Last Friday, I spent much of the day at a retreat on improving General Education at Penn State. The day was a great opportunity to share thoughts about this important part of teaching and learning. I came away from the day with four thoughts. My first was on themes. The second focused on administration. Today, I’ll focus on communication and transparency.

Communication and Transparency: As someone who has transitioned from Department Head to Associate Dean and from outside the process to inside the process during the past 6 months, my perception of communication and transparency issues regarding General Education may be unique. There are several aspects of this that I think need to be considered.

There is the issue of formal versus informal communications. If I were to describe the effort so far, I think General Education has relied on the Faculty Senate reports as a form of formal communication, and the development of a web site for more informal communications. Both, I think, are only part of the solution.

I think the communication effort needs to keep in mind several cross-cutting problems, some of which were highlighted during the university’s effort to change health benefits.  For example, the administration believed that communication through Faculty Senate was adequate for informing faculty. As the subsequent events showed–and our General Education effort should never forget–communication through Senate is weak, at best.  I’m sure many of us wish that were not so, but it is the reality we face.  Many, many Senators have not been provided the means to communicate with the rest of the faculty they represent; many faculty not in Senate are completely disengaged from its role.

This is just one of the cross-cutting issues. The fact that we have no President, the fact that we are engaged in strategic planning, the fact that we have significant divisions among the Board of Trustees and alumni, the fact that we face challenging financial pressures, and more mean that many employees are stressed and on edge. Our efforts need to take into account the current climate and recognize the need for extra effort in communications.

As anyone who has visited my blog, seen my Tweets or otherwise connected with me can tell, I use a lot of new communication tools–I have to thank my students for that, because they’ve always been the ones who pushed me to try them out. But, many other faculty do not and the blogs, web sites, and twitter have not had a compelling reach. Something has to drive people to these sites, and that simply has not happened, yet.  So, our informal means have also not generated what is needed.

Most importantly, I think the lessons from other areas of leadership about change need to be embraced.  I would highlight two.  First, when you are making big changes in people’s lives (health benefits and more than 33% of a curriculum are big changes), the message needs to be delivered from the top–it cannot be delegated. Second, when making big changes, extra channels of communication have to be used and more personal means of communication must be used.

In health benefits, I’d contrast Penn State-Hershey Medical Center’s largely successful roll-out of its health benefits change with our experience at University Park.  At HMC, top leaders–CEO, COO, CFO–and more conducted more than a dozen town hall meetings, and many, many visits to individual departments to answer all questions.  The effort was personal and it was extensive in reach outside the normal channels. And PSU has almost 5 times as many employees as HMC.

So, yes, it is a gargantuan effort to communicate big changes, and we have to recognize the size of the effort needed, if we want to do it right. If we as a group of leaders are not willing or able to commit the time, then why should we expect others to commit the time and effort to make changes?

Another reaction I had after the retreat was in response to a comment made to the effect that communication can’t start until there is a proposal to communicate.  And, here, I would disagree.

Before communicating about the proposal, the effort needs to communicate its understanding of the problem. I briefly touched on this in my first reflection. While the efforts so far have outlined the concerns, they’ve done little to provide transparent access to the data to support the arguments. When I’ve pointed faculty to the reports, the typical response has been: “That’s it?” The reports are largely assertions without strong empirical evidence.

Faculty are critical and analytical thinkers. Where are the survey data reporting and detailing student dissatisfaction with the current GenEd? Where is the evidence that the current GenEd has hurt students? Where is the evidence that other universities have improved student learning with their changes? Where are the tables showing standing faculty disengagement with GenEd? Where is qualitative assessment of the different options for changing GenEd and their strengths and weaknesses within the Penn State system? I know some of these data exist and even support the concerns, but they are not even available on the web site, much less being actively shared and distributed with department heads and faculty.

To get people to buy into your solution to the problem, you first have to communicate your understanding of the problem, convince them you’ve looked deeply into the quantitative and qualitative data, create real information from that data, and share it openly with the people you are trying to convince. If communication about the solution occurs without this, it’s often the case that people become distrustful.

It’s good that this emerged as an issue at our retreat and good that efforts are already being made to address this.  It’s a long and difficult task, but if the goal is worthwhile, it’s worth it.

 On Friday, I spent much of the day at a retreat on improving General Education at Penn State. The day was a great opportunity to share thoughts about this important part of teaching and learning. I came away from the day with four thoughts. The first one was on themes.

