For decades, Arthur Levine—former president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia--has been chronicling the expectations and preparation of America’s traditional age college students. The titles of the volumes in this series strongly hint at their contents: Dreams and Heroes Died (1980), When Hope and Fear Collide (1998), and now Generation on a Tightrope (2012). The books are engaging, well-researched and documented reads, capturing portraits of generations without resorting to catch-phrases and stereotypes. Levine’s explicit goal is to provide guidance for practitioners in higher education—whether faculty, staff or administrators—on how to “equip students for the world they face and the world they will help create.”
He ends his most recent book, researched over six years, with a “to do” list for higher education--a set of directives that provide a path for serving what he calls “21st Century Students.” They are students for whom enormous cultural and economic transformations are not written over six generations (as was the process of US industrialization) but over two or perhaps even one. Levine finds that the “future is a foreign country” to most of us, including our students: a place we sort of know about … from afar. It is fair to say that he believes it will be a challenge for higher education to refocus its efforts on preparing students for the realities of the world they will face, which will require that we educate students:
• To Live in a Time of Profound Change
• For Life in a Digital Society
• For Life in a Diverse, Global Society
• For Life in an Evolving Information Economy
• For Civic Engagement
I have to say that while I found myself nodding along with much of Levine’s book, I fundamentally disagreed with his pessimism about our capacity to prepare our students for the future. And, I disagreed for a simple reason: challenging or not, this list reflects much of what we’re already doing—or in the process of doing—at MCC. Which is why, on the eve of the fall Message to the College Community, I share the list with you and quickly add that, because of a firm foundation crafted by innovative faculty and staff over 50 years, MCC is ahead of this curve.
Thanks to the leadership of the strategic planning committee, we have reimagined our vision and mission statements in ways that seem to have anticipated Levine’s sense of what our students will need going forward:
Monroe Community College will champion opportunity, innovation, and excellence to transform lives and communities.
Monroe Community College is a dynamic learning community where access, excellence, and leadership are the College’s hallmarks. Our mission is to educate and prepare diverse learners to achieve scholarly, professional, and individual success within a local and global context. The College serves as a catalyst for innovation, economic development, lifelong learning, and civic engagement.
The values associated with these statements also speak to essential qualities Levine associates with successful colleges and universities: integrity, empowerment, excellence, inclusiveness, and collaboration.
A recent note in the Faculty Senate minutes referenced the need to focus not on “change” but on “change with a purpose.” I fully agree and would say that this “purpose” should be found within MCC’s vision, mission, values, and goals. It should be grounded in the four strategic directions that are outlined in the new plan: Learning First; Workforce Education and Career Pathways; Partnerships; Effectiveness, Efficiency and Accountability.
So, as part of the fall Message to the College Community, I have asked the vice presidents to join me to share programs that exemplify how MCC is serving 21st Century students, how we are operationalizing our strategic plan through these directions, how we are fulfilling the promise of our students, community, and college. Together, we look forward to your questions and comments—and to continuing this conversation after that short hour is over.
Please share your thoughts on the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President's Office
11/07/2012 |