Scot Loyd: [00:00:00] Welcome to Jimmie office hours, where academics talk about academics from the depths of liberal arts to the forefront of practical application. Join us as we dive into critical discussions, shaping the minds of tomorrow. Welcome to Jimmie office hours. My name is Scot Lloyd. I am an assistant professor of communication studies and a coach of speech and debate at the University of Jamestown, North dakota and Jimmie office hours is an opportunity for myself and my colleague Jakob Barnard to talk about issues surrounding liberal arts education and what we see on the horizon. And from time to time, I invite our colleagues to join in on the conversation, Jakob, how are you doing today?
Jakob Barnard: Good, yes, so thank you for the introduction, Scot.
I'm an assistant professor here at the University of Jamestown. I'm also the chair of the computer science [00:01:00] department and director of online technology programs. So, and so forth. So I've got a few hats. We're hopefully simplifying that this summer, but I'm also a Jimmie alum, graduated in 05. I had a few different majors here.
I like to. Use my tenure here as a cautionary tale with my undergrad advisees. If you have 4 majors, you will be here 5 years. It's quite possible. It's it is a great time, but I got to learn a lot of different things through that. Additional that, you know, did Student Senate Senator in Chief, the Collegian for a year or so before finally graduating and it must have gone well because eventually they did let me come back as a professor.
So, either that or the statute of limitations on undergrad shenanigans had expired.
Scot Loyd: Well, Jakob, I appreciate the opportunity. And by the way, this podcast was Jakob's idea. He approached me a few months ago about putting together a conversation around issues [00:02:00] in liberal arts, because those of you that are following higher education, you know, that across the board and across the nation, higher education is in a bit of transformation.
And the way it looks compared to the way it looked like just a few years ago is, is changing dramatically. And that's where I want to start our conversation today, Jakob with your field of computer technology how does, how does computer technology fit into the larger goals of a liberal arts education?
Jakob Barnard: Scot, that's really a great question because that's been. Some of the earliest literature on computer science education pertaining to the liberal arts articles dating back to the 70s, have argued the same point. The most recent articles published this past year have argued the same point.
How does computers fit into liberal arts? And so where, where do we kind of go with that is, well, [00:03:00] What do we consider the liberal arts? What is our definition? The problem is every institution, every person has a slightly different understanding of what is liberal arts to them, what does it mean for me, my department, my institution.
We follow that chain. So even if we look at just the classic liberal arts, grammar, logic let me see if I can name them all rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, you know, verbal and mathematics. That is our classical definition of that. So if we think about, you know, what is a liberal arts education if we were to boil that down, it's that broad Right?
We're, we're getting a little bit of everything so that no matter what you do when you leave our door, you can do anything you want. Have a successful, fulfilling life at whatever you choose to do or end up in. And so if we say, well, how does computers relate to that? We'll take any 1 of those classical liberal arts things and try to do it without [00:04:00] technology.
So, which means technology and computing fits into everything else, but the inverse is also true. And that's, that's a really exciting part about computer science or computer science education right now is computer science is realizing that too. Oh, been around a little while. We're still kind of a junior discipline you know, newer kid on the block, but wait, music.
Influences and probably always has you know, technology and how that's done and mathematics and all of that will appear. And then, but look at what's been in the news. What has been one of the most exciting things in the news? I don't know if exciting is the right word hype, you know, the whole AI thing,
Scot Loyd: right.
Jakob Barnard: Cryptocurrency and AI, if you took the last five years, I've summarized what has been the, if we just ignore COVID for a minute the exciting things in the news when it comes to technology. Well, [00:05:00] okay, how does those influence everything else? What is, what is AI doing for you? Well, it's, it's being that research companion, that hopefully helper for assignments and those sorts of things, but it's, it's becoming it's, it's less.
Programming and more working with technology that it's, it's made it more accessible to the average individual. Now, there's probably still plenty out there. And we're like, okay, I keep hearing AI. I don't know anything about it, but we're getting students coming in now to our classrooms to our offices and say, hey, I tried this thing.
