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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Braskamp, Larry A.
Putting students first : how colleges develop students purposefully/
Larry A. Braskamp, Lois Calian Trautvetter, Kelly Ward.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1882982-94-3
ISBN-10: 1-882982-94-0
ISBN-13:978-1-119125-73-0 (p.b.)
1. Holistic education. 2. Education, Humanistic. 3. Educational, Higher—Aims and objectives. 1. Trautvetter, Lois Calian. II. Ward, Kelly (Kelly Anne) III. Title
LC990.B73 2006
378.1 ‘98—dc22
2005029637
FIRST EDITION
Larry A. Braskamp received his B.A. from Central College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. In 1967, he joined the University of Nebraska–Lincoln as a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, where he received a Distinguished Teacher Award. After serving at Nebraska as assistant to the chancellor, he came to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1976. There he held a number of administrative positions, including associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, director of the Office of Instructional and Management Services, and acting dean of the College of Applied Life Studies. He was dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) from 1989–1996. From 1996–1997, he was on leave from UIC to serve as the executive director of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. In 1997–1998, he was professor of policy studies in the College of Education and a faculty fellow in the International Center for Health Leadership Development at UIC. Currently he is professor emeritus of education at Loyola University Chicago, where he served as senior vice president for academic affairs, and senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
His research interests include the role of church colleges in American higher education and the role of faculty assessment in faculty development and organizational decision-making. He is the coauthor or coeditor of six books, including Assessing Faculty Work: Enhancing Individual and Institutional Performance (Jossey-Bass, 1994), Evaluation of Campus Services and Programs (Jossey-Bass, 1987), and The Motivation Factor: A Theory of Personal Investment (Lexington Books, 1986), and has published more than 100 research articles and papers.
Lois Calian Trautvetter is associate director for Northwestern University’s Higher Education Administration and Policy Program and lecturer in the School of Education and Social Policy. She received her Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan, her M.S. in polymer chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University, and her B.A. in chemistry from The College of Wooster. She teaches college student development theory and research methodology courses. Her research interests include faculty and professional development issues such as productivity, enhancing research and teaching, motivation, and new and junior faculty. She is also interested in the role of church colleges in American higher education as well as professional development for K–12 teachers to improve math and science teaching, gender issues, and females in science. She participated as a researcher in the past two postsecondary national centers for education funded by the Department of Education (Office of Educational Research and Improvement) and has written book chapters and articles on faculty. She also has patents as a chemist in the coatings and resins industry.
Kelly Ward is associate professor of higher education at Washington State University. Her research interests are in the areas of faculty work, including balancing teaching, research, and service; faculty involvement in the community; and balancing work and family for those on the tenure track. She is also interested in campus and community engagement, service-learning, and policy issues related to equity and diversity. Dr. Ward has held faculty and administrative positions at Oklahoma State University and the University of Montana. She earned her Ph.D. in higher education from Penn State University.
The term faith-based has acquired some heavy baggage in today’s politically polarized society. It’s become a code word for religious ideology, and, like many other people in the mostly secular world of higher education, I don’t much like ideology. I find it dangerous. I believe that the only role for ideology in the academy is as an object of skepticism, an opportunity to challenge accepted truth with cross examination and debate. For this reason I’ve had, I admit, a prejudice against faith-based institutions. I’ve regarded them as places where parents send their kids to protect them from a world full of heresy and temptation—places where “liberal education” is regarded with suspicion, bounded by religious orthodoxy, or, in extreme cases, is nowhere to be found.
With this book Larry Braskamp and his colleagues Lois Trautvetter and Kelly Ward have demonstrated just how wrongheaded I’ve been. This book, and the study upon which it is based, is a valuable service to the academy, giving us a rich and evocative portrait of how 10 faith-based colleges, and by extension scores of others like them, are in fact promoting the kind of liberal learning that more secular institutions can only wish for. These institutions are not just fostering “engagement” (as if simply being engaged in something, anything, were enough), they are helping students define their vocation, their calling, something to be engaged about. The more evangelical of these colleges hope their students will deepen their faith, to be sure; but they eschew indoctrination. For them, having students engage in self-examination and critical self-reflection is what is most important. They care about the process. (The reader will not, in fact, find the term student learning outcomes anywhere in this book, thank goodness.) For these colleges holistic student development is not just a matter of helping students learn a set of marketable skills, it is a matter of helping them learn how to live.
