instituted with much College expressed serious concern about the hope in 1972. quality of general and liberal studies. Among Shortly after the dedication of the Malibu other things, they were concerned that the campus, pressure for curricular change welled twelve-year-old curriculum had been designed up among faculty, students, and parents. Mod- more to balance unit-load distribution among ifications quickly followed. Within a year, the the divisions than “to achieve sound theoretical faculty added seven vocationally-oriented Ba- chelor of Science degrees. Within two years, 14Pepperdine University Bulletin, Malibu Campus they offered a Bachelor of Science in Business Catalog, 1973-1974 and 1974-1975; Pepperdine Univer- Administration, and they also dropped the se- sity Bulletin, Seaver College Catalog, 1975-1976 through nior-level capstone course, reducing the total 1980-1981. 15 number of general education units to sixty. William J. Bennett, To Reclaim a Legacy: A Re- Within five years, the administration and faculty port on the Humanities in Higher Education (Washing- ton, D.C.: National Endowment for the Humanities, had restructured the college so that both Educa- 1984); Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to tion and Business were important academic the Academic Community (Washington, D.C.: Associa- programs and so that a newly-established Grad- tion of American Colleges, 1985); and National Institute uate School offered eight Master of Arts de- of Education, Involvement in Learning: Realizing the grees. By 1977, Business Administration was a Potential of American Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984). regular academic division, and by 1977 Fine 16See William B. Boyd, “Athens or Atlantis? The Arts had been combined with the Humanities College Reform Movement,” Holmes Group Occasional Papers (December 1987), 3. 11 and academic goals.” 17 To make every course changed to three three-unit courses). The com- worth four units of credit seemed unnecessarily mittee also proposed a Freshman Colloquium restrictive, while omitting mathematics, foreign that would emphasize oral and written skills. It languages, and speech from the general educa- advocated as distribution requirements a labora- tion curriculum seemed pedagogically uncons- tory course in the natural sciences; a psycholo- cionable. The dean and the Task Force were gy, sociology, or anthropology course; a course also concerned that some major requirements in speech and rhetoric; two courses selected were disguised as general education require- from among American history, economics, or ments, that the core lectures had lost their inter- political science; a mathematics or computer disciplinary orientation, that the freshmen semi- science course; and an upper-division seminar nars were neither attended by freshmen nor or- in any discipline outside the student’s major as a ganized as seminars, and that teaching composi- capstone (subsequently changed by the Seaver tion divorced from literature was unsound. For Academic Council to one course in non- them, the 1972 curriculum was little more than a Western civilization). The committee also rec- shell of what its founders had intended, and it ommended that students take four units of had lost its power to bring coherency to frag- physical education and establish competency in mented knowledge or to unify knowledge one foreign language. around Christian truth. Although the total number of units devoted Simultaneously, the University was in the to general education did not change substantial- midst of a “Wave of Excellence” Campaign, a ly from the earlier curriculum (some 50 percent high-profile fund-raising effort that could hardly of the 128 units required for graduation), the be separated from academic endeavors. For recommended configuration of courses in 1985 Dean Wilson and other administrators, it was significantly different. Rather than have seemed like an appropriate time to rethink students experience general education in divi- Seaver’s general education program. Indeed, sional lectures and seminars where an interdis- they encouraged the faculty to assess “the GE ciplinary perspective was suspect, the proposed program without regard to cost.”18 curriculum would have them experience it in a Given the internal and external concerns, program of stipulated core and distributed the Curriculum and General Education Commit- courses. The goals and principles underlying tee of the Seaver faculty, chaired by Norman the committee’s recommendations were more Hughes, undertook a careful and thorough re- implicit than explicit. Nonetheless, they view of the general studies program during the yielded more substantive results from a national 1984-1985 academic year. At the end of the perspective than were achieved at comparable year, the committee proposed a complete re- liberal arts institutions, both private and public. vamping of the then thirteen-year-old general The emphasis upon Western Heritage, foreign education curriculum. It recommended as core languages, mathematics, and non-Western herit- requirements a three-course lecture/discussion age placed the new Seaver curriculum on a level sequence in Western heritage, a two-course se- of its own.19 quence of English composition/literature, and a Although the Seaver Academic Council ap- two-course sequence in religion (subsequently proved the curriculum changes in July 1985, three years passed before they were fully opera- 17 Report of the Curriculum and General Education tional. Although Associate Dean Nancy Mag- Committee to Seaver College Academic Council as nusson Fagan had the responsibility of putting Amended and Passed by the Council, July 23, 1985, Records of the Seaver Academic Council, Office of the Dean of Faculty, Seaver College. 19 Ibid. Each member of the committee did prepare 18 “General Studies at Seaver College, 1990-1992: a working list of general education goals and objectives, Assessment and Recommendations” (unpublished report but no common list was ever fashioned, much less of the General Studies Committee, March 1992), 3. adopted. 12 the new program into operation, the Curriculum three units, separated the Fine Arts out of the and General Education Committee carefully Western Heritage sequence and made it a free monitored the process. Launching the Fresh- standing course, and added another science men Seminars proved especially difficult; the course. One differed in that it would also have Western Heritage sequence and speech course limited the religion component of general edu- were only less so. Everything took more space, cation to two four-unit courses rather than three faculty, and money than was envisioned or three-unit courses. Of importance to the com- available. How to fit Great Books, an innova- mittee was that both of the alternative plans tive four-semester sequence inaugurated in would reduce the total number of units (al- 1985, into the curriculum represented another though not courses) devoted to general educa- challenge. Permitting Great Books to substitute tion.21 for freshman seminar, English composition, an The General Studies Committee struggled American heritage requirement, and the upper- with the fact that the theoretical goals of the division religion requisite solved that problem, “new” general education program had not been but others refused to vanish. By 1990 a review defined explicitly prior to its adoption. It noted of what had been done seemed prudent, as well that the Mission Statement of Seaver College of how well it had been done, and of what re- committed the institution to transmitting the mained to be done. In the 1990-1991 academic “noblest ideas of Western culture” and to “shar- year, President David Davenport and Dean John pening of the mind...ennobling of the heart, Wilson charged the General Studies Committee, and...broadening of the vision,” and that the chaired by Stan Warford, to launch such an in- Seaver College Catalog spoke of “thinking quiry. clearly, communicating effectively, feeling The committee conducted business with keenly, and exploring thoroughly.” But since great diligence. Over the course of more than a these objectives had been prepared after the year, it polled students, faculty, and administra- adoption of the 1985 curriculum, the committee tors about the content and effectiveness of the assumed that they had not informed the initial courses comprising the new general education design of that program. Subsequently, mem- program. In March 1992, members concluded bers tended to look more at particular courses that the new curriculum, because of the in- and their specific goals rather than at how those creased emphasis on English, foreign language, courses contributed to some larger programmat- and mathematics, was “a significant improve- ic objective. Put differently, they looked at the ment” over the pre-1985 curriculum. Even so, parts of general education at Seaver College ra- the committee saw room for considerable im- ther than the whole.22 provement, proposing among other things that The Seaver faculty devoted much of the Seaver College curtail the use of part-time ad- Winter term in 1992 to consideration of the re- junct faculty and revamp Freshman Seminars. It port and recommendations of the General Stu- also recommended changes in the distribution dies Committee. Like the committee itself, the requirements of the general education program, faculty failed to reach any consensus on the al- even though members themselves could not ternative distribution requirements. Those who reach a consensus on any one of the two particu- taught Heritage and Religion especially ob- lar plans proposed.20 jected to the proposals. Not surprisingly, then, The two distribution plans offered as alter- beyond an effort to re-focus the Freshman Se- natives to the 1985 curriculum had common fea- minar and a general agreement that full-time tures. Both, for example, would have reduced faculty were preferable to part-time adjuncts, the unit value of all but two courses from four to little came of the two-year review process. Ap-
20 “General Studies at Seaver College, 1990-1992,” 21 Ibid., 41-43. 39-41; 46. 22 Quoted in Ibid., 5. 13 parently, members of the Seaver faculty were Such evaluations are presumably the prerogative fairly comfortable with the design and content of the academic department. Equally notable is of the established general education program. that, over time, the faculty has not been much And they had some reason to be: the curriculum interested in the co-curriculum of the college, retained natural science, mathematics, literature, which, members generally believe, is the re- and foreign language requirements when the sponsibility of the Dean of Student Affairs. national trend was to eliminate them, and the total number of hours devoted to general educa- tion almost doubled the national average.23 But for the members of the committee, given their investment of time and energy, the unheralded demise of the report was painfully frustrating. Dean Wilson was no less frustrated. He had hoped that the report would concern itself with the articulation of general education objectives and provide an appraisal of how best to achieve them. Over the years, faculties at both George Pepperdine College and Seaver College have never been satisfied with the shape of the curri- culum. That circumstance has led to fairly fre- quent reviews and reformulations of the general education, or breadth component of the total curriculum. In those cases, a centrifugal force almost always operates, causing the faculty to prefer specialized programs over interdiscipli- nary ones and to favor a part of the curriculum rather than the whole. That was not quite the factor at work in 1985, but it certainly was the one operating in 1992. Except those associated with strategic planning in 1988 and in 1996, no college-wide curriculum review occurring over the past six decades has focused on the theoreti- cal goals and objectives of the major component of the curriculum beyond specifying the number of units that comprise a major course of study.24
23 William E. Simon, “The Dumbing Down of High- er Education,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 1996; Lynne V. Cheney, Humanities in America: A Report to the President, Congress, and the American People (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Humani- ties, 1988), 4. 24 The Seaver College strategic planning processes in 1988 and 1996 did undertake to review various aca- demic programs, including majors. A document prepared by Dean Wilson, “The Nature of Undergraduate Educa- tion,” helped guide the 1988 review. On the basis of that offered by Seaver were “harvested” on the grounds that evaluation many of the so-called interdisciplinary degrees they lacked significant depth. 14
CHAPTER 2
DEFINITIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS
