From the dean – Page 3 – ACC LAHC Administration

CC BS: the sound and the fury

An important public announcement for followers of the Dean’s Blog

You know how we have a Surgeon General whose job it is to ensure that members of the public are informed about practices that are either conducive or detrimental to good physical health? Well, I’ve realized this morning, reading Inside Higher Ed that we need an analogous role for our intellectual health. As in, the front half of mens sana in corpore sano.

Finding no suitable candidates available nearby, I have named myself Philosopher General. I will periodically issue guidelines and warnings that will help you safeguard your intellectual health. Like this:

Philosopher General’s Warning: Reading this post has been shown to cause reflection in test subjects.

Marketable Skills in the Liberal Arts

Or: The deadly sins of marketable skills

You probably know that the state of Texas expects institutions of higher education to define and assess the marketable skills that students can reasonably expect to acquire in a course of study. In many programs, this is a no-brainer. There are, for instance, a fairly specific list of skills that an RN or surveyor should have on graduation that would make him or her “marketable.” This exhortation from the state is pretty vacuous when it comes to technical skills, mainly because we’re doing that anyway.

Technical skills aren’t the challenge; the challenge is what to do about so-called “soft skills.” I detest this term: If those skills were so soft, more people would have them in abundance, employers wouldn’t have to keep asking for them, and higher ed leaders wouldn’t be wringing their hands trying to figure out how to “teach” them. Just about everyone needs skills like how to communicate clearly, how to cooperate with colleagues, how to set logical priorities, etc. The challenge is to determine what those skills are and how to inculcate them in our students.

Each discipline has its special challenges here, but my focus is marketable skills in the liberal arts. You don’t have to take my word for this — after all, my degrees are in things like music, history, and philosophy. Employers themselves are telling us that they value liberal arts students as employees. And moreover, there is growing evidence to support the claim that the study of the liberal arts prepares people for career progression and growth in ways that narrower technical specialization doesn’t. But. . . .

In our zeal to help our students prepare for the future (and to satisfy the state), there are two main things that frequently go wrong.

Spark some joy

I was in Miami last week for an Adobe conference. This is my “take-away,” as they say in the conference biz.

I’m not prone to idle praise or superlatives, but even I have to say that this conference was fantastic. It confirmed a trajectory that I’ve already been on for years: You shouldn’t have to give up a traditionalist’s commitment to scholarship to achieve digital fluency. In the past, this wasn’t easily achievable: the tools and technologies were so cumbersome that you had to take time out of your commitment to scholarship to get good enough to do anything anyone might care about. Not so today.

Cheating: another pathway to success

If you’re expecting the usual lamentations about student behavior, you may be disappointed. Instead of disparaging “students today,” etc., etc., I invite you to join me in third grade.

My teacher was Mrs. Wooley. I’m not making this up: her name actually was Mrs. Wooley, which I viewed as a gift from the gods of comedy. When I found out a couple of weeks before school started, I longed for the moment that some classmate would complain about her, so I could say, “Yep. She’s a woolly booger.”

In fairness, Mrs. Wooley was a great teacher: She told us the truth when we didn’t know what we were doing, and she was not especially kind, but she was committed to doing whatever it took to equip us to meet her expectations. And that commitment included keeping me in relative solitary confinement, in my own desk at the front of the room, right next to hers.

Also, Mrs. Wooley gave a lot of quizzes.

HILTL HB2223: Mandate too

This is the third and final installment of “How I learned to love HB2223.” You can think of the series as a sandwich: data between two mandates.

And speaking of money, let’s turn to reimbursement. You probably know that, for each course enrollment, ACC is entitled to a reimbursement from the state — but there are conditions. In academic transfer areas, for instance, courses are not eligible for reimbursement unless we play by the state’s rules. If you look up your favorite course in the Academic Course Guide Manual, you’ll find an entry that looks like this:

HILTL HB2223: Talk data to me

In the first installment of “How I learned to love HB2223,” I talked about finding love through contextualized learning, which led me to propose a couple of ideas for pairing that might seem, well, nuts. That led to an observation: There are a lot of questions about CoReq-ing, some of which even involve data.

Consider this little data snapshot from last year, courtesy of Sam Echevarria-Cruz:

How I learned to love HB2223

As one of our development day events last week, we held a session concerning CoReq-ing (including a delightful and informative presentation by Dr. Sonya Armstrong), so I thought I’d take a moment to share a few thoughts about my relationship to HB 2223.

First, I must ask you to resist the temptation to write “co-wrecking,” even though that is the pronunciation. In fact, for reasons I will explain, I think — however we got here — CoReq-ing is good for student success. But before we get to that, what’s HB 2223 all about?

Welcome to Spring, 2019!

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed a pleasant winter break and that you’ve returned rejuvenated and revved up for another semester!

I’d like to take a moment to offer a few reminders and outline my priorities for the spring. Let’s start with nudges.

Check your rosters! If students turn up in your classroom who are not on the roster, please refer them to an appropriate office to make things official. We have new Registration Liaisons at each campus to help!
Submit your Attendance Certification by the deadline. (And remember that Attendance Certification is a per student function, not per class. Students who add your class after you submit Attendance Certification won’t automatically be certified.)

There’s a lot going on in our division. Here are our priorities for this Spring:

IntFest2019, Friday, March 29
Vision+Voice
Badging project, including these pilots
- Critical thinking component skills
- “Soft” Skills in LA
- Leadership Skills
LAHC Internships (Anne-Marie)
English Proficiency assessment (ESOL partnering with ABE and CE)
Liberal Arts Institute 2.0 (with Sam and LASMS)
LA Co-Req Oversight workgroup
Honors
Enrollment Management Self-study (one part of which is our Gateway Courses study)
Dual Credit initiatives (including new dual credit coordinators for English!)

If one of these projects sounds exciting, be in touch — there’s plenty to keep us busy. I’m looking forward to working with you in pursuit of our mission.

I’m looking forward to Spring semester, including a bit of teaching. I’m teaching the second iteration of Logic for Game Design course.

Have a great semester!

Building (Honors) Bridges

This fall, we’re piloting a new-ish type of course: the Honors Bridge.

When I became dean of LAHC, one of the programs in my portfolio is the Honors Program. I spent a good bit of time last year in conversation with colleagues, both here and in other institutions, thinking about Honors. I was very lucky to have a spirited group of faculty in the ad hoc Honors Workgroup, and they helped formulate a new direction for Honors, building on the great work of the past.

One of our major concerns is access — which is another way of saying that we were concerned about the inclusiveness of the program. I have often pointed out that decisions on the “front-end” of a decision-process often have unintended but destructive effects on the implementation end. I think that’s a good way to look at Honors programs.

LAHC Convocation resources

Thanks to everyone who attended our LAHC Convocation last week! And I’d like to offer special thanks to those who presented. I’d like to make some resources available to you concerning these topics.

Co-Requisite Courses: Ann Palmer, Frank Cronin
- slides
Faculty Development: Christina Michura
Faculty Mentor Program: Grant Potts
Philosophy Forum: Grant Potts
Humanities-Great Questions: Kerri Pope
Student Support: Mark Butland
Honors: Stacey Stover
Equity: Terry Barksdale
- Video: Beyond Diversity
- ACC’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, Stephanie Hawley
- LAHC Equity Initiative: Katie Lessley

If you’d like to know more, you may contact presenters and view the materials they have provided us. If you have a question or comment for me, email me directly or click on Ask Matthew.