The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting new interactive feature: why campus traditions matter. I don’t remember any traditions quite like these at the two institutions I attended as a student, or at the two institutions of which I was an employee prior to coming to SJSU. Perhaps I’ll learn about some that exist here!
undergraduate students
Inside Higher Ed is reporting that the California State University System has signed an agreement with a private company to make electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) available to its students and graduates. San Jose State is part of the CSU system, so I’ll have to keep an eye on this partnership as it rolls out. Any tool that helps students better highlight their accomplishments is something that we should encourage!
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, sociologist Patricia Leavy argues, “let’s give student researchers the credit they deserve.” She notes,
Just as college students often serve as research samples because they are convenient populations for academic researchers, so too do students routinely serve as research assistants and co-authors. Credit and compensation is typically attributed to student collaborators based on individual negotiations with faculty mentors. In other words, whether the student is listed as a research assistant or a co-author, whether the student is listed as the lead author or a secondary author, or how the student’s contribution is both defined and monetarily compensated (especially with a work such as a book) is based on whatever arrangement the student strikes with the researcher (who is usually the student’s professor)…
Credit and compensation should be based on the level of collaboration and how much each collaborator has contributed to the final product; it should not be based on career level. It really is that simple.
Indeed!
Last summer I posted an article about a short presentation I developed for first year students about the “keys to academic success.” This week I used the guide for the first time at SJSU, but revised it. Here is the new structure of advice to students:
- Study Smarter: How you study changes; it’s all about quality, not quantity.
- Time Management: There is a seismic shift from having a schedule planned for you to making your own schedule. Consider The Three T system:
- Triage: Determine priority of tasks
- Track: System for getting things done [a to-do list process; a great resource is rememberthemilk.com and its apps]
- Trace: Establish good habits and patterns
- Navigation 1: General Networking. University is a bureaucracy, but there is navigation assistance. Talk with classmates. Talk with resident advisors. Use campus services, like the college advising centers.
- Navigation 2: Professors. Learn how to decipher professors’ demands, and then select the best strategies to meet them. This is about studying smarter (point 1) and also being proactive: go talk to professors!
I also encourage students to read the book College Rules! How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College [Sherrie Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, authors. Ten Speed Press, 3rd edition.] I begin to wrap up the presentation by reading the last paragraph in College Rules!:
“While in college, think about gaining the following skills – thinking critically, writing persuasively, problem solving effectively, and speaking convincingly. If you can develop these competencies over the next four (or five) years, you are ready to learn for a lifetime. These are also likely the skills that will help you land (and keep) your dream job.”
I then conclude by telling the students: “college is serious business, but enjoy it too. Have fun!”
This week the news has been filed with reports about Ahmed Mohamed, a high school student arrested when his teacher mistook his home-made clock for a bomb. Social media has been ablaze with the #IStandWithAhmed hashtag. Today the college student who started the hashtag is profiled in a USA Today article. She argues that the response to the hashtag shows the power of social media to give voice to the voiceless. Let’s hope that this will contribute to lasting social change to reduce the racism and Islamaphobia that the arrest illustrate.
Today I came across an example of how a Twitter post led to action, as Netflix changed its description of the movie Pochontas after a critical tweet. The author of the tweet concludes the article by noting, “sometimes I’m still amazed by the power of the internet.” Indeed!
One of the tasks those of us working in the social sciences and humanities have these days is assuring students that they can get good jobs with degrees in liberal arts fields. It’s heartening to see more opinion pieces popping up that support that effort. Recently, for instance, I came across three examples:
- In a Financial Times column the economist John Kay wrote about how a liberal education is now more useful than job-specific skills. He notes, “those who argue that more resources should be devoted to teaching STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) have a point, but not the point they generally make…It is a mistake to focus basic education on job-specific skills that a changing world will render redundant in a few years. The objective should be to equip students to enjoy rewarding employment and fulfilling lives in a future environment whose demands we can neither anticipate nor predict.”