Definitions in truth that, according to Scripture, both frees It is appropriate that we define the terms the learner and affirms the reality of God. and articulate the assumptions employed in this At least for the first one-half of this cen- report as precisely as possible. Our definitions tury, educators tended to associate liberal learn- are fairly standard, supported by common usage ing with the general education curriculum only. and relevant scholarship. We recognize, how- A report in 1945 by the Harvard faculty broa- ever, that in any community, and especially in dened the definition to incorporate both specia- an academic community, most definitions and lized (vocational or major) and general educa- assumptions are debatable. tion.26 More recent studies convince us that the Liberal Learning: Early on scholars asso- co-curriculum should be included in the defini- ciated the classics, languages, literature, history, tion as well.27 We, therefore, define liberal and philosophy with the liberal learning and saw learning much like the Seaver College mission those disciplines as a means of nourishing and statement, that is, as the sum of general educa- transmitting the noblest ideas of Western cul- ture. Most modern observers find such a defini- command of one’s mind goes with important arts now tion inadequate. They associate liberal learning thought trivial accomplishments: the ability to talk and with emancipation from ignorance, provincial- write coherently, to notice detail and be accurate about it ism, and philistinism; with the development of without being enslaved to precision, and to depart, not on principle but with judgment, from conventional opinion broad analytical skills rather than narrow tech- or practice holding all the while a fund of knowledge with nical brilliance; with self-assurance, self- which to acquire more.” See The American University: reliance and self-control; and with loyalty, man- How It Runs, Where It Is Going (New York: Harper & ners and respect for ceremony. Liberal learning, Row, 1968), 218. Alexander Meiklejohn of Brown gave moreover, facilitates a search for meaning in an an even more poetic definition of liberal learning in 1908: “The American college is not primarily to teach the forms age of meaninglessness, induces a sense of mor- of living, not primarily to give practice in the art of living, al obligation, and promotes civic engagement. but rather to broaden and deepen...insight into life itself, Those who engage in liberal learning, to quote to open up the riches of human experience, of literature, Plato, become “lovers not of a part of wis- of nature, of art, of religion, of philosophy, of human re- dom...but of the whole...[and are] able to distin- lations, social, economic, political, to arouse an under- standing and appreciation of these, so that life may be guish the ideas from the objects which partici- 25 fuller and richer in content; in a word the primary func- pate in the idea.” Such learning finds its end tion of the American college is the arousing of interests.” Quoted in Lucas, 182. For a study of liberal education over time, see Bruce A. Kimball, Orators and Philoso- 25 Quoted in David G. Winter, et al., A New Case for phers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (New the Liberal Arts (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, York, NY: Teacher College Press, 1986). 1981), 3; Jacques Barzun provides essentially the same 26 See Report of the Harvard Committee, General definition for “education,” that is, “the cultivation and Education in a Free Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard tempering of the mind so that it becomes flexible and University Press, 1945). Known as the “Redbook” be- strong, and acquires control of powers that are enhanced cause of its red binding, it sold more than 50,000 copies. through learning to control them. Control includes being 27 William H. Willimon and Thomas H. Naylor, The able to summon up these powers, and put them to work in Abandoned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education one’s pleasure or under examination by others. And this (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Erdman’s Publishing Co., 1995). 15 tion, specialized education, and the co- vealed himself in Christ, in whom, the Apostle curriculum. At the same time, liberal learning is Paul wrote, “all things hold together” (Col. not a mathematical formula that can be calcu- 1:13). Given his firm belief in the unity of lated according to units, hours, and courses. As knowledge, Newman understandably viewed the a process, the whole is always greater than its segmentation of knowledge into so-called aca- parts. demic disciplines as “distracting and enfeebling Life of Usefulness: Given his own back- of the mind.”30 ground and the times in which he spoke (1937), Christian College: To us a Christian col- it might be assumed that George Pepperdine lege is designed, organized, and conducted to meant “life of usefulness” as a synonym for a integrate Christian faith with learning and scho- life of full participation in the nation’s econo- larship and to equip persons for Christian voca- my. Certainly that was part of it, but even a tion and service. In such an institution, all of quick reading of his autobiography, Faith Is My life is studied for the discovery of divine truth; Fortune, reflects that usefulness to him meant, and the Christian worldview permeates the to- in addition to vocation, serving others via tality of college life, including curriculum, co- church involvement and civic engagements, ex- curriculum, and faculty scholarship. The quest ercising family responsibilities, and accounting for transcendent truth both in and out of the to a sovereign God for one’s stewardship of the classroom brings coherence and wholeness to a “little things” in life. We see no reason to modi- student’s course of study, as well as fellowship fy Mr. Pepperdine’s definition of “life of use- and meaning to faculty pursuing narrow re- fulness,”28 which, as President Davenport search questions.31 notes, is a brilliant “polar star” that will give Seaver is a Christian college. Its definition direction and purpose to liberal learning in the of itself in its mission statement leaves no room Twenty-first Century. for argument, and its record of faithfulness to Knowledge: We affirm with John Henry the vision of its founder, despite difficult cir- Newman that all knowledge is unified, because cumstances, is unquestionable. At the same the grist of knowledge is little more than the time, weekly convocation, three courses in reli- acts and work of the Creator. “[K]nowledge gion, a “dry” campus, and a “critical mass” of forms one whole, because its subject-matter is faculty who are members of the Churches of one,” he said, “for the universe in its length and Christ do not constitute evidence of a Christian breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot separate off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by a mental 30 Ibid., 105. 31 abstraction... [Indeed, the Creator] has so im- Robert T. Sandin, The Search for Excellence: The Christian College in an Age of Educational Competition plicated Himself with it, and taken it into His (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1982), 15-16. See very bosom, by His presence in it, His provi- also Stephen V. Monsma, “A Christian Worldview in dence over it, His impressions upon it, and His Academia: One Person’s Vision” (an unpublished paper influences through it, that we cannot truly or given at a Pepperdine University, Seaver College faculty fully contemplate it without in some main as- colloquium, January 13, 1992), and Ronald R. Nelson, pects contemplating Him.”29 The Creator re- “Faith-Discipline Integration: Compatibilist, Reconstruc- tionalist, and Transformationalist Strategies,” in The Re- ality of Christian Learning: Strategies for Faith- 28 For an insightful analysis of how Mr. Peppe- Discipline Integration, ed. by Harold Heie and David L. rdine’s personal philosophy impacted the college he Wolfe (Grand Rapids, Minn.: Christian University Press, founded in 1937, see Hughes, “Faith and Learning At 1987), 317ff. Gertrude Himmelfarb argues that the quest Pepperdine University,” 584-87. for truth, knowledge, and objectivity is the central func- 29 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, tion of the Christian college, and, taking a swipe at post ed., with an Introduction and Notes by Martin J. Svaglic modernists, insists that they are not social constructs. See (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, “The Christian University: A Call to Counterrevolution,” 1982), 75 and 38. First Things, January 1996 (59): 16-19. 16 college if classes and curricula embrace a secu- feel empowered to shape and influence the di- lar and presumably neutral worldview.32 rection of the group.35 A learning community Values: “Values are social principles or need not be Christian, but a Christian college standards by which we judge ourselves, which must be a learning community. form a picture of who we want to be, aspects of the character we hope to have.”33 Others have Assumptions argued that values are the glue that holds society We will further our quest for clarity by arti- together. To us, they are primarily Christian culating assumptions basic to our report. For virtues that resonate with the Sermon on the us, assumptions are those circumstances and Mount and the Golden Rule, namely honesty, trends that are stable and predictable. They are fairness, caring, responsibility, respect, loyalty, factors upon which we can depend to shape the citizenship, and self-control. Significantly, internal and external worlds that will impact these characteristics are widely acknowledged liberal learning at Pepperdine University in the as being absent from the nation’s moral culture, Twenty-first Century. We could provide a leng- a circumstance giving rise to the Character Edu- thy list of assumptions, but in the interest of cation Movement that is presently sweeping the brevity and cogency, we include only those that nation’s K-12 schools.34 Unquestionably, val- are especially relevant to liberal learning. ues should be of major importance to any curri- Moreover, we group them into two distinct cat- culum designed to prepare students for lives of egories: assumptions that relate to the institution usefulness in the Twenty-first Century. In any and assumptions that relate to the student body. college, but especially one that is Christian, they should be clarified, debated, judged, exempli- Institutional Assumptions fied, demonstrated, and tested. One: Although Seaver has not fully rea- Learning Community: “A community is a lized the promise of a Christian college as we partnership of people committed to the care and define it, and few have, it is making measurable nurturing of each other’s mind, body, heart, and progress. We expect that progress to continue. soul through participatory means.” Communi- We also expect Seaver to remain faithful to its ties become learning communities, when the historic ties to the Churches of Christ by retain- settings are on college campuses and students ing a serious commitment to Biblical Christiani- and teachers are concerned about each other’s ty, introducing curricular innovations such as a well-being and are committed to sharing, caring, strong vocal music program that will feature the and participating rather than owning, manipulat- cultural contributions of that tradition, assem- ing, and controlling. There is open communica- bling and retaining a “critical mass” of faculty tion as well as commitment to the shared values who are active members in the Churches of Chr- and common purposes of individual members. ist, and increasing the percentage of Seaver stu- Learning communities are also built on a foun- dents committed to that faith tradition from 15 dation of equality and justice; they are adaptable to 25 percent.36 and open to conflict resolution; and members Two: Classic liberal arts colleges study the liberal arts and the liberal arts only. Few such