How refreshing this is! Some years ago I had an informal conversation with several members of the English faculty of a public comprehensive university. The topic turned to the challenges of teaching freshmen students. I was ready for the usual litany of complaints about how students today can’t think and can’t write and don’t care. To my surprise these faculty were concerned about something else entirely. One, speaking for the others, said, “The problem isn’t that we need to force students out of their conventional ways of thinking. They’ve grown up in a postmodern world. They come to college not really knowing what matters, and they hunger for an anchor, something that will give their lives meaning.” And then she said this (a literal quote): “What they need is a course called Values 101.” The wistfulness of their conversation told me that this group didn’t expect to see Values 101 on their campus anytime soon.
What these faculty were wishing for was not that their institution should decide what values to impart and then teach those values. What they wanted was what Braskamp and his colleagues found on the campuses they visited: “a rigorous, intellectual challenge in which the head and the heart are integrated in the search for truth, meaning, and fulfillment.” The authors of Putting Students First have captured the essence of these colleges in a manner that is accessible and inviting to the secular world. One can read this book from the perspective of a public research or comprehensive university or community college and come away with ideas for creating environments that honor both skepticism and meaning-making, exploration and wholeness.
And isn’t that, in the end, what college should be for?
Jon F. Wergin
Professor, Ph.D. Program in Leadership and Change
Antioch University
This book is a collaborative effort, to be sure. Without the assistance, encouragement, and insights—the investment—of literally hundreds of students, faculty, academic leaders, and professional staff in student affairs and ministry at scores of church-related colleges and universities, this book would not exist.
As the authors, we are primarily serving as transcribers and interpreters of what we think are the key characteristics of a segment of American higher education—church-related colleges. These institutions have often been overlooked in conversations about the diversity and quality of American higher education. We have learned that these are unique places, and the hospitality of these colleges is just one example of their special character and identity. Furthermore, those laboring at these institutions were more than willing to talk with us about their work and their lives so that we could tell the larger communities of their investment in students.
This book is based on a research project that extended over a three-year period. The project initially received support from chief executive officers of eight church college associations: Bob Agee, Charles Currie SJ, Monika Hellwig, Steve Johnson, Gary Luhr, James Noseworthy, Arne Selbyg, and Donald Thompson. With their help, we were able to receive completed surveys on faculty expectations, assessment, and development from more than half of the nearly 500 chief academic officers of these colleges. More than 30 chief academic officers took the time to be interviewed by phone or invited us to their campuses to tell their stories of faculty involvement in student development. These academic leaders provided us with considerable insights about the life of faculty from their perspectives. We were also fortunate to have the counsel of several chief academic officers who spent two days in Chicago to react to these findings and to help us better communicate the results and plan for the next phase of the project. They are: David Gillespie, Anne Lippert, James Pence, Fred Pestello, Carla Sanderson, John Smarrelli, and Richard Stroede.
The second major phase of this project included in-depth site visits to 10 colleges: Bethune-Cookman College, Creighton University, Hamline University, Hope College, Pacific Lutheran University, The College of Wooster, Union University, the University of Dayton, Villanova University, and Whitworth College. The willingness and support of the chief academic officers and their staffs in making the visits efficient and productive cannot be overstated. James Boelkens, Ian Crawford, John Johannes, James Pence, Fred Pestello, Tami Reid, Carla Sanderson, Alan Silva, Ann Taylor-Green, and Christine Wiseman—we acknowledge and respect their professionalism. They allowed us to retain our own conclusions and interpretations, even when they differed and had good reason to do so.
Throughout the three years, we received considerable encouragement, challenges, and support from a number of people—colleagues at work, reviewers of sections of the book, excellent conversationalists about the topic, and supporters of the project, especially in its early stages. The following individuals contributed in many ways: Timothy Austin, Robert Benne, Charlotte Briggs, Robert Brown, Arthur Chickering, Jon Dalton, Sister Ann Ida Gannon, Charles Glassick, John Haughey SJ, Jennifer Haworth, George Kuh, Ralph Lundgren, David Myers, KerryAnn O’Meara, Linda Salchenberger, Donald Schmeltekopf, James Wellman, Jon Wergin, Terry Williams, and Randall Zachman. Again, we were fortunate to have a dedicated group of scholars come to Chicago for two days this summer to provide a critique of the draft. Charles Blaich, David Guthrie, R. Eugene Rice, Clara Sanderson, Steven Schomberg, Elizabeth Tisdell, and William Weston quickly formed a “community of challenge and support” and provided us with feedback from which to revise the manuscript—at times dramatically. It is a better book because of their input.
