Originally published on October 21, 2019
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SOFT SKILLS—WE HAVE HEARD IT BEFORE
With cooler weather across much of the nation, opinions
about higher education are heating up again as students return to our colleges
and universities. Campuses continue to wrestle with free speech and how to
create welcoming and inclusive environments for all students while fighting the
perception of leftist professors indoctrinating impressionable young minds. It
is perhaps time that we answer a more practical question lest we lose sight of
why colleges should still exist in the 21st century: What do business and
industry as the primary recipients of college graduates want from colleges and
universities?
For years, we have seen survey after survey that employers
are looking for candidates with soft skills, or, what a recent survey called
“uniquely human skills.”[1] One such
survey is the 2013 Hart Research Associates survey of employers, which explains
in great detail what employers want: Over 90% of employers who participated in
the survey indicated that critical thinking, clear communication, and complex
problem-solving skills are more important than a specific major. 80% of
employers want candidates to have broad knowledge in the sciences and the
liberal arts. And they are looking for candidates with “ethical judgment and
integrity; intercultural skills; and the capacity for continued learning.”
Soft skills alone aren’t enough, however. While the specific
undergraduate major may not matter as much, employers still want to see that
students can apply the skills they acquired. Specifically, practices that
employers want students to experience include “a) conduct research and use
evidence-based analysis; b) gain in-depth knowledge in the major and analytic,
problem solving, and communication skills; and c) apply their learning in
real-world settings.”[2]
There is no disagreement about the importance of these
skills and habits. Colleges and universities list them in one form or another
as learning or development outcomes on their websites, and spend time, in
particular during accreditation, to demonstrate that students achieved those.
Yet, despite these significant efforts, employers struggle to find graduates
with these skills. It is not difficult to see why: Far too few students are
exposed to these practices. Most undergraduate students go through college
without ever having done a substantive open-ended project that is critical to
developing the “uniquely human skills.”
EXPANDING COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND
ACADEMIA
With the rapid transition to a new economy driven by
automation and A.I., the private sector will be looking even more for employees
with “uniquely human skills.” We believe that expanding collaboration between
academia and the private sector could deliver such employees, and reshape what,
and likely also how, we deliver postsecondary education. We may even end up
with relevant curricula that engage students and improve their success.
Many four-year institutions already work with industry, but
mostly on research projects. Instead, we are talking about opening the
classroom to industry partners. This can soften the transition between college
and the workplace. Students can learn from those who are already in the
workforce about what it is really like to work in the private sector. Highly
skilled industry employees can also alleviate gaps in expertise in academia, in
particular in rapidly growing areas where recruiting faculty is a challenge.
Curricular collaborations are already common practice in
community colleges where a number of large companies have been partnering for
years with community colleges to offer programs that meet their workforce
needs, in particular in high tech jobs that don’t require a four-year degree.
These partnerships give community college access to curricula and certificates
that prepare students for specific tasks they encounter in the workplace.
These kinds of public-private partnerships deserve a closer
look as to how they might be expanded to four-year institutions. This will be
more challenging since faculty in four-year institutions will be much more
hesitant to collaborate on curricula. They might be afraid that they are
relinquishing their prerogative of what happens in their classrooms to the
private sector.
Why? For many decades, there have been strong voices in
academia that have warned about taking money from industry as this might
compromise academia’s ability to create “reliable public knowledge,”[3]
untainted by special interest groups. Having this reputation is of immense
long-term value in a democratic society where the public needs to be able to
trust experts whose opinions influence decision-makers. It will therefore be
important for academia and the private sector to spend some time listening to and
learning from each other to build trust for effective collaborations and
overcome their cultural differences.
FOCUSING ON TODAY’S NEEDS TO BUILD TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE
The cultural differences between academia and the private
sector can slow much needed change. Yet without a deeper involvement of the
private sector in higher education, employers may continue to see candidates
lacking the “uniquely human skills.” There is an added advantage of deeper
ties, namely this would give the private sector access to students who they may
want to recruit. Here are some concrete suggestions.
Bring industry into the classroom: Building the skills
employers want can be done in a formal classroom setting. Over the past couple
of decades, problem-based learning and other forms of active classroom learning
have spread across institutions, in particular in the physical and life
sciences. These approaches not only increase student learning, but they also
provide opportunities to work on more complex problems in teams and to
communicate results in written or oral form. There are opportunities for the private
sector to bring problems to the classroom to expose a large number of students
not only to the types of problems the private sector faces but also to ways the
private sector approaches solving them.
Have students interact with industry more outside of the
classroom: Co-curricular activities also would hugely benefit from involving
business and industry a lot more. Co-curricular activities are academic
experiences that complement formal classroom learning. Students don’t get
credits for these activities, but they build valuable skills. Externships and
internships are examples of co-curricular activities that have helped
traditionally to expose college students to the workplace by embedding them in
the workplace for periods of time. Undergraduate research is another example of
a co-curricular activity that has spread substantially in higher education over
the past twenty years. While undergraduate research is often thought of as a
pathway to graduate education, students could be integrated into research
projects that are jointly done by a faculty member in academia and a private
sector partner. Larger companies also often have community outreach programs
where participation of undergraduate students could not only benefit the
outreach program but also allow students to meet employees outside of work and
see a more human face of the private sector.
Enable life-long learning: Becoming a life-long learner is
the reality of today’s fast-paced economy. Right now, there are enormous needs
to upskill the current workforce in data science. Tomorrow it might be some
other area. Continual upskilling of the workforce requires more flexibility
beyond what colleges and universities offer through traditional degree
programs. Students who are already in the workforce often juggle a job and
family on top of taking courses. They may not want a full degree but rather focused
certificates. They need courses in the evenings and on weekends in addition to
online courses. And universities should consider delivering education at the
workplace instead of asking employees to leave their workplace early and try to
find parking on campus. These students also want hands-on experiences, ideally
in projects that are directly related to their day job and can be done at their
workplace to provide immediate benefit to their employer who might then be more
willing to provide financial support to employees for their education.
Society might swallow the high cost of education more easily
if they had more confidence that the degree or certificate would deliver skills
that the private sector values, both for those where a college education is a
path to the first job to launch their careers and for those who are already in
the workforce and need to upskill and expand their capabilities. Involving
business and industry in shaping college experiences could do just that. And,
who knows, leveraging the private sector may significantly reduce the cost of
education and provide the US with a more highly skilled workforce.
[1] New Survey: Demand for “Uniquely Human Skills” Increases
Even as Technology and Automation Replace Some Jobs. News Provided by Cengage.
January 16, 2019.
(https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-survey-demand-for-uniquely-human-skills-increases-even-as-technology-and-automation-replace-some-jobs-300779214.html;
accessed on September 16, 2019)
[2] Ibid.
[3] Academic Freedom and the Corporate University. American
Association of University Professors. January-February 2011.
(https://www.aaup.org/article/academic-freedom-and-corporate-university;
accessed on September 22, 2019)