32 colleges exist today, and certainly Seaver is not For an elaboration of this argument see Richard John Neuhaus, “The Christian University: Eleven Thes- one of them. George Keller, noting that 60 per- es,” First Things, January 1996 (59): 20-22. The devel- cent of its degrees were vocationally related, opment of Pepperdine University and Seaver College as a “Christian College,” and the difficulties associated with that task, is well told in Hughes, “Faith and Learning At 35 Willimon and Naylor, chpt. 10. Pepperdine University.” 36 Twenty-five percent is the target figure estab- 33 Willimon and Naylor, 64. lished by the Religious Stardards Committee of the 34 See “Concerned Parents Push Character Move- Pepperdine University Board of Trustees. The Seaver ment,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1996, A8. strategic plan stipulates 20 percent. 17 humorously described Seaver as a pre- and define the behaviors and perspectives mani- professional school pretending to be a liberal fested by many of Seaver’s current students. arts institution. That conclusion ignores the With the onset of the Twenty-first Century, strong general education, or liberal arts compo- however, all but the last of the 13th Generation, nent (50 percent) of each degree granted. With also known as “Generation X,” will have matri- such an emphasis, we may assume that Seaver culated college, ready to give way to a successor will remain a liberal arts college, albeit a mod- cohort known as the Millennial Generation. So ified one with significant pre-professional pro- far, very little has been written about this new- grams. The goal, as former Yale University est group, but since their parents are the Boo- President Bart Giamatti said, will be to educate mers (born between 1943 and 1960), we endea- for both life and livelihood. vored to learn something about the children by Three: Seaver will remain a residential (as studying the parents. We also assume that some opposed to commuter), undergraduate college of the characteristics of Generation X will also with limited enrollment of 2500 FTE, whose mark the Millennial Generation. Because most student body will retain many traditional cha- of the literature tends to be fairly critical, we racteristics, especially age (eighteen to twenty- acknowledge that our general profile of Twenty- two year olds). More than one-half of all stu- first Century college students may be unneces- dents will live on campus in university housing, sarily bleak. At the same time, the accepted while many of the remainder will live in private canons of scholarship demand that we remain housing a short distance away. Assuming a ho- faithful to our source materials. We, therefore, listic approach to education, the co-curriculum assume the following about the general student will become even more important as the college population that will seek a liberal learning expe- strives to meet the demands of liberal learning. rience in the Twenty-first Century.37 Therefore, Seaver will leave to others the in- One: Studies show that one of every two struction of older adult learners and the heavy students eligible for college at the dawn of the use of “virtual university” technologies. next century will have grown up in a severely Four: Compared to state and even other dysfunctional family. These families will grap- private schools, Seaver will remain a high tui- ple with problems ranging from parental di- tion college with high fees for room and board. vorce, to illegitimacy, to sexual abuse, to chron- Thus, demographic and economic factors that ic household debt, to self-absorbed fathers and will transform higher education elsewhere, es- mothers who have time neither for children nor pecially in southern California, should only mi- for civic engagement. Described as “aban- nimally impact the composition of the student doned” by theologian William Willimon, the body. Because of the high percentage of eco- prospective college student will have spent an nomically privileged students, Seaver will have average of four hours per day since birth watch- a special responsibility to prepare them for a ing television. Alcohol and prescription drugs world they have not yet experienced but upon graduation soon will. 37 Howe and Strauss, 13th GEN: Abort, Retry, Ig- Assumptions About Students From The General nore, Fail? (New York: Vintage Books, 1993). See also Geoffrey T. Holtz, Welcome to the Jungle: The Why Be- Population hind “Generation X” (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, In 1993, historians William Strauss and 1995). Although the literature on the Boomers is exten- Neil Howe published 13th GEN: Abort, Retry, sive, we found Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seek- Ignore, Fail? in which they explored the mind- ers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation set and circumstances of today’s college stu- (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancicso, 1994) to be particu- larly helpful. For an innovative look at generational types dents. The study has many critics, but members in the development of American history, see Strauss and of our commission found that it helped explain Howe, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069 (New York: William Morrow, 1991). 18 will have been easily accessible, and some stu- short spans of attention, and little aversion to dents will have been arrested for drunk driving cheating. With a high school academic year en- and drug consumption. Most students will have compassing only 180 days (compared to 210 in attended church irregularly, while some will al- Europe and 240 in Japan), and with seniors ex- ready have contemplated suicide.38 cused from one-half of those, collegiate fresh- Two: Knowledgeable observers predict that men will not be prepared for a rigorous liberal Twenty-first Century learners will have little arts curriculum.40 patience for hypocrisy and that they will eva- Four: Studies suggest that many students luate people on the basis of deeds rather than on of the Twenty-first Century will suffer seriously words. Suspicious of the work ethic, they will from lack of self-esteem. This malady helps look for “short cuts” to complete assigned tasks. explain why suicide will continue as the second Most of the Millennial Generation will have mi- leading cause of death among the Millennial nimal loyalty for basic institutions--government Generation. As the children of narcissistic and school--and they will exercise a highly sub- adults, learners of the next century will have a jective religious life, rejecting the church but survivor mentality, confronting problems on embracing the spirit. Although technologically their own and classifying people as winners or sophisticated, next century learners will cele- losers. They will have little respect for tradi- brate the traditional values of chastity and the tion, and even less for authority. When some- nuclear family; they will also approve of women thing goes wrong, they will tend to blame them- working outside the home, of interracial mar- selves. According to Willimon, meaningless- riages, and of gay relationships.39 ness, fragmentation, and isolation will mark the Three: Citing the decline of SAT scores as lives of Twenty-first Century students. And evidence, scholars also predict that the general since many of them will have no sense of re- student population will be poorly prepared for sponsibility, education will represent not so the academic rigors of a liberal learning expe- much an opportunity to change the world as to rience. Currently one-third of all freshmen na- get a job.41 tionwide need remedial courses of one kind or another, and one-half of California State Uni- Assumptions About Students Who Will Actually versity’s entering freshmen failed to pass their Choose to Enroll In Seaver College mathematics or English proficiency examina- More than ten years of statistical data ga- tions. Similar measurements suggest that geo- thered from applicants, admitted students, graphical literacy is equally suspect. The diffi- enrolled freshmen, and graduating seniors at culty most Twenty-first Century learners will Seaver College enable us to identify trends that have with written and oral communication doubtless will continue into the Twenty-first means that most of them will seldom love read- Century. Those trends enable us to make some ing enough to check a book out of the library. fairly clear assumptions about what future Students of the next generation will have erratic personal schedules, ill-formed study habits, 40 G. Phillip Cartwright, “Technology & Underpre- pared Students: Part One,” Change 28 (January/ Febru- ary, 1996): 45. A 1989 study revealed that 98 percent of 38 The serious implications of watching television the high-school students surveyed said they had let others are discussed in Robert D. Putnam, “Tuning In, Tuning copy their work. A subsequent survey of 3000 students Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in indicated that 78 percent had cheated on tests in high America,” PS: Political Science & Politics 28(Dec. school. See Robert J. Grossman, “Student cheating: 1995): 664-683. For church attendance figures, see Lar- tough test for society,” Rotarian, June, 1996, 25. ry B. Stammer, “Church Attendance Falls to 11-Year 41 Willimon and Naylor, 13, 6, 15, and 17. Richard Low,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1996. Morin, “Much Ado About Twentysomethings,” Washing- 39 Douglas Brinkley, “Educating the Generation ton Post National Weekly Edition, Jan. 31, 1994, 27, ar- Called “X,” Washington Post Education Review, April 3, gues that Generation 13 does not suffer from disaffection 1994, 1; Roof, 27. or displacement. 19 classes will look like on the Malibu campus. of the professions, principally legal. A majority Significantly, the profile of those classes will of women will stimulate social activism on differ substantially from the general profile of campus and will work to make the political cli- the Millennial Generation described in preced- mate more liberal. More women will also mean ing paragraphs. an increased preference for sexual abstinence in One: Students who elect to come to Seaver female/male relationships, and, interestingly, for in the Twenty-first Century will be better pre- hard liquor as the binge drug of choice.43 pared academically and have more resources Three: Survey data suggest that the ethnic economically than their peers in other institu- composition of the Seaver student body will not tions. SAT scores will average 1140 (compared change significantly in the next century. The to 1013 nationally), and the number of students college’s strategic plan envisions an ethnic mi- with family incomes above $100,000 will ex- nority population of 20 percent, with interna- ceed 33 percent (compared to 13 percent nation- tional students making up an additional 10 per- ally). We also assume that students entering cent of the overall student body. Since 60 per- Seaver in the next century will be less interested cent of our students will come from California, in developing a meaningful philosophy of life the preponderant ethnic groups will likely be than in being financially affluent. At least 60 Asian and Hispanic. percent of students will choose the college be- Four: The Religious Standards Committee cause they think Pepperdine graduates get better of the Pepperdine Board of Trustees envisions a jobs than do graduates from other institutions. student component from the Churches of Christ Seaver freshmen in the Twenty-first Century that would equal 25 percent of the entire Seaver will be far more interested in raising a family student body. Given the historic tension be- than in promoting racial understanding and in tween the college and the Churches of Christ becoming an authority in some field of know- and the modest economic means of most mem- ledge rather than in being involved in environ- bers of that fellowship, achieving a 25 percent mental cleanup projects. More than one-half of level may be difficult. Reaching it, however, them will have had experience with alcohol will not jeopardize the academic quality of the consumption. Students entering Seaver in the entering class. Indeed, data suggest that more next century will be divided between conserva- students from the Churches of Christ will likely tive and liberal attitudes regarding sexual con- improve academic quality.44 duct. Some 75 percent of them will insist that Five: Survey data suggest that students of just “liking” someone is not sufficient grounds the next century will come to Seaver with less for sex, 68 percent will think that abortion interest in joining a fraternity or sorority than should be legalized, and 69 percent will sanc- did their peers of a generation earlier. They will tion homosexual relations.42 come to college, moreover, with less experience Two: Six out of every ten students enrol- ling at Seaver in the Twenty-first Century will be women. Available data show that a student 43 body with women in the majority will demand a “Seaver College: Student Characteristic Study, strong general education program as well as a Fall, 1995”; and various graphs and charts attached to Norman Fischer to David Baird, July 8, 1996, Files of the major that prepares students for careers in one Blue Ribbon Committee. For data of alcohol usage see “Drug and Alcohol Analysis, Seaver College, 1993” (Un- published analysis prepared for the Dean of Student Af- 42 Institutional Research, “Seaver College Faculty fairs, 1993). and Entering Freshmen Comparisons, Fall 1995” (unpub- 44 For data relative to the SAT and ACT scores of lished analysis presented to Provost Steve Lemley, Octo- enrolled Churches of Christ students, both freshmen and ber 28, 1996) and “Seaver College: Student Characteristic transfers, see Paul Long, “Enrolled Students Only: Fall Study, Fall, 1995” (unpublished analysis presented to the Semester, All Enrolled VS Church of Christ,” (unpub- Blue Ribbon Committee, Fall, 1995). lished analysis presented to Distribution, July 11, 1996). 20 in doing volunteer work and with less of a commitment to church attendance.45 By combining our assumptions about col- lege-age students in general with those relative to the smaller population that will actually enroll in Seaver College, we can deduce a fairly accurate profile of Twenty-first Century fresh- men. The picture we infer from the data, while not always encouraging, provides no pretext for despair. Indeed, what we see represents a sig- nificant opportunity for Seaver to fulfill its mis- sion as a Christian college.
