Monday, March 27, 2023

Pandemic-induced skills gaps

The COVID pandemic changed lots of things, actually almost everything, about the world as we knew it. A survey of prospective employers reflects changes in work environments that call for realignment of higher education with the shifting dynamics of the workplace. While the pandemic was very significant, some educators believe that Generation Z students are equally impacted by being part of the knowledge worker industry, resulting in different levels and types of engagement in learning.

The survey of 600 HR professionals indicated that the skills gap has widened. The hard skills, which are initially most in demand when students graduate, lose their prominence after 5 years when soft skills surge back. Although 81% of the respondents believed higher education provides good return on investment, 75% believe that 5 years of experience, a college degree, or digital badges and micro-credentials are roughly equivalent.

Universities can help with skills realignment by: gathering insights on employers' needs, refining courses to conform with what learners need, analyzing the credentials that employers indicate they need, offering credentials beyond degrees, helping local workforces access employee tuition benefits, and reducing tuition and required credits. Bi-partisan support for skills-based education will likely help to align higher education with employer needs. Some colleges and universities are bolstering career services budgets and prominence as a way to address students' eagerness to secure employment benefits.

Perhaps an equally important issue is examining what Universities aren't addressing even in more workplace oriented initiatives. Steve Mintz suggests the list includes: "not just personal finances or leadership skills or listening and negotiation skills or public speaking, but mind-set, self-assessment, self-awareness, stress and emotional management, relationship skills, self-advocacy, networking, bouncing back from failure, and yes, career planning." Current students express multiple concerns about the well-being and count on faculty to help them in stressful times.

It is difficult to determine if the pandemic impacted the confidence that Americans have in gaining a college degree. However, over the last decade the overall confidence that the effort and money required to get a degree shifted from "yes" to "no" among Americans. Fifty-six percent of those polled indicated that, "A four-year college education is not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." Ted Mitchell, President of the American Council on Education, commented "These findings are indeed sobering for all of us in higher education, and in some ways, a wake-up call... We need to do a better job at storytelling, but we need to improve our practice, that seems to me to be the only recipe I know of regaining public confidence."

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Reparations - healing for all

The issue of reparations to correct the wrongs of previous systemic and governmentally supported discrimination has been advocated for decades. However, Evanston, Illinois, is the first official U.SA. entity to actually take action. The documentary "The Big Payback" is an insightful documentary of the journey Evanston took toward approval of a reparations package for Black citizens who can document having been impacted by previous policies that restricted their ability to purchase homes. Alderman Simmons is profiled in the documentary for her courage and persistence in moving the Evanston reparations strategy forward. Some see reparations in admissions as a return to the core idea of affirmative action.

I've blogged before about the systemic predecessors that have brought various entities to consider their complicity in racism. U.S.A. colonialist domination, and the reinforcement of colonial bias in higher education, have long perpetuated an unquestioning view of American history. This domination relied on creating a caste system to perpetuate class through elitist institutions and the networks that emerge from within them. The gross inequalities among institutions has ballooned to a level that 1% of U.S.A. institutions hoard 54% of the wealth invested in endowments. The top 3% hold 80% of the total wealth.

Although I have not read it, a brief review of Desmond's Poverty by America asserts that '... high poverty rates in the U.S. are the consequence of a set of active choices made by the affluent." The contributors to poverty are numerous and complicated but the lack of taxation of wealthy higher education institutions in supporting local communities as well as their endowments are two quick examples. The knowledge of application and financial aid processes by privileged students is a glaring systemic difference originating from who and what you know.

The difficult conversations that are unfolding now include examining what colleges and universities should do to atone for systemic racism and classism. Many higher education institutions are sited on lands that belonged to Indigenous peoples or count among their founders and supporters/donors over the years those whose wealth was built on the spoils of slavery. The existence of systemic injustice is dramatically confirmed by the fact that Historical Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) receive 178 times less in donations than Ivy League institutions! Because higher education is so entrenched, the lesson of Evanston, Illinois - that insistence on some perfect solution will result in no action at all - is compelling. Communities, including colleges and universities, have to start someplace and have to accept less than satisfactory strategies and build from there.

If systemic racism and classism is to ever be substantively addressed in higher education, there must be a recognition that everyone is impacted by these systems, no matter what background or color. Whether held down by the system or holding guilt deep within one's soul for having been unfairly lifted up by the system, the wounds require healing. The conversations will be difficult but must start with facing unvarnished history, assessing all students' sense of belonging, regularly examining concerns, and connecting with the surrounding community.