>From srb144@vt.edu Thu Sep 12 15:40:08 1996 Received: (from mailadm@localhost) by sable.cc.vt.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA05356 for fox@fox.cs.vt.edu; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 15:40:07 -0400 Received: from [128.173.201.5] (susanbg.prov.vt.edu [128.173.201.5]) by sable.cc.vt.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA03368; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 15:40:05 -0400 X-Sender: srb144@mail.vt.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 15:43:20 -0500 To: conn@vt.edu, fox@vt.edu, happy@vt.edu From: srb144@vt.edu (Susan R. Brooker-Gross) Subject: "Brain dump" after today's meeting Thoughts on Self-Study: Traditional Student Group The Proposal for a Focused Self-Study (rev. 2/129/96) stated that "some of the most substantive issues currently faced by Virginia Tech relate to the ways in which the institution must position itself in order to carry its complex set of missions forward into the next century." The topic of the self-study is "Transforming Virginia Tech for the Information Age." As the proposal continues, "the use of technology in the learning environment is a key topic," focusing on the learner as the center of the educational process. The subcommittee structure of the self-study designates "traditional four-year undergraduates" as one central set of learners. Traditional students in this context may be the population of undergraduates that have been the largest component of Virginia Tech in the past: 18 to 22 year-olds in transition between high school and career. This group has been largely residential in nature, living either on campus or nearby in the small urban setting of Blacksburg. Included in the population of learners for this subcommittee is a growing variant of this group: for example, residential students who may take distance-learning courses in the summer; students who may spend time away from campus in co-op programs or exchange programs or service-learning programs; undergraduate students who may be significantly older--or younger--than 18-22. In focusing on this broadly defined group of "traditional students," we already begin to make assumptions about the future of traditional students. Some pundits have forecast the end of residential learning environments, with the advent of revolutionary networks for information transmittal and interpersonal connections. The Update to the University Plan states that Virginia Tech "will remain a predominantly residential* university, continuing to attract about 25,000 students to Blacksburg while also offering a range of programs off campus." The Update speaks to the next five years: it is clear that this statement will have significant validity for the five years after that. Thus the goal of the subcommittee on traditional students is to explore the ramifications of the information revolution on learners who comprise a residential communities of learners. In beginning this task, the subcommittee looks first to factors and influences in the environment external to the university that will have an impact. Clearly the very development of information technologies is a key factor (a development largely external to the university, although Virginia Tech is itself a significant actor in this development). Rapid change in the corporate structures of these industries will have ramifications for the ways that the university will be able to structure its own technologies for learning. The expectations that our various publics and clientele have about information technology, and how these expectations change, are within this list as well. Broad social trends in "who our students are" intersect with the standards and expectations we set for admissions, from the numbers of students, the traditional/non-traditional mix of students, the in-state/out-of-state composition of students, and the students' presenting academic credentials (SATs, high school GPAs, etc.), to the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of students and their families. Changing political and economic factors must be considered, including the expectations of employers of college graduates. National perceptions of the role that college plays in an individual's life, as well as in the social fabric of communities must be considered as well. Across the United States, public institutions have frequently been located in pastoral communities. For land grant universities, there is the obvious connection to rural landscapes and agriculture, but an even more pressing reason has been the safety and serenity of small towns and rural places as a respite from the busy and dangerous big cities. Blacksburg, Virginia, has certainly fit this mold. The relationship between the urban growth of Blacksburg (its likely designation as a metropolitan area by the 2010 Census), and its comparisons to the changing fortunes of other urban places in potential recruiting areas will impact the course of the university over the next decades. A different sort of external factor that must be considered as we reflect on and project the relationship between residential learning communities and information technologies is the very state of knowledge ABOUT learning. Virginia Tech is not alone is finding that our faculty have knowledge about learning based on an apprenticeship model of learning to teach by watching our teachers, nor are we alone in having fairly low levels of explicit knowledge about how people learn. This gap could, in theory, be remedied. But we are constrained by what experts in cognitive psychology and learning theory know about learning. Virginia Tech contributes to this global state of knowledge, of course, and should structure efforts to improve learning in a inquiry mode capable of expanding what is known. Higher education has traditionally had a monopoly located within institutions of higher education. Increasingly, corporations are entering the field, in part to serve their own employees with pre-service and in-service training, and increasingly to serve wider sets of clientele. The structure of these industries must be within the scope of any considerations we make as we consider the world beyond Virginia Tech. Susan R. Brooker-Gross Associate Provost for Undergraduate Programs 112 Burruss Hall Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0132 Phone (540)-231-6122 e-mail: srb144@vt.edu fax: (540)-231-7211