45 Various graphs and charts prepared by Institution- al Research and enclosed in letter from Norman Fischer to David Baird, July 8, 1996, Files of the Blue Ribbon Committee. 21
CHAPTER 3
THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
We live in a world of dramatic change. In the The Information Age will substantively al- span of one lifetime, the industrial age has me- ter the Twenty-first Century workplace. Tech- tamorphosed into an information age, and a ca- nology will make many jobs obsolete. Between pitalist society has mutated into a knowledge- 1950 and 1982, for example, 140,000 telephone based society. These transformations have operators lost their positions as a result of mi- made ours the richest nation in history, but the croelectronics. But what technology takes away dividends have come at a cost and have not al- it can also give back. The great majority of the ways been evenly distributed. job categories recognized by the U.S. Bureau of In the next century, change will most likely Census in 1990 were created within the past fif- accelerate. What will happen in the domain of ty years, most as a result of technological inno- technology demonstrates this point. According vation. But the new “jobs” are substantially dif- to Bill Gates, computers connected to the in- ferent from the old ones. 47 formation “Superhighway” will reconfigure Jobs in the Industrial Age were tightly de- Twenty-first Century culture as dramatically as fined positions that generally involved the mak- Gutenberg’s press transformed society in the ing and moving of goods within a larger organi- Middle Ages. Every social institution or enter- zation. By the year 2000, such traditional jobs prise will be affected, including home, will account for no more than one-eighth to one- workplace, school, government, church, and lei- sixth of the work force in developed countries. sure activity.46 The remainder, or untraditional “jobs,” will be Because of the “Superhighway,” students of held by what Peter Drucker calls “knowledge the next century will have access to unimagina- workers” and “service workers,” the successors ble quantities of information. Today, the store to Industrial Age capitalists and laborers. 48 of knowledge doubles every few years. In the Organizations of various kinds will employ Twenty-first Century knowledge will most like- knowledge workers to use information to solve ly double in a matter of months. There seems to problems. These specialists will work as mem- be a relationship between the amount of know- bers of a team, making singular contributions ledge generated and the ability of the computer toward a group solution. Because each assign- to process it. In the past twenty years, for ex- ment may require different information, know- ample, capacity of the average personal com- ledge workers will frequently have to retool and puter has increased from 4,000 to eight million retrain themselves with minimum direction from characters of memory. In the near future memo- the organization. Many knowledge workers will ry capacity will exceed one billion characters. As the growth in PC memory capacity suggests, information creation will continue at such a 47 Herbert Applebaum, “Work and Its Future,” Fu- stunning rate that cognitive overload will be an ture 24 (May 1992): 340; Gates, 253. 48 Peter F. Drucker, “Toward a Knowledge-based ever-present danger. Society,” Current, February 1993, 4-6, from Electronic Collection #A13663742, Expanded Academic Database. This particular article is a chapter from Drucker’s The Post-Capitalist World (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 46 Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (New York: Viking 89-100. See also Drucker, “The Age of Social Transfor- Penguin, 1995), 9. mation,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 1994, 53-80. 22 keep flexible schedules and work out of home monetary resources than did their parents or offices.49 grandparents.52 Service workers, according to Drucker, will In the next century, liberally-trained college find employment in an array of different activi- graduates will live and work in a society charac- ties. They will occupy positions as health-care terized by ethnic diversity and social pluralism. providers, correction officials, human-service In 1994, twenty-two million persons, or 8.5 per- workers, and retail cashiers, to name only a cent of the total population of the United States, few.50 The social challenge of the Information was foreign born, a figure some 3.1 percent Age will be to ensure the dignity of service higher than thirty years before. Each year the work and the service worker. If Drucker is cor- United States accepts more immigrants than the rect, that endeavor, along with caring for those rest of the world combined. Over 80 percent of who find it impossible to survive without exter- those who immigrated during the 1980s origi- nal support, belongs not to government or the nated in non-European areas such as Asia, Mex- corporation, but to the social sector. Society in ico, and Central America. Most immigrants set- the Twenty-first Century, therefore, will depend tled in only six of the fifty states, with the great- upon non-profit institutions and volunteers to est percentage choosing California. By the year dignify the contributions of service workers and 2000, “minority” groups, many of whose mem- to minister to the social and economic needs of bers are native born, will comprise California’s the unfortunate. In the next century the social majority population. The number of Hispanics sector of society will offer unparalleled respon- in the general labor force will increase by 36 sibilities and opportunities for those Seaver stu- percent between 1994 and 2005, and the number dents who will live lives of usefulness and for of Asians will increase by 40 percent.53 the faculty who will train them.51 Twenty-first Century Seaver graduates will The world’s demographic profile in the enter a workplace that features almost as many next millennium will be as different as its women as men. Between 1982 and 2005, the workplace. By the year 2010, some 60 percent percentage of women in the work force will in- of all American households will contain no per- crease from 43 to 48 percent. Men will likely son under the age of eighteen. Ten years later retain numerical advantage in the workplace, some 20 percent of the total population will be primarily because more and more women will over sixty-five years of age, of which nearly 10 choose to delay a career until after completing a percent will be eighty years of age or older. The college degree. In the next century, therefore, over-sixty-five age group, George Keller has students at Seaver can expect to have a higher noted, will control some 60 percent of the na- percentage of females as classmates and subse- tion’s disposable wealth. Consequently, that quently as superiors in the professional world.54 part of the population age eighteen or under has A diverse population and work place mere- less capital resources now than ever before. ly reflect a world that is speedily shrinking in Thus, traditional students attending Seaver Col- size. Indeed, rapid transportation, world-wide lege in the next century will be fewer in number media, and instantaneous electronic communi- than previous generations and will have fewer
52 A. Stone, “Family ‘shift’: Most Households Have No Children,” USA Today, May 8, 1992, 10A, from The 49 Applebaum, “Work and Its Future,” 40; and Jan Editors, “Childless Families Outnumber Families with M. Grell, “Flexible Schedules Energize the Work Force, Children,” On the Horizon, February 1992, 1(2), 7 On the Horizon, 2(3): 5,
58 engagement, says Putnam, is “the single most Alexander Astin in What Matters in College: 63 Four Years Revisited (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, important problem facing America.” And it is 1993), 119-22, defines as “Hedonists” those new fresh- a condition that presents a special problem for men who come to college with habits of drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and staying up all night and who also support legalization of marijuana. This population comes 61 Ibid. to the university with low high school grades, poor study 62 Putnam, “Tuning In, Tuning Out,” 666, 677-80. habits, and a high level of boredom. At college their he- A recent poll published by the Roper Center for public donism is generally enhanced “by joining social fraterni- Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut argues ties and sororities, socializing and partying, and being that Putnam’s conclusions “are premature--if not simply involved in intramural sports.” Moreover, “the student’s wrong.” See “So Much for the ‘Bowling Alone’ Thesis, hedonistic tendencies may be weakened...by involvement The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, June 17- in religious activities, engagement in academic work, 23, 1996, 37. commuting, and getting married.” Astin’s study is based 63 Ibid.; Scott Heller, “‘Bowling Alone,’ A Harvard on a 1989 follow up study of almost 25,000 freshmen Professor Examines America’s Dwindling Sense of who entered colleges throughout the U.S. during the 1985 Community,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March fall term. 1, 1996, A10-11. See also Dan Fost, “Farewell to...,” 59 See “Fewer college freshmen endorsing casual American Demographics, January 1996, 42-43. The civic sex, survey finds,” Chicago Tribune, January 13, 1997, 1- disengagement Putnam identifies and worries about 4. would seem to nullify the viability of what Drucker calls 60 Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s the “the social sector,” the non-profit segment of society Decline in Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6 (Jan- that would minister to those who fail as knowledge and uary 1995), 68-70. service workers. 25
Seaver College. How can students be engaged to them. Instead, they will seek wholeness, in liberal learning when they have been disen- healing, and connectedness in a varieties of ve- gaged from social reality most of their lives? nues. Most Americans will believe that one can The religious environment of the Twenty- be a good Catholic/Jew/Protestant without going first Century will be as unique as the socio- to church. economic environment. If present trends hold, Present trends suggest that in the Twenty- church attendance will decline from contempo- first Century a “New Spirituality” will per- rary levels. A national survey completed in meate American religion. Of principal concern January 1996, for example, found that only 37 will be “woundedness,” a notion that individuals percent of Americans said they had attended are victims of society, family, the church, and church in the previous week, down 12 percent themselves. Rather than talking about Christ, from 1991. Only 17 percent, some 5 percent seekers of the new religion will speak about less than in 1991, said they had attended a Sun- “recovery” from personal wounds and will bond day school. Church attendance dropped most with fellow seekers over needs and feelings. significantly among the Baby Boomers but con- They will define religion as a journey to realize tinued about the same in the Generation 13 co- self potential and gather in small-group situa- hort.64 tions to share their stories, much like Twelve- According to sociologist Wade Clark Roof, step programs do today. In sum, the religious the structures and nature of American religious landscape anticipated for the next century will life will change substantially in the next millen- take exception to the assertion that wholeness nium. Primarily because of birth rates, the per- and healing come through an active belief in centage of Protestants in the United States will Jesus Christ lived out in a community of believ- decrease from 66 to 50, while Catholics, primar- ers. ily because of immigration, will increase from Whatever the domain--technology, 23 to 30 percent. Fifty percent of all Catholics workplace, population, family, society, or reli- in 2005 will be Hispanic. “Other” religious gion--the Twenty-first Century will present both groups will increase from 1 to 10 percent of the challenges and opportunities to all liberal learn- population. Within this category, Islam will be ers. Those who will live lives of usefulness in the fastest growing religion. Judging from de- the new millennium will do so by choice rather velopments over the past two decades, pluralism than by chance. Moreover, they will manifest will continue to distinguish American religion particular qualities, possess detailed know- in the new century. Eighteen years ago a scho- ledges, and employ certain skills that will be lar counted 1200 different religions in the Unit- available primarily through a broad educational ed States; more recently he counted 2200. experience, such as provided by Seaver College. Although more than 80 percent of Ameri- cans will claim to be Christian in the Twenty- first Century, one-half or more of them will be unchurched and know little about religious tra- dition. For many, the spiritual journey will be more important than identification with a par- ticular denomination or church. They may speak in spiritual talk, but traditional religious language, e.g., sin and redemption, will be alien
64 Larry B. Stammer, “Church Attendance Falls to 11-Year Low,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1996, B4- B5. See also article on recent poll in The Washington Times, Jan. 18, 1997. 26
CHAPTER 4
QUALITIES, SKILLS, AND KNOWLEDGES REQUIRED FOR PRODUC-
TIVE LIVES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Lives of usefulness in the Twenty-first Century will litical, socioeconomic and intellectual) without demand more preparation, sharper skills, keener assuming that all behaviors and ideas are of insight, and a larger faith commitment than they equal value. They will have empathy for those required in former times. Indeed, the profes- who are struggling or who are in pain. They sional and popular press is preoccupied with will also have an ability to adapt to different sit- discussions and articulations of the different uations, the capacity to live with ambiguity, the qualities, skills, and knowledges that the coming genius to accept a multi-vocal society, and faith century will demand of each individual. To to participate in deliberative democracy. provide a comprehensive list of those characte- To lead a useful life in the next millennium, ristics is beyond the scope of this report, but we one must embrace the principles of a pluralistic can identify those attributes that must be the society. These standards will require respect for concern of institutions of liberal learning. The minority interests even when those interests are Blue Ribbon Commission assumes that if the in conflict with majority goals. These standards basic qualities, skills and knowledges required will also promote compromise when disagree- for productive lives in the Twenty-first Century ments threaten the peace of the community.65 are known, educators can more easily design a Out of concern for the community, produc- curriculum that will produce them. tive citizens of the Twenty-first Century will promote the development of “social capital.” Qualities Thus, they will join in common cause to support A life of meaning and purpose in the next individuals who have been marginalized by the millennium will acknowledge and model the Knowledge Society, who are ill physically or reality of God. For such a life, the Sermon on mentally, who have lost the capacity to care for the Mount will define “authentic Christianity.” themselves, who lack hope because of self- It will embrace also those values that are basic abuse or the abuse of others, and who subsist to human society, namely honesty, fairness, car- day-to-day without any sense of God and his ing, responsibility, respect, loyalty, citizenship, graciousness. Useful citizens of the next cen- and self-control. A context of trust will distin- tury will have the self-confidence to live in a guish the useful life: the truth will be spoken, highly competitive environment and will pos- promises will be kept, and worthy leaders will sess the ability to learn from mistakes and to be followed. deal with failure. The Twenty-first Century will require men and women to have the inner strength and cou- rage to stand up for what is true, good, and beautiful, even when that position may be un- Workplace Skills in the Information Age popular. Those who live successfully in the next century will think and act independently, and 65 David R. Hiley, “The Democratic Purposes of they will be able to accommodate diversity (po- General Education,” Liberal Education 82 (Winter 1996): 20-25. 27
