I am excited that our third issue of SES Highlights has “hit the stands” metaphorically speaking! Once again, I am proud to read about all the worthwhile activities in which our students and alums are engaged. I hope that if you read about something you are interested in, you will contact the students and/or alums involved and join in. One of the best ways you can use your time here at CGU (other than in class or studying of course) is to network and meet other SES/CGU students and alums who share your passions. Don’t hesitate to reach out and start good conversations with others! Nicole Kouyoumdjian will facilitate at least electronic meetings between you and those you’d like to meet. Send her an e-mail at nicole.kouyoumdjian@cgu.edu. Thanks to her and Monica Almond, you are reading this great new issue of SES Highlights.
A highlight for me this fall was to hear the superb lecture delivered by Lumina Foundation President, Jamie Merisotis, here in Albrecht Auditorium on October 14. He talked about learning in higher education. He challenged us as educators at the college level to spend more time and energy on how student learning is measured. He said "As we pursue our big goal [improving degree completion rates], we are increasingly convinced that ensuring the quality of degrees is every bit as important as increasing the quantity. … Increasing the number of degree holders without ensuring the quality of those degrees would be a very hollow achievement for this nation, a major step backward even." I have often wondered how we can measure the quality of a degree? For me, personally, earning a PhD was a life changing experience in the best positive sense. How can that not, therefore, be a high quality degree?
But Mr. Merisotis made me think more deeply about what learning is. At the graduate level, every class, every assignment must be a learning experience. More so than at any other educational level, there is no place for busywork or meaningless exercises at graduate school. How much are you learning as you go through your program and, more to the point, how do you know that you are learning? Is learning measured by the accumulation of new facts? I hope not. You didn’t need to come to graduate school to gather new information. Is learning measured by your capacity to craft a better argument, supported by research in favor or against a proposal at your workplace? Maybe.
In the end, I hope that your learning is measured by how often you question your “taken-for-granted assumptions.” I hope you walk away from class with doubts sometimes. I hope you get a few epiphanies when a professor or an article offers you clarity about something that previously eluded you. Most of all, I hope you measure your learning by discovering what action you can take to change policies and practices that prevent others from learning. And then, I’d like to hear about what you did.
Sincerely,
Margaret Grogan
