Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 2, 1994 TAG: 9402250003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: J. WADE GILLEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Lost in the last recession were more than state revenues appropriated to public higher education. For the first time in the post-World War II era, it has been the professional and technical classes - college graduates - who have seen their jobs disappear in large numbers, perhaps forever.
As a university president I take - and make - opportunities to find out what is on the minds of students. I've been doing this for more than 25 years. Recently, I have been finding students deeply concerned about their life's work. What will it be? Will it be? Are there any real prospects for the future?
Students have moved from wondering whether they will achieve at the same level as their parents to asking whether they have any real prospects for long-term employment.
The current cohort of college students has come of age during the most unusual recession in America's history. It has been particularly tough on white-collar workers, who have seen their jobs disappear at greater rates than manufacturing jobs. Today, except for fields such as health care, computers and, in some states, teacher education, I find it hard to advise students as to specific fields that are sure to hold promises of long-term employment in the decades ahead.
When I graduated from Virginia Tech in 1961 with an engineering degree, engineers had a choice of jobs, anybody could get a teaching job, and all college graduates knew their future included a good job - better, in most cases, than their parents'. But the forces of technology and globalization driving the enormous changes now taking place around the world, including America, are diminishing prospects of long-term employment in one field with one company or organization.
Not only is the automobile industry making more cars with fewer people on the assembly lines, but there are fewer in the front office. Of the 600,000-plus jobs eliminated by IBM, AT&T, Xerox and others in the past year, the vast majority have been white-collar jobs. And the Clinton-Gore plan to re-engineer the federal government seeks to reduce the managerial and technical federal work-force, which once assured long-term employment with excellent benefits and a good retirement for millions.
Such changes, spread across industry and government, are sure to force colleges and universities to face fundamental questions about majors and curricula. The old issues of vocational vs. general education - or whether college is to prepare students for jobs or for life - are going to be elevated to an entirely new level. This time, it will be more than an academic discussion.
If we cannot assure aerospace engineers or MBAs or liberal-arts majors or teacher-education students - or many, many others, for that matter - that they will have an opportunity for long-term employment with a company, the government or others, what do we tell them about their education? What is its value? Is it going to be worth going into debt to obtain? How must higher education change to prepare graduates for an uncertain, changing future?
These questions are paramount, much more important than worrying about the impact of a 5 percent budget cut. They are the questions which will ultimately determine the shape and course of America's colleges and universities in the 21st century.
This much we know: Employment, or rather employability, in the 21st century will be shaped by technology, global competition, continuously changing job competitiveness, lack of guaranteed long-term employment and insufficient societal safety nets for the professional class. We also know that ultimately it is those in the professional class, managers and technicians, who will determine America's competitive advantage - or its disadvantage.
Thus, beyond our responsibility to individual students, colleges and universities are now a central institution of society, at society's core and not just another service agency of government. More and more, the weight of competitiveness will be placed on higher education. Are we prepared for this challenge?
I suspect that those colleges and universities which do the best job of preparing their graduates for the new technological, global economy will be the institutions most valued, the ones whose stocks will rise, the new leaders in education. And, yes, they will be the focal points of economic development, not unlike the land-grant colleges of the industrial economy.
So, how do we prepare graduates to function successfully in the new order of things?
In my mind, the focus of a college education in the new economy must be threefold.
First, the value of learning something in depth while understanding how that something fits within the larger picture - that is, competence - takes on new significance. The days of the general-studies curriculum and its successors are long gone. Colleges and universities might well consider requiring competency exams and theses for graduation. Even more important, students must leave the university with the capability and inclination to increase their competence over time, through their work and through additional education, formal and informal.
Next, technological literacy is an absolute requirement regardless of one's primary field. Not only is technology one of the two primary forces driving world change, but the United States' advantage in the use of personal computers, local area networks, cellullar telephones, telecommunications, etc. will be a major factor in this nation's relative competitiveness in the decades ahead. Colleges and universities must make technology pervasive in the curriculucm.
Finally, the erector-set approach to curriculum building must be abandoned in favor of greater concept integration and teamwork. We must shape the curriculum to reflect what goes on in the real world of professionals. Of course, this means charting new territory and much, much work for the faculty. But the alternative of continuing with an outdated curriculum, and with teaching techniques developed at the last turn of the century, holds little promise.
Of course, colleges and universities cannot do everything for students and graduates. The latter must take the initiative themselves.
And the government must help. If professionals - managers and technicians - are to function in an economy tied not to employment but to employability, there must be a restructuring of pensions, health care and educational opportunities. Graduates must be given the incentive through educational accounts, tuition discounts, tax credits from employers and other mechanisms to focus on employability and competence enhancement throughout their productive years.
Obviously, I want to be able to answer the questions of students who wonder and worry about their future. It is critically important for colleges and universities - and society - to be able to answer those questions, also.
\ J. Wade Gilley, a former Virginia secretary of education, is president of Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.
by CNB