Knowledge workers in the Twenty-first assimilate, and associate rapidly gargantuan Century, says Michael Dolence, must be amounts of information. They must also be able “broadly educated problem solvers who can ac- to complete an assignment with total accuracy quire knowledge in a wide range of ever- on time and to work efficiently and effectively changing hybrid disciplines. In blunt terms,” he without complaint. The knowledge worker, concludes, “the Information Age may demand moreover, will benefit from having had some the primacy of broad-based liberal arts educa- kind of prior work experience. tion.”66 In other words, the new knowledge workers must know how to learn, to communi- Knowledges cate effectively as speakers and as writers, to In addition to qualities and skills, a life of listen actively, and to think independently and usefulness in the next century will require an in- critically. Above all, they need to know how to depth grasp of multiple knowledges. Among use information or data to solve problems. these is the knowledge of the Christian world Workers in the Information Age must be able to view, that is, comprehension of the Bible as act with self assurance in leadership roles; they God’s revelation of himself, an understanding of must know how to make decisions, understand the sovereignty of God, and a recognition that the consequences of those decisions, and accept faith is a legitimate “way of knowing” truth but the responsibility for them. In addition, they that “without works, [it] is dead.” must have effective interpersonal skills (listen- Useful lives in the Twenty-first Century ing, conversation, courtesy, and civility), an will have knowledge of those events and acts in ability to adapt and be flexible in different situa- time and space that give texture, meaning, and tions, a sensitivity to multi-cultural issues, and a coherence to the human experience. They will willingness to exercise self control for the sake work diligently, furthermore, to extend the tra- of broader loyalties. ditions that give significance and definition to In the Twenty-first Century successful the human story. workers will need a new set of skills. To deal In the Information Age, Peter Drucker as- with the ever-shrinking “half life” of informa- serts that successful stakeholders will have tion and technologies, they must know how to mastered one or more specialized knowledges. learn continuously and independently with mi- This type of erudition, however, will have little nimal direction from the organization; to trans- value unless it is applied and made productive late general preparedness into specific prepa- in combination with other specialized, but dif- redness; and to be able to work in teams that are ferent knowledges.67 Because of the obsoles- constantly reformulated. Knowledge workers in cence of expertise or the requirements of a new the next century must know how to resolve con- task, workers will often have to acquire new and troversy without conflict and to access, screen, different knowledges. Some advance under- standing of different ways of knowing can best 66 Dolence, 43. Ironically, Richard Hersh, President accommodate that process. Workers fully pre- of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, recently found pared for the Twenty-first Century, therefore, that parents and students placed higher value on salable will know something of the natural sciences, technical skills necessary to find and fill the all-important social sciences, humanities, and aesthetic arts. first job than the supposed benefits of the classic liberal arts education. He also found that although the business In the next millennium, Information Age community gives lip service to valuing a liberal learning workers must also understand the planet as a experience, they fault liberal arts programs for not devel- “global village” rather than as a multitude of oping good work habits, not encouraging maturity and independent nation-states. Goods, services, and independence, not promoting ethical behavior, and lower- information will flow without regard to political ing academic standards. See Lois Graff, “Social--What is an Undergraduate Education All About?” On the Horizon boundaries. Because supplies of natural re-
29
CHAPTER 5
LEARNING EXPERIENCES NECESSARY TO PROVIDE THE
QUALITIES, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGES REQUIRED TO LIVE LIVES OF
USEFULNESS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
We have previously identified some of the qual- rience. Finally, quality instruction incorporates ities, skills and knowledges required to live 8) active learning, 9) assessment and prompt lives of usefulness in the Twenty-first Century. feedback, 10) collaboration, 11) adequate time Our task now is to describe and reflect upon the on task, and 12) out-of-class contact with facul- nature and design of various learning expe- ty.69 Because Seaver is a Christian college, a riences that can help provide those necessary quality curriculum also requires 13) student de- attributes. We look first at the undergraduate or dication of their talents to the service of God baccalaureate degree program as a whole, and and of men in the name of Christ. then at each of its three component parts: gen- The organizing principles for quality liberal eral education, specialized education (the ma- learning at Seaver College are not only huma- jor), and the co-curriculum.68 nistic, historical and philosophical, but they are also theological. They are humanistic because The Undergraduate Degree Program they support the idea that the proper study of Any curriculum that will prepare students mankind is man. Since this humanistic study is for the Twenty-first Century must aspire to the as applicable to literature as it is to the natural highest possible level of quality. In late 1995, sciences, the content of subject matter is of less the Education Commission of the States identi- interest than the concerns of subject matter. The fied twelve attributes of quality undergraduate principles are historical because man cannot be education. These attributes, based upon exten- understood except in the context of his histori- sive research, are worth including here without cal experiences. Furthermore, historical re- elaboration. Educational quality begins with an search is the foundation of scholarship in any organizational culture that 1) values high learn- field, and an historical orientation is the point of ing expectations, 2) respects diverse talents and departure for almost every learning experience learning styles, and 3) emphasizes the early at the collegiate level. These principles are phi- years of collegiate study. A quality curriculum losophical because general education must en- requires 4) coherence in learning, 5) synthesis courage reflection, that is, concern for general of experiences, 6) ongoing practices of learned principles rather than details; meanings rather skills, and 7) integration of education with expe- than sequences; interpretation and evaluations rather than descriptions. And the principles are 68 The most recent and authoritative study of the theological because the ultimate objective of the undergraduate curriculum is Jerry G. Gaff and James L. Christian in scholarship is the clarification of Ratcliff, ed., Handbook of the Undergraduate Curricu- theological meanings. A clear understanding of lum, A Comprehensive Guide to Purposes, Structures, the content of the Christian faith should be the Practices, and Change (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey- Bass Publishers, 1996). Those who chart Seaver’s curri- culum for the Twenty-first Century should read this work 69 Quoted in “What Research Says About Improving first. Undergraduate Edu.,” AAHE Bulletin, April 1996, 5. 30 most urgent concern of all who study and work tion. The major prepares students for a job, but at Seaver College.70 general education prepares them for life.72 The thirteen attributes of a quality under- Not all educators, scholars, politicians and graduate education and the four organizing parents agree that general education translates principles of liberal learning are foundational to into a composed and useful life. Many students all that is accomplished at Seaver College in who graduate from college today do not seem to general education, specialized education, and have the characteristics of a generally educated the co-curriculum. person: “that is, having such qualities as a broad base of knowledge in history and culture, ma- General Education thematics and science, the ability to think logi- Although general education has been part cally and critically, the capacity to express ideas of the undergraduate degree program at Peppe- clearly and cogently, the sensitivities and skills rdine/Seaver College since 1937, its goals have to deal with different kinds of people, sophisti- never been precisely articulated. The literature cated tastes and interests, and the capability to on what future goals should be is extensive, work independently and collaboratively.”73 considering the general education reform A new concept of general education is movement that has swept the nation over the emerging. No longer does general education past decade. Previous goals included “sharing a equate with breadth and involve a sampling of common heritage,” “developing mutual respon- courses from the broad array of academic dis- sibility,” “making a commitment to moral and ciplines. Simple exposure to different fields of ethical behavior,” and “integrating diverse study is inadequate. General education should groups into larger society.” The common de- instead: nominator was a character education that would provide students with a generous orienta- prepare students for the duties of citizenship in tion to the intellectual expectations, curri- the modern world.71 cular rationale, and learning resources of As a rule, general education has been deli- the institution; vered by the survey courses in the humanities, enable students to acquire specific skills of natural sciences, social sciences, communica- thought and expression, such as critical tion, and religion. These courses supply what thinking, writing, speaking and listening, John Henry Newman calls “the great outlines of that should be learned “across the curricu- knowledge” and “the principles on which it lum” in several different courses; rests.” The survey courses represent the con- permit students to learn about another cul- serving and transmitting functions of the college ture and the diversity that exists within our and university. And like others in the general own culture in terms of gender, race, ethnic education curriculum, they are designed to background, class, age, and religion; “broaden” students’ knowledge and help them help students integrate ideas from across “see connections” between disparate subject disciplines to illuminate interdisciplinary areas. Careful study of the great books of themes, issues, or social problems; Western civilization, as the experience of Seav- encourage students to study subjects not er College suggests, can achieve the same ob- part of their majors at advanced levels; jective. In-depth study and research in the dis- provide students with an opportunity near cipline lie in the province of specialized educa- the end of their course of study to integrate
72 Ibid., 180-81. 70 Sandin, 83-84. 73 Jerry G. Gaff, Strong foundations: Twelve prin- 71 Quoted in John L. Rury, “Inquiry in the General ciples for effective general education programs (Wash- Education Curriculum,” The Journal of Education 45 ington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges, 1994), (1996): 179. ii. 31
their learning experiences in a senior semi- We define the components of the proposed gen- nar or project; and eral education program as follows: ensure that students experience a coherent course of study, one that is more than the Skills sum of its parts.74 Effective Thinking. Seaver students should Significantly, the current Seaver College think effectively in a variety of reasoning general education curriculum reflects much of processes, including critical, creative, and the new paradigm. Freshmen Seminars provide scientific. One who thinks critically can a measure of orientation to the resources of the logically interpret the ideas of others college; the non-Western requirement provides through analysis and evaluation. A crea- insight to other cultures; Western heritage em- tive thinker takes risks, draws on inner re- ploys an interdisciplinary approach; most ma- sources to advance original ideas, and re- jors require some kind of minor or concentration cognizes connections between seemingly outside the specialized field of study; and many unrelated ideas. One who thinks scientifi- majors require a senior project. But in other cally engages systematically in observation, ways, the current curriculum is lacking, espe- presumption, experimentation, and analy- cially in “across the curriculum” activities, cap- sis. Students should be able to combine the stone learning experiences, coherent courses of critical, creative, and scientific thinking study, opportunities to pursue detailed studies methods to solve problems in vastly differ- beyond the major, and interdisciplinary illumi- ent fields and endeavors. nation of themes or social problems. Effective Communication. Seaver gra- Fundamental to any successful general edu- duates should be able to receive and con- cation program, of course, is a clear articulation vey known facts and interpretations without of learning objectives. At Seaver College, we difficulty. Effective communicators read, feel, those objectives are not always apparent. listen, and view actively. They transmit Students, faculty, and staff should engage in a clearly the result of their own thinking in great conversation about the goals of general written, spoken, and visual presentations. education and the learning experiences required Information Literacy. Students who gradu- to meet those goals. To begin that conversation, ate from Seaver should be able to identify, we propose as general education outcomes stu- access, manipulate, use, and present infor- dent acquisition of certain skills that are learned mation from a variety of sources and me- within particular contexts, explicated by certain dia. individual perspectives, and deduced from the Life Management, Career, and Interperson- 75 interconnectedness of the learning process. al. Because the complicated problems of society and workplace require creative so- lutions, Seaver students in the Twenty-first Century must have the ability to work as 74 Ibid., iii-iv. part of a team, to conduct independent re- 75 In the preparation of these specific outcomes, we have been influenced by the experiences of Northeastern search, to execute project-oriented tasks, to University in Boston, Massachusetts, and Saint Francis engage in life-long learning, and to com- College in Loretto, Pennsylvania, and the recommenda- plete assignments accurately when re- tions of Robert Sandin. See “Contexts, Perspectives, quested. Moreover, graduates must possess Connections: Grounding General Education Outcomes in a sense of self-worth, the ability to make Professional and Liberal Arts Majors” (a paper presented to the AAC&U Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., Jan- informed decisions, the desire to act as uary, 1996), “Report from the General Education Task agents of change, and the willingness to Force” (a report presented to the faculty of Saint Francis challenge as well as passively accept the College, Loretto, Pennsylvania, April 20, 1993), and San- status quo. din, chpt. 4. 32