- The Washington Post published an article noting that tech companies are hiring more liberal-arts majors than you think. Brian Fung reports that “liberal arts graduates joined the ranks of tech companies at a faster clip in the past few years than their engineering and computer-science counterparts, according to an analysis by LinkedIn of its own users. And of the recent liberal arts grads the company examined, as many as 2 in 5 now work at an Internet or software company.”
- In the article “The Future of Work: Preparing Students for a Changing World of Work,” University of Maryland-Baltimore County President Freeman A. Hrabowski III discussed the skills developed in studying liberal arts fields: “As employers now routinely ask for T-shaped employees–those with deep technical knowledge and broad business and people skills–postsecondary institutions must now provide students with knowledge in their fields and encourage them to develop a strong work ethic and persistence; an appreciation of the larger contexts of their work; and the ability to work in groups and to market their ideas.”
Let’s hope that these types of articles continue to appear!
I recently learned about the Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge (SVIC), an event that promotes creativity and entrepreneurship from San José State University students, alumni, faculty, and staff. The SVIC provides an opportunity for students to network with prospective employers, and they can win cash prizes for their entrepreneurial ideas. I am particularly interested in the social innovation category of the SVIC, so I will definitely attend to learn new ideas about processes and products that can improve the common good. For more information about the SVIC, visit its webpage!
Yesterday was the first day of fall semester classes here at San José State University. Seeing tons of students on campus was very strange, as the last time I was a member of an institution that started fall classes in August instead of September was 20 years ago while I was a graduate student at Indiana University. This week also felt weird because it was the first time since the early years on the faculty at the University of Minnesota where I was not involved in some sort of student orientation activity. In my two years at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside I participated in first week orientation activities, and after getting tenure at the University of Minnesota I did a lot of work with their Welcome Week activities. Going to the U of M New Student Convocation was a highlight of the year.
Here at SJSU my Associate Dean led a college-specific orientation session for transfer students. I’ll have to join her next year, as well as explore ways in which I can get involved in other SJSU orientation activities. I may also have to advocate for new activities. For example, SJSU does not have an orientation convocation that serves as an official welcome to the university, where new students are provided with an introduction to university history and traditions (like school songs, taught by the marching band after they enter in full uniform!), and hear from the president and students (such as an epic inspirational speech by a Georgia Tech student.) We’ve got to make that happen here!
Summer is orientation season in higher education, as new students attend one-day or two-day sessions to prepare them for enrolling in classes in late August or early September. I was asked to be the presenter for an event called “Your Academic Success,” and delivered it this morning. Usually the presenter goes through a 20-minute PowerPoint that’s jam-packed with information about what it takes to do well as a college student. I figured that students (and a few parents who also attended) would not remember all of that stuff, so I discussed three broad-based elements:
- Study Smarter. According to College Rules! How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College, “studying smarter means knowing and using the most appropriate strategies for each particular learning situation. It means having a pocketful of approaches that you can use depending on the course you are taking, the kind of test you are studying for, and how you learn best. Studying smarter means being flexible.” Indeed!
- Effective Time Management. A huge adjustment for students is the move from heavily scheduled lives with lots of reminders from parents and teachers to an environment when they have a lot of freedom and increased personal responsibility with few external checks. I shared my time management system, “the three Ts”: triage (prioritize potential tasks and requests into “do now,” “ignore,” or “do later”), track (have a to-do list to manage the triaged tasks; I use Remember the Milk), and trace (have established pathways that you do automatically, like checking email right after breakfast).
- Follow Your Passions. I encouraged students to take classes just because they sound interesting, and to be open to choosing majors even if they don’t have explicit job connections. For the parents in the room I read some examples of careers recent alumni landed with social science majors, stressing that everyone does not have to major in a business or STEM field. One of the parents thanked me for this afterwards, noting that she and her husband both have graduate degrees in History and have well-paying jobs thanks to their well-rounded liberal arts backgrounds.