This one is on the idea to implement General Education through a college.  I draw on Abraham Maslow’s comment from 1996: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Administration: There was much discussion on Friday about the need to create an administrative structure, a college, and/or a faculty to deliver General Education.  This may be part of a solution, but I think we should proceed cautiously.

I believe the issue is not structure, but process. No one has been assigned the responsibility for caring for General Education or accountability for its quality. I see deep connections between my field of health policy and our General Education discussions. Throughout much of the 20th century we assumed that there was no need to assign responsibility or accountability in health care, because doctors, as autonomous health professionals, guided patients to quality care.

Similarly, we assumed that faculty, as autonomous education professionals, would guide students to quality learning in General Education. As our health care research showed in the epic Institute of Medicine reports on the quality of health care, however, the assumption that independent physicians could create systematic quality, if ever true, was no longer the case.  One solution, of course, is to create new bureaucratic structures that are given responsibility for the task and assign them accountability for the work.

Rather than assume that the only tool, however, is creating a new administrative structure, I hope that we’ll be creative and innovative in our approach. Creation of a new college seems to me to be a very 19th century solution in this 21st century world.  It’s not that a college might not be one way of building a new General Education. It’s simply that we know one thing the college hammer will do–drain resources away from students and teaching and learning.

We know this because one of the most important problems plaguing education today is an excess of administration. Administrative bloat–partly because of increasing regulatory approaches, but also because universities tend to approach every problem by creating new bureaucratic structures–has drained resources from the teaching and learning of students. Over the last 15 years at Penn State, administrative costs per student have risen almost 71%, while instructional dollars per student have risen under 6%. Draining additional resources from teaching and learning by creating new and costly administrative structures may not be the best way to improve General Education or a Penn State education.  Whatever General Education approach we take, I hope it focuses on driving resources back down into the classroom and away from administration.

I also hope we’ll be daring and innovative.  So, I’ll throw a few pieces of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Take all the resources you are thinking about throwing into all the administration associated with a General Education College, and make it available as a GenEd X-Prize. Faculty compete for pilot study funding and grant funding. Let’s compete for GenEd funding.

Let’s say we do choose to the path of themes.  Allow an open competition within some broad guidelines (e.g., a theme must involve 2 or more departments from 2 or more colleges, must involve at least two knowledge domains, must include at least two elements of engaged scholarship, and so on). Solicit proposals from any interested groups of faculty who wish to propose a GenEd theme. Have the selection of the final themes (20?) made not only by Penn State faculty, but also by external faculty, alumni and industry peer reviewers. Allow the funds awarded to be used in multiple ways–for engaged scholarship opportunities for students, for collaborative research by students and GenEd faculty teams, for visiting faculty, alumni, political, and business leaders to come to speak to GenEd classes, as summer funding for faculty and student collaborative work on GenEd courses and curriculum or funding for graduate GA positions in departments to support GenEd courses or professional development for faculty teaching GenEd courses or more.  In short, let the people on the ground make the decisions about spending. Give them the responsibility.

But, hold them accountable. As students complete their General Education and start to graduate, test, evaluate, or assess a random sample or all of them using a common instrument or rubric developed in collaboration with the Schreyer Institute on Teaching Excellence based on the goals and objectives of General Education. If you want, as part of the grant award have each General Education Theme Team also work with SITE to develop an assessment tailored to their theme, and use a weighted score that includes both the theme assessment and overall General Education assessment. Get even fancier.  Add in a component that depends on the total number of students who selected that theme and/or a student assessment of the theme’s success–let students vote with their feet and choices and have a say.

Have a say in what? Time for the three Rs–relegation, reward, and renewal. At the end of a defined time period (6 years?), it’s relegation time. The 5 themes that score lowest on our accepted metrics are phased out over the next few years. Students can complete the theme or are given greater freedom to move to a more successful theme.

It’s reward time. The top 5 themes on our metrics get an infusion of new resources to improve their theme. You can even build in rewards for all themes in a new budget model that rewards GenEd credit hours at a higher rate for colleges and departments.

It’s renewal time. A new competition selects 5 new, vibrant, exciting themes to add to the GenEd mix, providing a constant and ongoing renewal of both Gened and its themes.  A supplemental competition allows the 10 continuing themes in the middle to apply for revision funds to refresh their theme. After the initial phase-in, the three Rs can happen as often as you want, even annually.

