Think again

Third-level institutions take a narrow and out-dated view of education, according to Dr Arthur Chickering, one of the foremost American thinkers and writers on the subject of student development in higher education. The author of the seminal work, Education and Identity, Chickering argues that higher education institutions concentrate on developing the intellect but ignore other vital lifeskills to the detriment of both the student and society.

However, if colleges are to address this issue successfully, huge changes in institutional structures are required. Some change is taking place but where it occurs it is inadequate, asserts Chickering, who is visiting distinguished professor at Vermont College, Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.

In recent years, employers have been making known the qualities they require in their workforces. They say that they need people with a wide range of abilities including good listening and oral communication skills, team work, flexibility, problem solving and critical analysis. However, says Chickering, in taking employer requirements on board, colleges are simply moving from one narrow focus to another. Meanwhile, life-enhancing skills, including the ability to manage emotions and develop integrity are totally ignored.

"I'm not saying that preparation for a job is irrelevant, but I am saying it's insufficient," he says. "It doesn't enable people to live satisfying lives or make contributions to society. Higher education has to mean something more than simply preparing for a job or cultivating the intellect." Students need to be educated to play a valuable role in civic society.

In the traditional university, research is the focus of academic life. Knowledge is pursued for its own sake and is organised according to discipline. Peer review and peer leadership are the norms. Increasingly, though, this collegial culture is under attack from a managerial culture which stresses the values of the corporate sector, including accountability, efficiency, productivity, technical leadership and customer orientation.

Neither culture provides an ideal blueprint for the future, Chickering believes. If the higher education sector is serious about its committment to student development, institutions should adopt a collaborative approach in which learning rather than research is the central activity.

A focus on student and community needs, institution building and collaboration is required. Colleges should abandon traditional and unquestioned teaching and learning conventions and seek new methods which really work. Instead of regarding themselves as a world apart, they should become actively engaged in public life and democratic participation.

In an environment which focuses on learning rather than teaching, criteria for success include the quality of the exiting (as opposed to the incoming students), learning and student success outcomes (as opposed to inputs and resources) and the quantity and quality of those outcomes (as opposed to the quantity and quality of resources).

The importance of experiential learning is stressed by Chickering. "The best way to maximise student learning is to integrate extra-curricular activities with the regular curriculum," he says. "The activities of college societies should be linked to college courses. Language, film, drama and music societies provide powerful vehicles for improving multicultural understanding, while participation in the students' union provides an experiential context for students of political science."

Similarly, societies based on ethnicity can collaborate with language and cultural studies' departments. This kind of integration is necessary but calls for systematic collaboration between student services, faculty and student clubs and societies. "Collaborative planning can strengthen the value for students of educational outcomes."

However, there are obstacles to this type of collaboration, admits Chickering, who was in Dublin recently to give the first lecture in the National College of Industrial Relations' 1998 lecture series. Within colleges, he says, the academic faculties and student services are two separate domains. The structures have separate hierarchical and reporting structures. Collaborative possibilities are minimal.

Faculties, meanwhile, are oriented towards lectures, exams and solitary learning rather than experiential learning. Student services on the other hand, emphasise the service aspect of their work. They rarely assess educational outcomes or evaluate programmes. In the United States at least, Chickering says, student services' reports are almost entirely concerned with headcounts.

Student services departments, says Chickering, need to rethink their roles. "Our first task is to think of ourselves more as educators rather than simply service providers. This calls for a shift in our thinking about our professional roles and the reconfiguration of relationships between the faculty, the administration and the students. If we do that we will improve our contributions to student development."