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Reforms to Higher Education Recommended
The Association of American Colleges and Universities issued a report last fall outlining what it sees as the major shortcomings of American higher education and describing a strategy for remedying them. Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College argues for a "liberal" education not defined by contrast with an alternative, "practical" mode, but by the integration of specialized training with broader perspectives in science and the humanities. The aim is to nurture active, "intentional" learners, enhancing technical skills by fostering imagination, critical thinking, and an awareness of cultural diversity.
The report deals less in specific, curricular plans than in general imperatives. The most insistent is that faculties cooperate actively on behalf of the educational experience of their students in several ways: by improving communication with high school colleagues in order to specify the kinds of competencies entering students must have; by providing thoughtful advising to students once they arrive on campus; and by creating a unified, widely shared, and highly explicit statement of their institutions' objectives.
A central thesis of Greater Expectations is that faculty have benefited little from research into how students learn. Accordingly, assessment gets high priority as an area for reform, with a principal objective being to sharpen the focus on what students learn over their whole time in college. While acknowledging the importance of tailoring the pace of instruction to individual needs, the report asserts that only through expecting more of students—and causing them to expect more of themselves—will it be possible to give them the intellectual agility required by a fast-changing world.
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