A report released on Jan. 10, 2007, by the Association of American Colleges and Universities calls on colleges and universities across the country to do a better job of preparing graduates to navigate our complex and volatile world.
    The report, “College Learning for the New Global Century,” calls on colleges to make significant changes to the curricula and teaching practices. It cites Wagner College as an institution that is putting a new set of principles of excellence into practice.
    The report was released by the National Leadership Council as part of a program called Liberal Education and America’s Promise, a 10-year initiative convened by AAC&U to bring together high-level business, education, labor, philanthropy and policy leaders to chart a way forward for higher education in the 21st century. The LEAP report identifies essential aims, learning outcomes and guiding principles for a 21st century college education and recommends concrete changes colleges can make to achieve those goals.
    According to “College Learning for the New Global Century,” our nation’s colleges and universities need to do a better job of giving all students both broad knowledge of science, culture and society, and the specific skills they need to succeed in their chosen fields. Students need much more cross-disciplinary knowledge, better training in communications, teamwork and analytic reasoning, and more practice applying what they learn to real-world settings than they are getting today.
    Specifically, Wagner College is featured in “College Learning for the New Global Century” for the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts, an innovative curriculum that combines the traditional liberal arts with experiential learning.
    “College Learning for the New Global Century” identifies a series of effective educational practices that colleges and universities should adopt and provide to far more students than currently have access to them. They include:

  • First-year seminars and experiences;
  • Common intellectual experiences;
  • Learning communities;
  • Writing-intensive courses;
  • Collaborative assignments and projects;
  • “Science as science is done”/undergraduate research;
  • Diversity/global learning;
  • Service learning, community-based learning;
  • Internships; and
  • Capstone courses and projects.

    With the capacity to innovate now the United States’ most significant competitive advantage, the high-level knowledge and skills traditionally associated with liberal education have become the new passport to economic opportunity. Too few college students develop the broad knowledge and versatile skills they need, however, because of the way colleges and universities currently organize their curriculum.
    The LEAP report contends that, whatever their field of study, all of today’s students need a liberal education that integrates knowledge, skills and practical applications. The traditional divisions of “liberal arts” and “professional” fields in higher education stand in the way of student’s and the nation’s long-term interests.
    “The quality of learning, not the possession of a diploma, will determine whether the next generation can keep our economy and our democracy strong,” said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider. “Wagner College is one of many institutions that are helping to lead the way in educating their students to not just work in, but to succeed in the global economy. They understand that we can no longer simply channel students into narrow tracks that prepare them only for their first job but not for tomorrow’s challenges. At Wagner, students are not just acquiring knowledge, they are learning how to apply what they are learning across disciplines and to real world issues. This is the kind of learning that will help them succeed in all aspects of work and life.”
    The LEAP Council also released two national polls that explore how well schools are preparing the future workforce, both conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. The poll of employers finds that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) say that too many of today’s graduates lack the skills to succeed in our global economy. By large numbers, employers call on colleges and universities to place more emphasis on helping students acquire broad knowledge, intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and the integration and application of learning. The poll of recent college graduates finds that 72 percent say the main objective for our nation’s colleges and universities should be to provide a balance of both a well-rounded education and knowledge/skills in a specific field.
    The poll also found that:

  • employers say teamwork, critical thinking/reasoning and oral/written communication are the most important skills they look for in new hires;
  • just 22 percent want colleges to provide students with only skills and knowledge in a specific field; and
  • 76 percent would recommend that a young person get a four-year college education that provides both broad knowledge in a variety of areas and in-depth knowledge in a specific major or field.

    The public opinion polls were conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in November and December of 2006. The poll of 305 executives at companies with at least 25 employees who report that 25 percent or more of their new hires hold at least a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percent. The poll of 510 people who graduated from a four-year college between 1997 and 2001 has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent.