Back to the Future: the new technology of humanism

Faculty care about the personal, professional, and intellectual development of their students. Administrators are increasingly expected to provide institutional evidence of student learning outcomes. This divide would appear to accept no common approach and to extend indefinitely into the future. However, we will examine an unexpected combination of theory, practice and technology that can do both equally well. The faculty will effectively determine the character of the institutions's learning environment, including (if they should so choose) a 21st century recreation of the classical ideal in which faculty and students share a continuous, changing and multifarious journey of discovery. The educational content of any student's college degree will be the co-creation of the student and the institution. Administrators will nevertheless easily generate high-level aggregated data across-the-curriculum on actual student achievement. This unexpected future is likely to happen: institutions with this approach will be significantly better than those without it, and students will choose to attend where they identify with the expectations and where their personal capabilities will be well acknowledged.

Dr. David Shupe is President of e'' Lumen Collaborative, an independent academic research & development firm examining new approaches to policy, practice, and technology related to visible educational results for higher education. This includes recent work with the Higher Learning Commission, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, and 17 colleges and universities. He is guest editor of an issue (May, 2007) of the academic journal On The Horizon that is entirely devoted to the theme of institutional visibility of student learning outcomes. Previously System Director for Academic Accountability for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, he has for the last ten years taught in the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University of Minnesota.