If you know a new college student please pass this post on to them, and also pass on my best wishes for a great first year!
In my first year as a dean I did not teach any classes, as I had too many administrative responsibilities. When asked if I missed classroom teaching, I reply that I don’t, as I’m still able to have many interactions with students. Yesterday and today, for instance, I had interesting and productive meetings with three students.
Student A was a member of my student advisory board composed of representatives from all seven departments in my college. He recently graduated, but wanted to share ideas for creating a co-courricular program for helping students improve the so-called soft skills, which Wikipedia defines as “the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with other people. Soft skills complement hard skills which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities.” We discussed ideas such as a workshop to teach students how to shake hands and make eye contact, and how to compose email that wouldn’t cause prospective employers to roll their eyes. Part of me thinks that I should have found a way to have one of Student A’s grades turned to an F so that he could not graduate and then serve on the advisory board again next year :).
Student B would be in the target audience for Student A’s ideas. A first year student, Student A stood me up for an on-campus lunch yesterday. When I emailed him to see what happened, he blamed me for not telling him where we’d meet. (15 minutes after the scheduled meeting time I saw him enter the building near the one lunch spot that’s open during the summer.) When we met today we discussed how he should have handled that situation differently. I need to say something next time about his limp handshake, however.
Student C is a recent graduate who after participating in the spring commencement discovered that he is actually one credit short of officially receiving his diploma (!). I volunteered to conduct a 1-credit independent study class with him, and we met yesterday to discuss options. A criminal justice major, he settled on a project where he’d watch season 1 of the TV show The Wire, we’d meet a couple of times to discuss it and research articles about the show, and then he’d write a paper imagining what the show would be like if set in Kenosha today in 2014. I recently finished watching season 1 myself, so I’m looking forward to the discussions!
Interacting with students in innovative ways is one of the highlights of being a college dean. In an ideal world, most students would be like Student A: motivated, active in student groups, and earning good grades. In today’s world, however, students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities, so college faculty, staff, and administration have to be flexible in how we work with students to help them become successful in and out of the classroom. I look forward to more creative engagement with students in my second year as a dean!
Inside Higher Ed is reporting that the California State University System has signed an agreement with a private company to make electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) available to its students and graduates. San Jose State is part of the CSU system, so I’ll have to keep an eye on this partnership as it rolls out. Any tool that helps students better highlight their accomplishments is something that we should encourage!
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, sociologist Patricia Leavy argues, “let’s give student researchers the credit they deserve.” She notes,
Just as college students often serve as research samples because they are convenient populations for academic researchers, so too do students routinely serve as research assistants and co-authors. Credit and compensation is typically attributed to student collaborators based on individual negotiations with faculty mentors. In other words, whether the student is listed as a research assistant or a co-author, whether the student is listed as the lead author or a secondary author, or how the student’s contribution is both defined and monetarily compensated (especially with a work such as a book) is based on whatever arrangement the student strikes with the researcher (who is usually the student’s professor)…
Credit and compensation should be based on the level of collaboration and how much each collaborator has contributed to the final product; it should not be based on career level. It really is that simple.
Indeed!
Last summer I posted an article about a short presentation I developed for first year students about the “keys to academic success.” This week I used the guide for the first time at SJSU, but revised it. Here is the new structure of advice to students:
- Study Smarter: How you study changes; it’s all about quality, not quantity.
- Time Management: There is a seismic shift from having a schedule planned for you to making your own schedule. Consider The Three T system:
- Triage: Determine priority of tasks
- Track: System for getting things done [a to-do list process; a great resource is rememberthemilk.com and its apps]
- Trace: Establish good habits and patterns
- Navigation 1: General Networking. University is a bureaucracy, but there is navigation assistance. Talk with classmates. Talk with resident advisors. Use campus services, like the college advising centers.
- Navigation 2: Professors. Learn how to decipher professors’ demands, and then select the best strategies to meet them. This is about studying smarter (point 1) and also being proactive: go talk to professors!
