College Learning for the New Global Century

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College Learning for the New Global Century

Report - Education

College Learning for the New Global Century is a report about the aims and outcomes of a twenty-first-century college education. It is also a report about the promises we need to make—and keep—to all students who aspire to a college education, especially to those for whom college is a route, perhaps the only possible route, to a better future.

With college education more important than ever before, both to individual opportunity and to American prosperity, policy attention has turned to a new set of priorities: the expansion of access, the reduction of costs, and accountability for student success. These issues are important, but something equally important has been left off the table.

Across all the discussion of access, affordability, and even accountability, there has been a near-total public and policy silence about what contemporary college graduates need to know and be able to do.

This report fills that void. It builds from the recognition, already widely shared, that in a demanding economic and international environment, Americans will need further learning beyond high school.

The National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise believes that the policy commitment to expanded college access must be anchored in an equally strong commitment to educational excellence. Student success in college cannot be documented— as it usually is—only in terms of enrollment, persistence, and degree attainment.

These widely used metrics, while important, miss entirely the question of whether students who have placed their hopes for the future in higher education are actually achieving the kind of learning they need for a complex and volatile world.

In the twenty-first century, the world itself is setting very high expectations for knowledge and skill. This report—based on extensive input both from educators and employers—responds to these new global challenges. It describes the learning contemporary students need from college, and what it will take to help them achieve it.

Preparing Students for Twenty-First-Century Realities In recent years, the ground has shifted for Americans in virtually every important sphere of life—economic, global, cross-cultural, environ-mental, civic. The world is being dramatically reshaped by scientific and technological innovations, global interdependence, cross-cultural encounters, and changes in the balance of economic and political power.

These waves of dislocating change will only intensify. The context in which today’s students will make choices and compose lives is one of disruption rather than certainty, and of interdependence rather than insularity. This volatility also applies to careers. Studies show that Americans already change jobs ten times in the two decades after they turn eighteen, with such change even more frequent for younger workers.

Taking stock of these developments, educators and employers have begun to reach similar conclusions—an emerging consensus—about the kinds of learning Americans need from college. The recommendations in this report are informed by the views of employers, by new standards in a number of the professions, and by a multiyear dialogue with hundreds of colleges, community colleges, and universities about the aims and best practices for a twenty-first-century education.

The goal of this report is to move from off-camera analysis to public priorities and action. ...

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PDF format, 514KB, 73Pages. From aacu.org.

A Report From The National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America's Promise
Copyright © 2007 by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
ISBN 978-0-9779210-4-1

CONTENTS:
FOREWORD............................................ vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................... ix
EXECUTIVE HIGHLIGHTS............................. 1
INTRODUCTION: A Dangerous Silence ............. 7
PART 1: What Matters in College?............. 11
The Essential Learning Outcomes.......... 12
Liberal Education and American Capability................... 13
PART 2: From the American Century to the Global Century................. 15
Narrow Learning Is Not Enough ..................... 15
The World Is Changing and Liberal Education Must Change Too ........ 17
Engaging Twenty-First-Century Realities........... 19
Key Questions to Guide School–College Planning...................... 20
Fulfilling the Promise of College in the Twenty-first Century................. 23
PART 3: A New Framework for Excellence................. 25
The Principles of Excellence .............................. 26
1. Aim High—and Make Excellence Inclusive .................. 27
2. Give Students a Compass........................................... 29
3. Teach the Arts of Inquiry and Innovation ................................ 30
4. Engage the Big Questions..................................................... 33
5. Connect Knowledge with Choices and Action ........................ 35
6. Foster Civic, Intercultural, and Ethical Learning .............. 37
7. Assess Students’ Ability to Apply Learning to Complex Problems .......... 40
PART 4: A Time for Leadership and Action............ 45
What It Will Take............................................ 46
Liberal Education and America’s Promise ........................... 50
APPENDIX A: A Guide to Effective Educational Practices ......... 53
APPENDIX B: A Note on Commercial Colleges .................... 55
NOTES .............................................................. 57