This project was funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the John Templeton Foundation. Their financial support and interest in advancing a national dialogue about the contributions of faculty in fostering student development is greatly appreciated. We also wish to acknowledge the wise counsel of Chris Coble and Arthur Schwartz, whose personal involvement in this project made it more focused and useful.
We end on a more personal note.
For Lois, this was a chance to observe college communities investing in students, mirroring some of my college student experiences. This project has allowed me to reflect on the many faculty members and administrators who were putting students first, especially my chemistry professor and advisor, Theodore Williams, who helped to guide me in my “big and worthy questions” and analyze the water content and elemental analysis of cataractous eye lenses. In addition to the many mentors and colleagues that continue to invest in my learning, I also had the encouragement and role models of my parents, Sam and Doris Calian, who both have personally invested their time, talent, and energies in guiding many students in theological education for more than 40 years. I am also extremely grateful to my supportive husband Dennis and my three wonderful but energetic children—Rachel, Paula, and Caleb—who encouraged me, even though it was a sacrifice at times. In the future, I hope that each of my children will experience a college that is committed to developing students purposefully.
For Kelly, this project brought to light the unique place that church-related colleges occupy in the higher education landscape. I appreciate the opportunity to “hang around” and take in all the great conversations and interactions happening on the campuses in the study. I’m grateful to all the students, staff, and faculty that invited me to be part of the conversation so I could better understand what it means to put students first. I’m also grateful to countless colleagues who have engaged in conversation with me throughout the past year as I teased out what it meant to work and study at a church-related college. I thank Susan Gardner for all her support in helping me organize the details of the project. As always, I must acknowledge my family for just being there.
For Larry, I was challenged and supported in this project in numerous ways. I was continuously reminded of the wisdom of Reverend John Boyle, who strongly advocated that “we are expected to judge, but to not be judgmental.” Throughout this project, I had the good fortune of being able to play tennis in the early morning hours with Paul Gignilliat, who helped me keep a perspective on the project and appreciate the power of routine, discipline, and friendship deepened by competing. My two sons, David and Steven, were their usual supportive selves. Moreover, David provided me with good company during the summers, assisting in the analyses and being a helpful critic. I end by acknowledging the patience and support of my wife Judi, who allowed me to break a promise that I would not write another book, because she knew it would only again lead to self-absorption. Since it did turn out to be the most difficult and intellectually challenging piece of scholarship of my career, she had to be and was even more supportive. She deeply understood that this book is for me more than an achievement or product. It is a reflection of my life, my vocation.
We end with a collective note and perspective. We all found this project to be a very enlightening, challenging, and rewarding experience. Each of us has grown immensely in writing this book, partly because the task of understanding how colleges help students in their sense-making is not easy. However, we witnessed firsthand many faculty and staff investing themselves in others—and it was rewarding to observe. We now welcome you and your colleagues to also purposefully invest in students.
We wrote this book with a perspective in mind. We argue that an effective and ideal undergraduate college education is one that centers on holistic student development, including the search for meaning and purpose in life. Who a student is and becomes during college, as well as what a student does during college, is important to us. The title of this book, Putting Students First, is meant to stress three overarching themes. First is the intentionality of colleges as they guide students to become what the college thinks and believes is a desired end for students. Colleges and universities are mission oriented and act intentionally; that is, they educate and work with students on purpose, not accidentally. They intentionally invest in students.