and ethical implications of Christianity and Global Contexts understand the relevance of those ideas to The Natural World. The men and women the life-situation of man. Moreover, they who graduate from Seaver College should must be able to discriminate between the be comfortable with scientific vocabulary, Christian faith and non-Christian philoso- method, and reasoning in their cultural role phies and religions. Students should under- as stewards of the natural world. They stand that an individual’s concepts of vir- should be able to apply the skills of effec- tue, truth, character, and of a “life worth tive thinking, effective communication, and living” are determined by their faith in information literacy to the natural world. God, His revelation in Israel, and in Jesus They should appreciate and understand Christ. Students should also appreciate the science as a cultural imperative, given its historical contributions of the Churches of relationship to health, safety, and environ- Christ, especially that tradition’s strong ments, whether natural or man-made. Stu- commitment to biblical Christianity and to dents should also understand the limits of rational religious thought. scientific knowledge and the proper use of Historical. History links the past and scientific experts.76 present and points the way to the future. It The Social and Cultural World. Seaver offers both explanations and predictions. students prepared for the next millennium The historical perspective enables students will understand that human beings live in a to see that, over time, the natural world and heterogeneous world remarkable for its in- the social/cultural world have been con- terdependence and diversity. To contribute nected. Students can also unify their ac- to this world, graduates must base their de- complishments through personal histories cisions about other individuals and groups that connect past experiences with present on historical, philosophical, economic, lin- and future achievements.78 guistic, and political realities. Graduates Aesthetic. Education is incomplete unless will know that members of one culture be- it nurtures an aesthetic sensibility that awa- have and speak differently from another. kens receptivity to the beauty around us. A Moreover, they will be able to place their mathematical proof might be elegant, a academic, professional, and personal expe- bridge’s outline striking, a film moving, a riences within international and multi- concerto exquisite, an idea beautiful, or an cultural contexts.77 essay finely crafted and harmoniously pre- sented. Exposure to the major accom- Individual Perspectives plishments of world cultures, both past and Spiritual. Without an understanding of the present, should incite a continuing appreci- Christian faith as revealed in Scripture, stu- ation of, and appetite for, those artistic dents will leave Seaver with an incomplete elements that enrich the entire human expe- education. In a world where competing rience. ideologies are commonplace, students must Personal. Intellectual understanding does systematically grasp the basic philosophical not always imply engagement. To become one’s own person, the student must apply and internalize concepts, approaches, and 76 Morris H. Shamos, “The Myth of Scientific Lite- knowledges from a personal perspective. racy,” Liberal Education 82 (Summer, 1996), 49. Rendering an ethical judgment transforms a 77 For the international requirements on the curricu- lum, see American Council on Education, Educating Americans for a World in Flux: Ten Ground Rules for 78 Lynne Cheney in 50 Hours proposes a six- Internationalizing Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: semester core course to address this context. See pp. 19- American Council on Education, 1995). 25. 33
person; acting out of a sense of social re- Since useful liberal learning in the Twenty- sponsibility reflects commitment; service to first Century requires an effective general edu- another enhances learning. cation curriculum, we propose the following:
Interconnectedness Recommendation 1. Because in Christ “all Connections. “The student who can begin things hold together” and Christianity alone early in life to see things as connected...has transcends academic specialties, we recom- begun the life of learning,” said Mark van mend that the Christian worldview permeate Doren. Technological, economic, and de- every aspect of the curriculum. At Seaver mographic changes have guaranteed that College the integration of faith and know- the world of the future will be highly inter- ledge must be an imperative in every class- connected. A coherent education will help room, laboratory, studio, extra-curricular ac- prepare students for this unique environ- tivity, and student service. To implement ment. Students must have structured op- this recommendation we urge the Dean of portunities to apply skills learned in one Seaver College in cooperation with division context to solve problems presented in chairpersons to organize faculty and staff another. An inter-connected curriculum workshops, seminars, and conversations that impresses upon students that learning does explore how best to incorporate the Chris- not end at the classroom door or the college tian worldview more fully into the life of the gate, but rather continues throughout life.79 college. Recommendation 2. To achieve clarity and A single, core course, or one chosen from a coherence in the program, we recommend distribution of courses, may achieve the general that faculty and staff undertake a great con- education outcomes proposed above. Our versation as to the measurable learning ob- commission also believes that those goals can jectives of general education appropriate for be achieved through learning experiences re- Seaver College. Once those goals are de- peated and reinforced across the curriculum. termined, adopted and published, the faculty This latter approach assumes that learning does should recommend a system as to how the not necessarily equal teaching, that course com- desired outcomes can best be achieved, that pletion does not equal student learning, that one is, through core courses, a distribution of program of general education does not fit all courses, or through across-the-curriculum students, that individual courses are not instruction. “owned” by the instructors who teach them, or Recommendation 3. In the interest of integrity that important learning occurs only in the class- and coherency, we also recommend that the room. Dean of Seaver College appoint a member An effective general education program re- of the faculty to serve as director of general quires some campus agency or person to certify education, with the responsibilities of pub- courses that are a part of the curriculum and to lishing the goals for the program, evaluating determine whether the outcomes expected of the courses or programs that would meet the program are being achieved.80
general education requirements, and assess- 79 For the connection between values education and ing the overall effectiveness of the program. “across the curriculum” approaches, see Bruce Jennings, Recommendation 4. Although general educa- et al., “Values on Campus,” Liberal Education 82 (Winter 1996): 26-31. tion goals can be met in a variety of ways, 80 Pat Hutchings, Using Assessment to Strengthen we recommend widespread use of “across- General Education (Wash., D.C.: American Association the-curriculum” learning experiences, espe- for Higher Education, 1991). 34
cially those relating to Christian values and that the appropriate faculty globalize the to skills in critical thinking, communication, Western Heritage component of the general information literacy, and interpersonal activ- education program to the extent that the con- ities. tributions of certain non-Western cultures Recommendation 5. Integrity of the curricu- are included, namely Islam, African, Native lum also demands that the Seaver Academic American, and Asian. Council undertake or charge academic divi- Recommendation 10. Accountability to par- sions to undertake a periodic review of ents, employers, alumni and students de- every course in the Seaver catalog to see mands an ongoing, longitudinal assessment that course syllabi clearly state learning ob- of general education as well as the entire jectives, and that those objectives relate di- baccalaureate program. We recommend, rectly to the goals of general education and therefore, that the Seaver Academic Council specialized education, as well as to the undertake the organization and administra- Christian mission of the college. tion of such a general assessment program. Recommendation 6. Since information re- Recommendation 11. We recommend that no trieval is a competency demanded in a student leave Seaver College without an un- Knowledge Society, we recommend that derstanding and appreciation of the histori- skills such as e-mail, word processing, and cal roots, cultural contributions, and theo- information gathering be introduced both in logical emphases of the Churches of Christ. Freshman Seminars and English 101 classes and, thereafter, pursued across the general education curriculum. Specialized Education (the Major) Recommendation 7. Because literature enrich- Alfred North Whitehead, an educational es society and enthusiastic readers contri- philosopher of the early twentieth century, pro- bute to the formation of social capital, we posed that students receive both general and recommend that the literature and composi- specialized education. “The general culture is tion faculty recast the goals of English 102, designed to foster an activity of mind,” he with the basic course objective to be apprec- stated, but “the specialist course utilizes this ac- iation of literature rather than development tivity.” An education should provide a person of critical thinking skills. “with something he knows well and something Recommendation 8. Given the importance of a he can do well.”81 At Seaver College the re- global perspective in the Twenty-first Cen- sponsibility for such an education falls upon the tury, we recommend that the Dean, faculty, major course of study. and staff internationalize Seaver College Seaver presently offers undergraduate de- and incorporate international students more grees in thirty-six different major programs. fully into the life of the campus, by taking Some majors require as many as seventy-three advantage of the rich diversity of cultures credit units of both lower- and upper-division found in Los Angeles, by allowing an inter- work, or more than one-half of the total number national dimension to permeate the academ- of credits necessary for graduation, while other ic curriculum, by sensitizing the faculty to majors require as few as twenty-eight. The international issues, and by capitalizing structure of different major programs also varies upon the full potential of Seaver’s study- widely throughout the college. Characteristical- abroad programs. ly, science and business administration curricula Recommendation 9. Because of the location of have hierarchical arrangements in which one set Seaver College on the Pacific Rim and the of courses leads to--and is a prerequisite for--the increasing importance of non-Western cul- next level. Most humanities and social science tures in world affairs, we also recommend 81 Quoted in Levine, 263-264. 35 programs have more flexible structures, where National studies suggest that successful un- the curricular paths are less well defined and the dergraduate majors at colleges like Seaver will possibility of individual choices are substantial- have the following characteristics.82 ly greater. Many of the courses in these pro- The major course of study has clearly arti- grams are open to all interested students without culated intellectual goals. These goals prerequisites. might range from preparing students for Our committee believes that an in-depth graduate education to training them for study in specialized fields advances liberal ministry, from preparing them for positions learning. No one can master all the content and in the workplace to training them for world methods of all the areas in a liberal arts curricu- citizenship. The goals of the major reflect lum, but the major allows the student to dig the philosophy of the department, and they deeply into the content and methodology of a are consistent with the mission of the col- single subject. But as the student masters the lege, including the clear assertion that the academic method in one area of study, he or she source of all knowledge, or truth, is God. implicitly learns a great deal about the academic The organizing principles of a major method used in other fields, for all academic course of study are clearly defined. Some disciplines understand, criticize, and create majors are organized by units of time, by knowledge similarly. place, by analytic approach, by sub-fields, A metaphor from the Great Plains will help or by a combination of some or all of these. illustrate this point. Our general studies courses Other majors have a sense of logic, a pro- survey the surface layer of earth. The major gression of knowledge and techniques that allows the students to drill down in separate move in sequential order. And majors can areas located on the surface. When they bore be organized around a set of problems or deep enough, they strike the water table below contested issues. All majors have at least and find a river connecting all the specialized one appropriate organizing principle. areas. Whereas students thought of themselves Students are introduced to the subject mat- as separated into different “holes,” they begin to ter in depth. Depth, however, does not understand that they were involved in very simi- arise merely from the existence of an ex- lar endeavors, that is, mastery of creative, ana- tensive factual base. A course of study has lytic and critical skills common to all academic depth only if it offers a complex structure processes. of knowledge, a basis for subsequent work, At least twice in the last dozen years, the a central core of method and theory that in- faculty at Seaver College has subjected major troduces the explanatory power of the dis- programs to in-house reviews. To our know- cipline, and if it unites all students who join ledge, however, there has been no systematic in the study in a shared understanding of its evaluation of the role and function of the major character and aims. Depth is not achieved in the curriculum, no assessment of its relation- solely by exposure to greater quantities of a ship to liberal learning, no articulation of the specified subject matter. educational outcomes or goals desired, and thus no assessment of the effectiveness of the pro- 82 See Integrity in the College Curriculum (2nd ed.; grams. The quality of our majors is fairly high, Wash., D.C.: Association of American Colleges, 1990); but Seaver students would be better educated if The Challenge of Connecting Learning (Wash., D.C.: the faculty substantiated this conclusion with Association of American Colleges, 1990). See also Re- solid data. ports from the Fields (Wash., D.C.: Association of Amer- ican Colleges, 1991); Report of the Commission on Un- dergraduate Education [at Stanford] (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University, 1994); and Joan S. Stark and Lisa R. Lattuca, Shaping the College Curriculum (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 1997). 36
