ACADEMIC PIVOTING TOWARD THE FUTURE INNOVATION

The 21st century will become a Golden Age of learning. Use of technology; new opportunities for student engagement; students empowered to learn at their own pace and style; universities become centers for innovation; increased diversity and inclusion. The new university where all this and much more is possible, is within our grasp. What we must do to make it a reality is to pivot.

Times change. Methods change. Outcomes change.

So, it stands to reason that higher education must change as well, and nowhere more than at its core – the teaching and learning experience.

“Colleges and universities are facing intensifying headwinds that have been known to us for some time,” observes Brian Bruess, president of Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s. “They’ve been accelerated by things like demographic shifts, questions of affordability, questions of the value proposition of higher education and the challenges to the essence of who we are as a liberal arts institution.”

“Despite a myriad of challenges, the future of higher education is bright, provided that we pivot and innovate,” says Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s Provost Richard Ice. “We need to embrace new understandings and dynamic approaches to the liberal arts. What we’re trying to do is address the upheaval that’s happening nationally.”

Georgia Nugent is president of Illinois Wesleyan University and past president of Kenyon College and College of Wooster. She’s an expert on liberal arts education who has spoken at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s several times in the past (most notably, during the national “Liberal Arts Illuminated” conference hosted here in 2016). In her essay “The Liberal Arts in Action: Past, Present, and Future,” she points out that there has been a movement away from defining the liberal arts based on academic disciplines toward more fluid lines of inquiry.

“What appears to produce the extraordinary result of a liberal arts education is the particular combination of matter and manner, a broad-based curriculum with specific pedagogical practices in a context that also contributes to learning,” Nugent says.

“Our academic plans are a response to the changes that have impacted higher education. The world has changed in a variety of ways,” offers Karyl Daughters, interim dean of curriculum and assessment at CSB and SJU.

“We’re really focusing on innovating and creating a more sophisticated student experience,” adds Bruess. “We need to have this idea of innovation essentially permeating all of our innovation and all of our strategy going forward.

• Renew and further enrich the learning environment.

• Create new ways that produce even greater, more impactful outcomes

“There is always going to be a place in higher education for residential liberal arts colleges,” says Ice. “Moreover, there’s going to be a sweet spot for the distinctive Benedictine education that we offer at Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s. The academic heart of a college is no longer going to be measured by the classes that we offer, but by the learning outcomes and competencies that students are required to demonstrate.”

“We need to be nimble, adaptive and responsive to the changing times.”

How do liberal arts schools respond to those challenges? How do we pivot toward the possibilities of the future and accentuate the opportunities?

Those are questions that Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s have wrestled with while formulating our own sweeping, innovative initiative toward student-centric education and a nimble, responsive academic future.

We’ve mapped out a unified strategy that is purposeful and intentional, keeping these objectives in mind:

• Work together in new and innovative ways.

• Develop an increasingly more sophisticated student experience.

• Enhance the curriculum and cocurriculum for the singular purpose of human flourishing.

“Our mission is the holistic development of students. It is not just limited to their intellectual development. It entails the development of mind, body and spirit. And that’s where our innovation needs to reveal itself, because that’s what will help differentiate the quality and the depth and impact of what we’re doing,” Bruess says.

To pivot toward that future, Saint Ben’s and Saint John’s have designed and developed a comprehensive and multi-faceted plan to foster academic innovation. The plan consists of five key components:

1 Integrations Curriculum

2 Institutional Learning Goals

3 Pathways to Distinction

4 New Academic Programs

5 Centers of Academic Excellence