“Students need to work in diverse teams to solve complex problems … and not too many know how to do that in order to negotiate a complex global environment,” he says.
A separate survey shows that 72 percent of recent college graduates say the main aim for colleges should be to provide a balance of both a well-rounded education and skills in a specialized field.
Former Harvard University president and current interim president Derek Bok says the findings were significant because it makes it clear that colleges must raise the bar on learning outcomes.
“The LEAP report provides a comprehensive road map for how colleges and universities can provide the important outcomes of a good liberal education to more students through a creative synthesis between vocational and liberal arts education,” he says.
Dr. George D. Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research and the Chancellor’s Professor of Higher Education at Indiana University, says evidence points to the positive results of learning communities in colleges that help students work in diverse groups, communicate and apply those skills in the real world. Hispanics involved in first-year communities showed a dramatic increase in their GPAs. Similarly, the likelihood of sophomore retention grew from 0.83 percent to 0.98 percent for Black students engaged in educationally relevant programs.
— By Shilpa Banerji
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
