What Do Institutions of Higher Education Need to Learn?

by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jul 12, 2010 | Monday Morning Quarterback

Over the last few years, as the economy went into the tank, our public discussions about the future of higher education have increasingly been about budget cuts, rising tuition, and the need for accountability. A central talking point in these discussion has been the need to implement outcomes-based measurement.

This new emphasis has changed the way we plan programs and services in higher education. At many schools, everything must be matched to an outcome, and every outcome must be assessed in some way. Institutions then use this data to drive decisions about funding and priorities, and to justify their programs and services to state legislatures, donors, accreditation bodies, incoming students, their parents, alumni and an ever-growing number of watchdog groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

So, like it or not, we live in interesting times. This can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, and it’s my opinion that we need to find the blessing in this situation, and to be thankful for the opportunity today’s political and financial environment provides. Change isn’t easy, and in our personal and professional lives, we all have periods of doubt. There are healthy and productive ways of dealing with this reality. Wanting things to stay the same is not one of them.

As a career coach, I help individuals work through these issues, by discovering their purpose, and finding ways to align that purpose with their work. This involves discussions about a person’s background and professional history, but more importantly, it requires exploration and discovery. The process that gets people unstuck is co-creative. Coaches ask the “big questions” and give activities that help clients explore them. We challenge assumptions, conclusions and doubts. We work through blocks. We help people explore new interests, research them, and focus on creating new, more positive patterns of behavior. We try to integrate the important parts of a person (talents, skills, abilities, interests and values) into each individual’s plan to move forward, and to help clients set S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Limited) goals.

The best part of being a coach is that for the most part, clients come to you when they are ready to change. The discussions and activities are geared toward helping the client define, in real and measurable terms, what success means, and how they will know when they achieve it.

But lately, I’ve been wondering if higher education, as a field, is really ready to be coached. Furthermore, I’m not quite sure who should be coaching. I don’t think the state legislatures should be doing it, because they aren’t  looking at the big picture, only at the cost of doing business, and who should be paying it. And politicians are more worried about re-election (their S.M.A.R.T. goal) and what institutions shouldn’t be teaching, than how they should be teaching. Watchdog groups like FIRE are often most passionate about the what than the how, and many times, their approach shuts down discussion, or erodes into a chaotic and mind-numbing clash of talking points or a game to be won, rather than a co-creative, purposeful process of discovery.

Here are three resources that really got me thinking about these issues.

• Improving Legislative Oversight of College Costs (Powerpoint Presentation from the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability.)
• Digital Students, Industrial Universities by Arthur Levine on Inside Higher Ed.
• Digital Students: Toys vs. Tools (A brief response to the article mentioned above, and thoughts on how it relates to adult learners, by Jeannette Passmore on her blog Learn, Unlearn, Relearn.)

I’d like to start a dialogue on this topic. Please share your thoughts and questions by commenting on this post. Take whatever direction you like, but here are some questions to get you started:

• What’s the purpose of higher education these days? Has it changed from in  the past?
• What do institutions of higher education need to learn?
• Is higher education, as a field, ready for change? (And if so, is higher education “coachable?”)
• What learning outcomes do you think are most important?
• What S.M.A.R.T. goals should the field set for measuring improvement?
• Where should higher ed look for coaching on these goals? The legislature? The federal government? Professional associations? Somewhere else?

And if you have perspectives you’d like to share on these topics, in an upcoming guest post on Monday Morning QuarterBack, send me a message at sean@higheredcareercoach.com. I would ideally like to have guest posts on this topic each Monday for the next 2-3 weeks.