Maybe a college is the hammer we need. Colleges have two major downsides, however. A new bureaucracy associated with a college tends to ossify and tends to drain resources away from teaching and learning and students. To succeed we need to reverse administrative bloat, reward creativity and innovation, and drive resources, responsibility and accountability down to faculty and students.

Just maybe, we need a far more nimble and creative way to address the issues of responsibility and accountability more fitting with the students we teach and the world we inhabit.

On Friday, I spent much of the day at a retreat on improving General Education at Penn State. The day was a great opportunity to share thoughts about this important part of teaching and learning. I came away from the day with four reflections that I’ll share over the next few days.

Reflection 1–Are Themes the Best Path to the Goal?: One of the emerging ideas about how to improve General Education at Penn State has been to organize some portion of the credits in General Education around a unifying theme, often presented as an interdisciplinary collection of courses with a repeated emphasis that includes both introductory and advanced courses. It’s an interesting idea and could well address the concern that students don’t find their General Education courses to be meaningful because they are just a grab-bag of unconnected experiences.

The question I have is whether a theme based General Education is the best path to the goal.  Within that overall question, I think there are several others. There are many challenges for themes to overcome.  Students need the flexibility to change their mind about their education and the ability to change campuses, majors, and General Education themes without paying too high a price in time and cost. Will themes allow the flexibility and portability that students at a large, complex university need?

Disciplines and departments need the ability to connect General Education to how these courses build the foundations and/or breadth and depth needed for their fields. The thematic approach sometimes seems to assume a narrow disciplinary viewpoint of the purpose of General Education. A student who has a strict disciplinary major certainly may need a thematic General Education that provides a multidisciplinary foundation or complement to the major.  But, is that the right General Education for a student studying in a multidisciplinary field, which already has a thematic element? Will a theme based General Education be able to meet the need of  students in disciplinary and multidisciplinary fields, students in liberal arts and professional fields, and all the other types of study students can select at a university like Penn State?

A theme-based General Education is one way to address concerns about whether students find meaning in this part of their education, but there are other concerns and other paths. The original report to Faculty Senate in October 2012 listed the following concerns:

• Lack of Familiarity with Learning Goals
• Confusion Regarding Course Types
• Heavy Reliance on Non-standing Faculty
• Questions about General Education Rigor

The report itself is light on comprehensive information regarding any of those concerns.  The first appears largely based on a survey using a convenience sample of faculty and students, but no comprehensive report of the survey methods or results is provided. The second references no data or analysis. The third appears to use Penn State data on teaching, but again no comprehensive information on methods or results is shared. The fourth uses data on Penn State grades. Again, no comprehensive summary of the methods or results are provided, and the report itself notes that the level of rigor varies dramatically across certain types of General Education courses. Some are more rigorous than the average course. Others are not.

Thus, from the beginning (and I would say continuing to this day, as in none of the efforts have I seen a comprehensive assessment of these or other concerns), there has been a lack of clear analysis of the problems in General Education. And, even today, we are already drawing conclusions about the appropriate path to the goal when we have not even clearly analyzed the problem. Equally troubling is the fact that we have yet to even define the goals and objectives of a new General Education. Having just attended the State College High School production of Alice, I’m reminded of the quote:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Before selecting the path, I think we ought to be sure we understand the problems and know where we want to get to. Many people believe there are multiple concerns and problems in General Education. There is no necessary connection between themes and rigor or involvement of standing faculty or other concerns. While themes may address concern about the meaning of General Education for some students, what does it do to solve the other concerns that have been raised?

Finally, themes are not the only option. Other universities are looking at more of a “badged” approach to General Education. Students already have opportunities to “theme” their education, using minors, and some universities look to incorporate themes through making minors part of General Education. And some of the concerns raised may be as much about our own failure to adequately communicate and manage the existing General Education, rather than a signal that the current system must be abandoned.

Looking through the various reports provided, I have not seen a detailed comparison of the different options, their strengths and weaknesses in addressing the problems and meeting the goals, and a clear explanation for why a thematic approach is better than other options. What are the goals and objectives of General Education at Penn State? What is the best curricular structure and process to achieving those goals, given our unique features and challenges? Are themes the best solution to giving Penn State undergraduates meaning in General Education? Are themes part of the best solution to the other concerns voiced about General Education?

Before advancing down a particular path, I think we ought to provide our colleagues, our students and the public with better information and more complete answers to these types of questions.