Preparing Undergraduates for the 21st Century

I spent a lot of my time over the summer assembling data on faculty and students at Georgetown, in an effort to see how we’re doing. (I know, what a geek!)

I happened to encounter two statistics that I can’t get out of my head.

A recent study conducted by Peter Hart’s firm (www.aacu.org/leap/public_opinion_research.cfm) asked employers what they most value in recent graduates whom they consider hiring. They rated various educational practices in universities which they thought would produce better new employees for their organization. The practice that the highest percentage of respondents rated as “will help a lot” or “will help a fair amount” is the skill to research questions in their field and develop evidence-based analyses. They want young employees to whom they can deliver a question that requires original assembly of facts and observations, synthesis of those facts, and construction of alternative answers, preferably with proposed actions based on the evidence.

The second statistic comes from a repeated survey of seniors that is conducted by the COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education). For several years, Georgetown seniors, along with those from a set of our peer institutions, have been asked “Thinking about your entire academic experience at Georgetown, how satisfied are you with each of the following?” One of the items is “Opportunities to participate in research with a faculty member.” The percentage of Georgetown seniors who report being “very satisfied” or “satisfied” is lower than any of our peers from 2000 to 2010, consistently. So, in their eyes, we have work to do.

Then I add one other observation that I have learned in my first year at Georgetown – our undergraduates are developing their own research conferences to talk about their original research (see post: Emergent Energy for Student Research). Many of them want to exercise skills in research problem definition, execution of original scholarship, and presentation of results.

Finally, my experience is that the vast majority of academic faculty have chosen their careers because of deep-seated and passionate interest in their fields. They chose the life of the mind because of their insatiable thirst for deeper and deeper understanding of an area. They seek every free moment to find new insights, new discoveries, and new conceptual frameworks for their domain. When they can integrate their research life with their teaching life, they can truly be fulfilled. Mounting modules of courses that engage students in their own research questions can achieve this integration.

The logic is simple:

1. Employers want employees who can self-start on answering questions through original evidence-based research.
2. Our seniors, looking back on their experiences, don’t think we’re doing as well on this as seniors in peer institutions do about their own universities.
3. Our students are thirsting for research experiences.
4. Faculty love teaching in their own research domains.

If we truly care about excellence in undergraduate education, we will put this logic into action. All undergraduates need repeated experiences with research in different disciplines – the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences – in order to assume the leadership positions we aspire them to take.

This fall, like last fall, I will visit every department and program in the main campus. I’d like to talk with faculty and students about how we can ensure that every Georgetown undergraduate has many experiences with original research.