I also encourage students to read the book College Rules! How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College [Sherrie Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, authors. Ten Speed Press, 3rd edition.] I begin to wrap up the presentation by reading the last paragraph in College Rules!:
“While in college, think about gaining the following skills – thinking critically, writing persuasively, problem solving effectively, and speaking convincingly. If you can develop these competencies over the next four (or five) years, you are ready to learn for a lifetime. These are also likely the skills that will help you land (and keep) your dream job.”
I then conclude by telling the students: “college is serious business, but enjoy it too. Have fun!”
This week the news has been filed with reports about Ahmed Mohamed, a high school student arrested when his teacher mistook his home-made clock for a bomb. Social media has been ablaze with the #IStandWithAhmed hashtag. Today the college student who started the hashtag is profiled in a USA Today article. She argues that the response to the hashtag shows the power of social media to give voice to the voiceless. Let’s hope that this will contribute to lasting social change to reduce the racism and Islamaphobia that the arrest illustrate.
Today I came across an example of how a Twitter post led to action, as Netflix changed its description of the movie Pochontas after a critical tweet. The author of the tweet concludes the article by noting, “sometimes I’m still amazed by the power of the internet.” Indeed!
One of the tasks those of us working in the social sciences and humanities have these days is assuring students that they can get good jobs with degrees in liberal arts fields. It’s heartening to see more opinion pieces popping up that support that effort. Recently, for instance, I came across three examples:
- In a Financial Times column the economist John Kay wrote about how a liberal education is now more useful than job-specific skills. He notes, “those who argue that more resources should be devoted to teaching STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) have a point, but not the point they generally make…It is a mistake to focus basic education on job-specific skills that a changing world will render redundant in a few years. The objective should be to equip students to enjoy rewarding employment and fulfilling lives in a future environment whose demands we can neither anticipate nor predict.”
- The Washington Post published an article noting that tech companies are hiring more liberal-arts majors than you think. Brian Fung reports that “liberal arts graduates joined the ranks of tech companies at a faster clip in the past few years than their engineering and computer-science counterparts, according to an analysis by LinkedIn of its own users. And of the recent liberal arts grads the company examined, as many as 2 in 5 now work at an Internet or software company.”
- In the article “The Future of Work: Preparing Students for a Changing World of Work,” University of Maryland-Baltimore County President Freeman A. Hrabowski III discussed the skills developed in studying liberal arts fields: “As employers now routinely ask for T-shaped employees–those with deep technical knowledge and broad business and people skills–postsecondary institutions must now provide students with knowledge in their fields and encourage them to develop a strong work ethic and persistence; an appreciation of the larger contexts of their work; and the ability to work in groups and to market their ideas.”
Let’s hope that these types of articles continue to appear!
I recently learned about the Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge (SVIC), an event that promotes creativity and entrepreneurship from San José State University students, alumni, faculty, and staff. The SVIC provides an opportunity for students to network with prospective employers, and they can win cash prizes for their entrepreneurial ideas. I am particularly interested in the social innovation category of the SVIC, so I will definitely attend to learn new ideas about processes and products that can improve the common good. For more information about the SVIC, visit its webpage!
Yesterday was the first day of fall semester classes here at San José State University. Seeing tons of students on campus was very strange, as the last time I was a member of an institution that started fall classes in August instead of September was 20 years ago while I was a graduate student at Indiana University. This week also felt weird because it was the first time since the early years on the faculty at the University of Minnesota where I was not involved in some sort of student orientation activity. In my two years at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside I participated in first week orientation activities, and after getting tenure at the University of Minnesota I did a lot of work with their Welcome Week activities. Going to the U of M New Student Convocation was a highlight of the year.
Here at SJSU my Associate Dean led a college-specific orientation session for transfer students. I’ll have to join her next year, as well as explore ways in which I can get involved in other SJSU orientation activities. I may also have to advocate for new activities. For example, SJSU does not have an orientation convocation that serves as an official welcome to the university, where new students are provided with an introduction to university history and traditions (like school songs, taught by the marching band after they enter in full uniform!), and hear from the president and students (such as an epic inspirational speech by a Georgia Tech student.) We’ve got to make that happen here!