A major course of study has a coherent and Because liberal learning in the Twenty-first progressive curriculum that has a begin- Century includes a well-designed and an effec- ning, a middle, and an end. The beginning tive major course of study, the commission courses are frequently well-organized sur- makes the following recommendations. veys or introductions. The middle courses are generally sequenced, where successful Recommendation 12. To ensure academic in- performance in a 400-level course de- tegrity in the several specialized courses of mands the knowledge or technique ac- study at Seaver College, we propose that fa- quired in a 300-level course. As students culty teaching in the major re-examine the advance, they work more with the primary goals and objectives of their program every materials of their concentration--texts, doc- three to five years, and that it articulate how uments, artifacts, substances, works of art-- those goals, objectives, and structures con- and not with edited collections and labora- tribute to the major and to general educa- tory codes. Students learn how to extract tion. meaning from such materials according to Recommendation 13. Because coherence in the values and standards of the discipline. the major is desirable, we recommend that The end course provides learners in the ma- the appropriate faculty should structure the jor with an integrating experience. major course of study so that students move Each course in the major has a complete progressively to higher levels of understand- syllabus. The individual course syllabus ing and skill. explains the content and procedures of the Recommendation 14. Because general educa- class, but it also explains, within the con- tion is central to the mission of Seaver Col- text of both the major and general educa- lege, we propose that no course of specia- tion, why students are taking the course. lized instruction should comprise more than Every major has a synthesizing experience 40 percent of the total number of hours re- for seniors. Characteristically a synthesiz- quired for graduation (excluding general ing experience provides advanced students education courses that may serve as prere- with an opportunity to integrate their know- quisites for the major). ledge, to make connections, and to demon- Recommendation 15. To demonstrate the in- strate their capacity for independence and terconnectedness of knowledge and equip creativity. Seaver students with integrative skills, we Each major has a realistic assessment pro- recommend that every major course of study gram. Without indulging in frantic memo- have some kind of unifying or capstone ex- rization, students demonstrate what they perience such as a senior project or thesis. know and how well they can synthesize it Recommendation 16. To ensure coherence and by using portfolios, intellectual autobiogra- integrity in the curriculum, we urge Seaver phies, and interpretative essays. Academic Council to approve no course in Each major provides competency certifica- the major unless its syllabus indicates how tion. Faculty can certify the ability of the the class’s objectives further the goals of the student to participate in active learning, as- major, the goals of general education, and sume and execute responsibility for out- the mission of the college. comes, remain connected to knowledge Recommendation 17. We recommend that networks, and pilot their own learning en- students completing a major course of study terprises. undergo some kind of assessment expe- Successful majors have concerned and in- rience which will permit faculty to validate formed faculty advisors. their appropriate capacity for life-long learn- ing. Students would be asked to demon- 37
strate competency in active learning, a wil- when peace replaces depression, contentment lingness to assume and execute responsibili- replaces striving, goal setting replaces lack of ty for outcomes, an ability to navigate direction, and hope replaces hopelessness. Stu- knowledge networks, and capacity to formu- dents who are well realize wholeness and en- late their own learning enterprises. gage in self-actualization. Wellness is move- Recommendation 18. To demonstrate the in- ment away from the destructive lifestyles en- terconnectedness of all knowledge, we rec- couraged by modern culture. It is movement ommend that the Seaver faculty meet in reg- toward the life of usefulness envisioned by ular seminars to explore the links between George Pepperdine. Only “well” students will different disciplines. be healthy, contributing citizens of the next century. Co-Curriculum The success of the wellness model requires By definition, the co-curriculum is that part a holistic approach to curriculum in particular of the college educational experience where the and education in general. It works best when it affective part of the self is changed. Typically is grounded in a learning community that relies the co-curriculum includes everything outside heavily upon the assumption that students, fa- the classroom that affects the lives of students, culty, and staff are “seriously concerned about including social life, emotional well-being, each other’s well being.”84 Faculty and staff physical health, spiritual life, and personal life. participate in the planning of the co-curriculum At the center of the co-curriculum is the devel- and are present in the everyday lives of the stu- opment of the body and soul.83 dents outside the classroom, i.e., eating in din- In the past, college officials managed the ing halls, visiting in residential halls, participat- co-curriculum by dividing its concerns among ing in Bible studies, and becoming involved in different departments and people, i.e., intramur- service-learning activities. Faculty and staff als, spiritual life, campus life, counseling, and have training in basic counseling techniques, volunteer center. Those staff members directly understand the importance of confidentiality, involved had common goals, but each depart- and work in partnership with the counseling ment was in charge of its own domain of the center. The relationship among faculty, staff student’s development. The result was a co- and student is in loco amicis (Aristotle’s wise curriculum that often had no unifying principle. friend) rather than in loco parentis (surrogate Recently, administrators and staff con- parent). According to Willimon and Naylor, cerned with the co-curriculum have organized “The University should be the place where indi- their work according to a new paradigm. This viduals are given the time and space for friend- approach assumes that the educational promise ships to develop, where the virtues required of of the co-curriculum can best be realized if it is friends are cultivated, and where we are not organized around a guiding principle that im- clients, customers, caregivers, adversaries, but pacts both the co-curriculum and the academic friends.” Friendship then becomes the guiding curriculum. metaphor for life on campus.85 For Seaver College, the guiding principle is To achieve wellness by means of the co- wellness--intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, curriculum at Seaver College, responsible units physically, and socially. Wellness is achieved must plan sustained programs that integrate principles of the Wellness Model instead of see- 83 For a careful study of the potential of the co- curriculum as a learning experience, see George D. Kuh, Student Learning Outside the Classroom: Transcending 84 Willimon and Naylor, 146. Artificial Boundaries, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education 85 Ibid., 93, 95. See also Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon Report No. 8, 1994 (Wash., D.C.: Graduate School of and Charles S. Bacon, “Caring Professors: A Model,” Education and Human Development, The George Wash- JGE, The Journal of General Education, 45 (1996): 255- ington University, 1994). 69. 38 ing different activities as ends in themselves. are communication, commitment, friendship, Intramurals, for example, emphasize the devel- shared values and common aims. Real com- opment of life-long physical activity skills, ra- munities are grounded on a foundation of equal- ther than focusing merely on athletic competi- ity and justice, and they feature attributes of tion. Additionally, the integrated units of Stu- empowerment, adaptability, and conflict resolu- dent Affairs units (Campus Life, Residential tion. Learning communities give meaning to Life, Student Services, and Student Develop- life and a glimpse of heaven. ment) should plan programs and activities To fulfill the promise of the co-curriculum which support wellness education, and address in the Twenty-first Century, we recommend the such issues as eating disorders, stress and de- following: pression, and date rape.86 The wellness model works best when stu- Recommendation 19. So that both faculty and dents, faculty and staff are all involved. It must staff can relate more effectively to current foster a co-curriculum that includes the social, and emerging generations of students, we ethnic, gender, and religious diversity of the recommend that the Dean of Seaver College campus. The co-curriculum will also integrate organize faculty and staff development international and under-represented student workshops, seminars, and conversations groups into the life of the community. It, more- based on the qualities and characteristics of over, will identify leaders in each of those those unique cohorts. As resources for these groups, and it will provide opportunities for discussions, the Dean should use Student them to develop and employ their skills. The Affairs professionals as well as members of co-curriculum makes campus diversity a charac- the faculty. teristic to cherish rather than deplore. Recommendation 20. To provide structure, Wellness also implies that the spiritual de- unity, and healing to students who come to velopment of all students is a primary concern the University with fragmented and unsche- of the co-curriculum. With strong ties to the duled lives, we suggest that instruction on Churches of Christ, Seaver College should nur- time- and money-management, communica- ture the spiritual needs of students from that tion and relationship building, and goal- faith tradition without neglecting the needs of setting and career choice be offered through students from other religious backgrounds. a variety of venues, namely convocation, the Finally, the co-curriculum is a foundation Career Center, Residential Life Office, and of any “learning community.” “A community,” inter-Greek council. according to Willimon and Naylor, “is a part- Recommendation 21. Because of the weak to nership of people committed to the care and minimal religious commitment of many stu- nurturing of each other’s mind, body, heart, and dents who will enter Seaver in the Twenty- soul through participatory means.”87 Important first Century, we recommend that the co- characteristics of college learning communities curriculum incorporate even more opportun- ities for students to encounter God and His church. Among these opportunities might 86 Thayer-Bacon and Bacon, ibid, emphasize that alcohol is a major problem on college campuses. See also be a series of faith development seminars William H. Willimon, “Reaching and teaching the aban- taught by a cadre of faculty and staff fea- doned generation,” Christian Century, October 30, 1993, tured in the Convocation Series, more vo- 1016-1019; “Drug and Alcohol Analysis” (Survey com- lunteer activities as expressions of Christian pleted by Seaver College, Pepperdine University, 1993); ministry, and empowerment of students of and Henry Wechsler, “Alcohol and the American College Campus: A Report from the Harvard School of Public all religious backgrounds to contribute to the Health,” Change, July/August, 1996, 20-25, 60. spiritual life of the campus. 87 Ibid, 145. For other characteristic of the “learning community,” see pages chpt. 10. 39
Recommendation 22. To better confront the Recommendation 25. To help students manage pervasiveness of violence, depression, mal- their time better and to replenish the “social nutrition, substance abuse, eating disorders, capital” among the Seaver student body, we and dysfunctional relationships, we propose recommend that the faculty, staff, and ad- that the Dean of Student Affairs use the pro- ministration promote service-learning fessional staff that reports to her to program projects, encourage participation in volun- regular activities that would promote well- teer activities, organize innovative reading ness and wholeness in the co-curriculum. programs, support intramurals activities and We suggest also that the university should club sports, and themselves participate in provide financial resources sufficient to hire Residential Life Office educational pro- part-time staff trained in drug counseling, grams. Construction of the proposed recrea- nutrition, and health education. tional village would further this objective. Recommendation 23. To more effectively mi- Recommendation 26. In light of social pres- nister to students from all religious tradi- sures and dysfunctional families that leave tions, we recommend that the university hire students with little sense of self or commu- a professional trained in pastoral counseling. nity, we propose that Seaver College streng- Recommendation 24. Because a “learning then residential life on campus by differen- community” is central to a Christian college, tiating particular residential halls according we propose that it become a strategic priori- to interest, age, or length of stay on campus. ty for Seaver College, with the Dean of the In addition to the current freshman halls, college organizing a special initiative to in- sophomore halls, and quiet halls, we would form both faculty, staff, and students of the suggest international halls, wellness halls, dimensions and value of such a community. and academic halls. Among other things, the college may want to create apartments for faculty and student affairs professionals within the residential community. 40
CHAPTER 6
DELIVERING LEARNING EXPERIENCES