Second, colleges develop students in ways that recognize and build on the student’s purpose in life, intellectually and morally. Intentional colleges create environments that center on purpose, helping students reflect on such questions as—Who am I? What are my goals in life? How do I want to make a difference with my life? Addressing questions about the “good life,” as we discuss it in this book, is a part of student development. Thus life is not only about financial achievement and professional success, but living a life that is fulfilling and meaningful. The real joy in life often comes from addressing challenges that fulfill one’s purpose in life. Aristotle refers to a distinction between making a living and living a life—endeavoring to develop our full and highest potential as human beings. One can live a good life by being good and excellent at what one is called to be as a person. Worldly success as some like to measure it—materialism, money, power—may not always be the final criteria to judge the quality of one’s life (Gomes, 2002; O’Toole, 2005). It may require one to experience hardships, disappointment, challenges beyond what one wishes for, and to carry the burdens of others. For some, it requires a commitment that is intimately linked to their religious faith or a higher rule or principle. Putting students first thus also calls for a holistic view of student development that encompasses cognitive, psychological, moral, ethical, and faith development.
This leads to the third theme of the book: Faculty play an integral role in fostering student development. When we say “putting students first,” we are not advocating a student-centered environment that meets all of its students’ demands. Rather, we emphasize that faculty and other influential adults in the lives of students (e.g., professionals in student affairs and ministry, coaches) need to be involved to foster student development, holistically.
We present the findings, conclusions, and interpretations based on our study of 10 church-related colleges: Bethune-Cookman College, Creighton University, Hamline University, Hope College, Pacific Lutheran University, The College of Wooster, Union University, University of Dayton, Villanova University, and Whitworth College. These colleges not only desire to help students be successful—a goal of most educators today and of importance and value to be sure, but they were selected since we wanted to learn how colleges think, plan, and behave in preparing students to live their lives as well as making a living. While the selected colleges are very supportive of preparing students to be vocationally competitive locally, nationally, and internationally, they argue for an education to be more. We selected colleges that intentionally assist students to ask and “struggle” with the fundamental questions in life while they are in college.
We selected colleges to represent a range of church and religious histories and current commitment to a particular religious or faith perspective. Some deliberately advance a certain faith or church denominational perspective and others can be classified as being quite secular in their perspective. We did not select a homogeneous group of colleges according to a set of criteria, but rather chose colleges to represent the diverse group of the 500 colleges that were founded by one of ten church denominations (Braskamp, 2003). These colleges were selected because they have been successful in preparing students to enter into graduate and professional schools, for their recognition of being closely affiliated with their church or legacy, and/or for being a good place to work. We did not select a set of institutions to represent an “ideal college” or to establish a standard of excellence.
All of these colleges have three characteristics in common. First, they put students first in their mission, even though all pursue other goals such as research and service to the community. Second, they all share a commitment to educate students holistically. All share a desire to assist students in their faith development, as we define it in this book. Thus they differ from many excellent colleges who put students first, including many of the public, community, and regional colleges and for-profit institutions and research universities, but primarily for professional preparation. Third, these colleges, shaped by their history of being founded by a church denomination, still deal with educating students that include a religious and faith dimension in educating their students. At some of the colleges, it is a daily challenge and for others it arises occasionally, brought about by special events or an external circumstance.
In Chapter 1, we set the context for putting college students first and highlight four major tensions and challenges that leaders and faculty need to address as they create campus environments that foster holistic student development. Chapter 2 describes the methodology, design, and framework for our work.
In Chapters 3 through 6, we present data-based summaries of the different dimensions of the campus environment in which leaders can invest to effectively foster student development. We organize the campus environment using what we call the 4C framework: culture, curriculum, cocurriculum, and communities in and beyond campus. These 4Cs encompass and represent different aspects of a college campus that enable faculty and others to become involved in student development. The 4Cs are a schema to help faculty and campus leaders organize and rethink strategies to foster holistic student development. The 4C framework is a heuristic device to help campus leaders think practically about investing in students. Each of these chapters concludes with questions intended to create campus conversations around the issue of holistic student development.
Chapter 7 presents an overview of the findings, employing three major characteristics to describe a student-invested college community, and calls for consideration and action for campus communities in an effort to put students first. We also include a set of questions for each characteristic that we hope will be a starting point for campus conversations at many colleges and universities.
Given the emerging student body and the changing role of faculty, this book is timely for higher education. It will be of interest to campuses and their constituents that strive to put students first and to support faculty and other staff in this endeavor. Although we chose to study church colleges, our analyses, recommendations, and insights gleaned from the study can be useful to campus leaders from all types of colleges and universities—large and small, secular and religious—that put students first. We hope leaders of any college interested in student development will find similar results and perspectives on their campuses and will join us in a dialogue on how to most effectively put students first.