Summer is orientation season in higher education, as new students attend one-day or two-day sessions to prepare them for enrolling in classes in late August or early September. I was asked to be the presenter for an event called “Your Academic Success,” and delivered it this morning. Usually the presenter goes through a 20-minute PowerPoint that’s jam-packed with information about what it takes to do well as a college student. I figured that students (and a few parents who also attended) would not remember all of that stuff, so I discussed three broad-based elements:
- Study Smarter. According to College Rules! How to Study, Survive, and Succeed in College, “studying smarter means knowing and using the most appropriate strategies for each particular learning situation. It means having a pocketful of approaches that you can use depending on the course you are taking, the kind of test you are studying for, and how you learn best. Studying smarter means being flexible.” Indeed!
- Effective Time Management. A huge adjustment for students is the move from heavily scheduled lives with lots of reminders from parents and teachers to an environment when they have a lot of freedom and increased personal responsibility with few external checks. I shared my time management system, “the three Ts”: triage (prioritize potential tasks and requests into “do now,” “ignore,” or “do later”), track (have a to-do list to manage the triaged tasks; I use Remember the Milk), and trace (have established pathways that you do automatically, like checking email right after breakfast).
- Follow Your Passions. I encouraged students to take classes just because they sound interesting, and to be open to choosing majors even if they don’t have explicit job connections. For the parents in the room I read some examples of careers recent alumni landed with social science majors, stressing that everyone does not have to major in a business or STEM field. One of the parents thanked me for this afterwards, noting that she and her husband both have graduate degrees in History and have well-paying jobs thanks to their well-rounded liberal arts backgrounds.
If you know a new college student please pass this post on to them, and also pass on my best wishes for a great first year!
In my first year as a dean I did not teach any classes, as I had too many administrative responsibilities. When asked if I missed classroom teaching, I reply that I don’t, as I’m still able to have many interactions with students. Yesterday and today, for instance, I had interesting and productive meetings with three students.
Student A was a member of my student advisory board composed of representatives from all seven departments in my college. He recently graduated, but wanted to share ideas for creating a co-courricular program for helping students improve the so-called soft skills, which Wikipedia defines as “the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with other people. Soft skills complement hard skills which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities.” We discussed ideas such as a workshop to teach students how to shake hands and make eye contact, and how to compose email that wouldn’t cause prospective employers to roll their eyes. Part of me thinks that I should have found a way to have one of Student A’s grades turned to an F so that he could not graduate and then serve on the advisory board again next year :).
Student B would be in the target audience for Student A’s ideas. A first year student, Student A stood me up for an on-campus lunch yesterday. When I emailed him to see what happened, he blamed me for not telling him where we’d meet. (15 minutes after the scheduled meeting time I saw him enter the building near the one lunch spot that’s open during the summer.) When we met today we discussed how he should have handled that situation differently. I need to say something next time about his limp handshake, however.
Student C is a recent graduate who after participating in the spring commencement discovered that he is actually one credit short of officially receiving his diploma (!). I volunteered to conduct a 1-credit independent study class with him, and we met yesterday to discuss options. A criminal justice major, he settled on a project where he’d watch season 1 of the TV show The Wire, we’d meet a couple of times to discuss it and research articles about the show, and then he’d write a paper imagining what the show would be like if set in Kenosha today in 2014. I recently finished watching season 1 myself, so I’m looking forward to the discussions!
Interacting with students in innovative ways is one of the highlights of being a college dean. In an ideal world, most students would be like Student A: motivated, active in student groups, and earning good grades. In today’s world, however, students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities, so college faculty, staff, and administration have to be flexible in how we work with students to help them become successful in and out of the classroom. I look forward to more creative engagement with students in my second year as a dean!