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Toward the end of his career as a baseball man- lectures, note taking, multiple choice tests, and ager, a reporter asked Leo Durocher why he was desultory participation in wooden discussions. retiring. “Sit Down! Shut Up! Listen! won’t It has been described “as the transfer of pre- work anymore,” he said. During the course of selected bits of information without requiring his three decades of managing, a major para- analysis, synthesis or original expression. Its digm shift had taken place. An equally dramatic style is solitary learning in competition with shift has taken place in education. How liberal peers.”89 learning will be delivered in the Twenty-first Active learning, however, is shared learn- Century will vary widely from how it was deli- ing. To stimulate active learning, Seaver faculty vered in earlier centuries. In the next millen- must possess broad bases of knowledge, nurtur- nium the paradigm will be learning rather than ing behaviors, technical skills, and mastery of a teaching, out-puts rather than inputs, ends rather particular discipline. The faculty must also es- than means. tablish meaningful relationships with students, Effective learning paradigms can be cap- for research establishes that the student/faculty tured in seven categories: 1) self-directed learn- relationship--not ratio, but relationship--is the ing (initiative learning), 2) creative learning strongest determinant of student success at the (exploratory or discovery learning), 3) expres- collegiate level. Of course, such a relationship sive learning (learning by doing), 4) feeling is fundamental to the existence of a learning learning (attitude learning), 5) on-line learning community. (experiential and service learning), 6) continual Learning communities and active learning learning (risk-taking learning), 7) reflexive are indivisible. In learning communities, partic- learning (observing ourselves learning). The ipants communicate openly, share goals freely, different learning paradigms have emerged si- build trust systematically, and learn collabora- multaneously with the Information Age. No tively. Collaborative activities, scholars have human being can transfer all the knowledge demonstrated, are especially effective in helping generated in the new age. The task of the uni- students attain higher levels of learning and of versity, therefore, is not to communicate infor- character.90 mation but to create communities in which stu- In the Twenty-first Century, Seaver College dents as learners discover and construct know- must be a learning community. It can achieve ledge as well as solve problems.88 that status through a variety of techniques. Oth- In the Twenty-first Century, Seaver College er institutions have found it useful to initiate must foster active learning rather than passive students into a learning community by means of learning. Passive learning includes textbooks, a “shared” educational experience during their first academic year. At Seaver, faculty and staff 88 Robert R. Barr and John Tagg, “From Teaching to could group eighteen or so students into a single Learning--A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Educa- tion,” Change, November/December, 1995. See also “The Search for Next-Century Learning,” AAHE Bulletin, 89 Quoted in Boyd, 8-9. March 1996, 3-6. 90 Ibid., 9. 41 cohort and arrange for them to take three or four gests that one-half of the fifteen million U.S. identical classes, namely freshman seminar, college students and three-quarters of the facul- English composition, Western Heritage, and ty have access to e-mail and the World Wide speech. Faculty of those classes might collabo- Web. Students can deliver papers, get their rate on assignments that would integrate the dis- homework assignments, check their course syl- ciplines and promote collaborative learning. labi, send e-mail, look up library books, and in- Such an arrangement would help students tran- teract with anyone in the world who is linked to sition to college and develop a network of sup- the electronic network. Such amazing technol- portive peers. It would also help them under- ogical advances has not and will not make the stand that knowledge, like community, means traditional classroom obsolete, but they are cer- connection and integration. Cohort learning, tainly going to change the nature of the interac- moreover, would simulate the Twenty-first Cen- tion that goes on in the classroom.93 tury workplace.91 The Information Age has already changed Seaver as a learning community will offer a the library. No longer is Payson Library, for wide range of experiential pedagogies. Learn- example, a place were collections of books are by-doing opportunities range from internships to managed, periodicals are housed, archives are cooperative educational experiences, from stored, and research is conducted in the collec- study-abroad programs to field-study activities, tions. The purpose of Payson now is to provide from science laboratory projects to student pub- access to information through on-line services lications, from teacher training to studio work, and CD-ROM data bases. A secondary objec- from peer tutoring to service-learning projects.92 tive is to train students in the use of information Experiential learning frees students to dare and sources. The library staff provides on-line cata- to create, confident that failure will not mean log services to the rooms and offices of both censure or humiliation, and that faculty will not students and faculty via the local area network. be threatened by inquiring, skeptical, or egotis- In this dynamic environment, the role of tical students. Learn-by-doing activities, espe- teachers is changing. They are co-inquirers, fa- cially service-learning, respond to a compelling cilitators, knowledge navigators, researchers, need to resuscitate altruism and to reinvest in synthesizers, architects, evaluators, certifiers of “social capital.” mastery, and above all mentors.94 More than The convergence of new educational ap- ever before, teachers also recognize that stu- proaches with new technologies has changed the dents learn in different ways. They think in traditional classroom. Colleges and students terms of learning opportunities rather than of spent about $9 billion on hardware and software teaching “loads.” Teachers define the class- for desktop computers in 1996--up from about room as a place where love for subject matter, $5 billion in 1991. And the best estimate sug- 93 “Technology big part of college experience,” The 91 Vincent Tinto, et. al., “Building Learning Com- Star, Aug. 12, 1996. There are a fair amount of observers munities for New College Students: A summary of re- who think that technology is highly overrated. See Clif- search findings of the Collaborative Learning Project” ford Stoll, “Invest in Humanware,” The New York Times, (paper presented to the AAHE Conference on Assess- May 19, 1996, OP-ED. Kenneth C. Green, “The Coming ment, Wash., D.C., June 1996 and prepared under the Ubiquity of Information Technology,” Change, auspices of the National Center on Postsecondary Teach- March/April 1996, 24-31, makes clear that use of infor- ing, Learning and Assessment, School of Education, Sy- mation technology in the classroom has not gone much racuse University). beyond putting slides and over-lays on the computer, and 92 Patricia Sillivan, et. al., “Redefining Excellence: that getting full use of the technology is much more com- Experiential Learning Comes Into Its Own” (Presentation plicated and time-consuming that once thought. at the Annual Meeting of Association of American Col- 94For an excellent discussion of the teacher as men- leges & Universities, Wash., D.C., January 1996), 2; see tor, see Laurent A. Parks Daloz, et al., “Lives of Com- also Michel Marriott, “Taking Education Beyond the mitment, Higher Education in the Life of the New Com- Classroom,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 1996, Sec. 4A. mons,” Change, May/June, 1996, 11-15. 42 love for each other, and love for God’s creation the student portfolio. Such evaluative tech- integrate to give meaning and purpose to life. niques, infers Astin, enables teachers to focus The forces that are transforming the role of upon the meaning of excellence, that is, the the teacher in the Information Age are challeng- “values...that undergird our principal assessment ing the definitions and structures of academic activities in higher education.”96 time. Traditionally, academic credit has To deliver liberal learning in the Twenty- equated to the number of hours spent in the first Century so that it meets the needs of a new classroom, with one hour of “seat time” over a generation of students, the Blue Ribbon Com- fifteen week semester equaling one unit of aca- mission makes the following recommendations: demic credit. To receive four units of academic credit, a student enrolls in a class that meets Recommendation 27. To encourage wider use four hours each week for fifteen weeks. No one of active-learning techniques, we urge the is permitted to enroll after the first week, and no Dean of Seaver College to organize summer one is permitted to complete the course early. workshops for faculty who wish to learn Credit for a course by means of a challenge ex- how to employ those techniques in their own amination is rarely given to a student. Because classrooms. of technological advances, different levels of Recommendation 28. To recognize excellence student preparation, and the needs of the Infor- in the use of active-learning techniques, mation Age work place, Seaver College must such as service- and computer-based learn- provide a more flexible system of awarding ing in the classroom, we propose that the academic credit in the next millennium.95 Provost of Pepperdine University establish a In the Twenty-first Century, the baccalau- monetary award that would be given annual- reate degree should measure learning rather than ly to deserving faculty, much like the “seat time.” Many educators doubt that well- present Luckman teaching awards. prepared high school seniors need four years of Recommendation 29. To encourage communi- college work to meet the goals of the baccalau- ty, connected learning, and retention, we reate, and they also doubt that poorly-prepared recommend that Seaver College organize its and socially disadvantaged students can meet freshman class into cohorts that would take those same goals in four years. three to four of their first semester classes Effective learning requires continual as- together, with the teachers of those classes sessment, not only of the entire course of study, collaborating on common assignments and but of individual courses as well. An effective in-class discussions. teacher builds into each course a cycle of as- Recommendation 30. To help students address sessments and feedback which ask and answer the meaninglessness in their lives, to dem- the question for each student and for the class as onstrate the connectedness of learning, and a whole. Assessment is to teaching what the to introduce students more fully to the tremble factor was for the architects of Ancient Christian mission of Seaver College, we Rome, who were required to stand under their recommend that freshman seminars include arches while the supports were removed. some common curriculum, perhaps based Teachers have traditionally used tests “to sort, upon a single theme, preferably something screen, and certify...students,” says Alexander Astin. The new learning paradigm requires lon- gitudinal and comprehensive assessments of 96 Boyd, 11-12. See also D. John Lee & Gloria Go- student development, one technique for which is ris Stronks, eds., Assessment in Christian Higher Educa- tion: Rhetoric and Reality (Lanham, Maryland: Universi- ty Press of America, Inc., 1994) and Alexander Astin, 95 Dolence, 27 and 81. See also Levine, chpt. 9, for Assessment for Excellence: The Philosophy and Practice an informative account of the structure of academic time, of Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education (San and pp. 158-61, for a history of the credit system. Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1993). 43
similar to the “Search for Meaning” theme ommend that Seaver College faculty see used at Middlebury College.97 such pedagogies as a substitution for tradi- Recommendation 31. Since “an institution that tional classes rather than as an addition to lacks refined instruments of program evalua- them. In this connection, the faculty should tion and rigorous instruments of student as- give students academic credit for compen- sessment is contributing to the debasement sated summer jobs pedagogically appropri- of baccalaureate education (says the AAC),” ate. we propose that the Pepperdine University Recommendation 36: To enhance the class- Board of Trustees mandate that no Seaver room effectiveness of Seaver College facul- College faculty member should receive te- ty, we recommend that the dean establish a nure, promotion, or step salary increases center for teaching and learning. This center who does not use sophisticated assessment should provide leadership and coordination protocols in his or her teaching. We propose in such areas as a) student learning assis- as well that Seaver College should terminate tance, e.g., peer tutoring assistance, advis- all academic programs that fail to establish ing, study skills assistance, disabled student an assessment procedure within the next five assistance, research skill enhancement, and years. Although there are several longitu- technological assistance; b) faculty devel- dinal and comprehensive assessment tech- opment, e.g., summer workshops, team niques, the portfolio, such as that used in teaching, teaching methods development, in- English composition classes, is highly rec- terdisciplinary dialogue, colleague mentor- ommended for individual courses. ing; and c) general education, e.g., faculty Recommendation 32. Since skills in informa- achievement awards, curriculum develop- tion retrieval are the sine qua non of the ment, freshman seminar programs, curricu- Twenty-first Century, we recommend that lum adjustments, international program the university fund Payson Library to the ex- coordination, academic assessment, course tent that it can provide on-line services and evaluation, classroom assessment, alumni CD-ROM data bases appropriate to the feedback, and general education student needs of active learning pedagogies. achievement awards. Recommendation 33. Because students come to Seaver College with varying skills and backgrounds, we recommend that the Dean of the college appoint a Task Force of facul- ty and administrators to re-examine ques- tions relating to academic time, especially self-paced learning, subject matter chal- lenges, and number of units required for graduation. Recommendation 34. To provide students with a sense of the wider world and enhance on- campus instruction, we recommend that the University Provost allocate funds annually to bring to Seaver campus major figures in literature, arts, politics, business, or religion. Recommendation 35. To encourage use of ex- periential learning opportunities, we rec-
97 For the syllabus of this course, see Willimon and Naylor, 163-169. 44
CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
The members of the Blue Ribbon Commission recommendations, we believe, will help liberal have endeavored in this report to discern how learning at Seaver College fulfill some of its liberal learning can prepare students to live lives promise and ensure that Seaver graduates will of usefulness in the Twenty-first Century. With be better prepared to live lives of usefulness in more description than prescription, we have de- the Twenty-first Century. fined terms, articulated assumptions, and devel- We could have expanded every section of oped a likely profile of students who will enroll our report. The literature describing, assessing, in Seaver College at the dawn of the next mil- and predicting the technological, economic, and lennium. After reviewing the development of social outlines of the next millennium is vast. the current liberal arts curriculum at Seaver, we Similar quantities of literature are available on identified some of the technological, economic, other subjects addressed in the report, and more social, and spiritual parameters of the next mil- is being published every day. We did not intend lennium that students will encounter once they for our report to be complete, only suggestive. graduate. Additionally, we identified the quali- Our goal was not to exhaust the topic of liberal ties, skills, and knowledges Seaver students will learning in the next century, only to start a con- require if they expect to live usefully in an In- versation. By identifying some of the issues, formation Age environment. referencing sources for further study, and mak- In our report, we devote considerable space ing specific recommendation, we hope that the to identifying the kinds of learning experiences- conversation will be focused, structured, and -general, special, and co-curricular--that Seaver informed. Above all, we pray that the conversa- College must provide its students if it wishes to tion will end in action. Without action, we be- equip them for life in the next century. We also lieve, the ability of Seaver College graduates to discuss some of the challenges associated with live lives of usefulness in the Twenty-first Cen- delivering the required learning experiences. tury stands in jeopardy Our report contains thirty-six recommendations. . If embraced by faculty, staff, and students, our