Regardless of what the topic is, that's being driven to by technology. So, well, we can't really divorce the 2, which, which is also kind of good. But, you know, that debates fit around there. There's definitely a different approaches in different places. How does computer science fit this? You know, we've debated a liberal arts a long time of, you know, simply business classes to those belong in a liberal arts [00:06:00] institution. I think that argument's finally gone away and over. Students demanded, hey, we want to know more about that. Students have said that about technology. We've integrated those into our different programs. And so, yes, there's certainly different places at different institutions and those sort of things.
I myself am amongst a group of faculty who were proponents that Computer science in the liberal arts is best defined at that institution. What makes sense? Each institution, you know, we've got potentially different mission, different values, and those should drive what Our course is a curriculum versus a specific set of, thou shalt teach this.
Well, what make, what makes sense for us? You know, take UGA for example. What are some of the things we are very well known for? Or that we pride ourselves on, regardless of what our program is. Well, our leadership courses, our education. And so, whatever our discipline is, We make sure [00:07:00] to incorporate aspects of that.
So speech, do you work with your students to take leadership roles or leadership content in your classes? Yeah, I bet you do.
Scot Loyd: Yeah, absolutely. And you make a great point there about the integration of the liberal arts education into what we do here at UJ and obviously rhetoric. Speech is one of the founding disciplines of a liberal arts education going all the way back to Aristotle, but you make a great case for computer technology as well.
Because I often tell my students who are reluctant, right? A lot of times, those speech classes they put off to the last semester before they graduate because, you know, speech is number 1 fear in America, right above death. And so people are reluctant. To practice those skills of public speaking, but what I tell my students is that no matter what your discipline might be, no matter what knowledge you have accumulated or what skills [00:08:00] you possess, if you lack the ability to communicate those skills and that knowledge effectively to a variety of audiences in a variety of settings, then you are going to be face high difficulty in succeeding.
In the world as it is presently. And I think computer technology has the same sort of application. So much of what we do via communication has moved online. And there are differences in communicating. Online versus communicating face to face, and both have their pros and their cons. So students need to be well versed in communicating in a variety of settings, using a variety of technological tools to help them get their message across.
And so that's when I had those students in the classroom, especially for public speaking. And they're like, you know, why, why do I have [00:09:00] to take this course? Well, you, you, you need to take it because as several have pointed out the inability to communicate in our present world highly truncates your ability to move forward with success.
And so if you want to be successful, whether you measure success by a flourishing life. Or a well rounded life, or if you measure success strictly in, in monetary value all of that you have to be able to communicate and communicate effectively to get that done.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. And one of the biggest things that technology employers Have come back and told you know, the faculty here, the University of Jamestown has not been.
Well, why don't you teach a class on this technical topic? This technical is the, the so called soft skills. And, you know, and I was thinking about that the other day. Back to, you know, kind of where I got into teaching was I'd worked at a [00:10:00] large international company aerospace company for, for many years, I kind of fallen into the report developer trainer guy.
It's quite around the country, leading week long training classes on how to be report developers. And I thought back to that, and I realized 1 of the things I can always said was. I can teach anybody the technical aspects. If they can't grasp why I'm doing this and how to gather that information and convey information to other people, we're wasting our time here.
And so it's not that there was the technical programming the, you know, the working with the tools. We can do any of that sort of thing. And it's been the same thing. I see that argument all the time. Online of, you know, kind of goes maybe an Intel to 1 of your topics here down the road. But, you know, just the general value of education is well, what are we teaching?
Okay. Well, that programming language, it's going to be out of date by the time you graduate in [00:11:00] 4 years, you know, what? It doesn't matter because if we're incorporating all of those different elements of how to work with other people, how to do. Dreaded group work, those sort of things. That's what we're trying to be.
How to learn and how to be a lifelong learner,
Scot Loyd: right?
Jakob Barnard: Is what we're hopefully imparting, but you mix those those soft skills. It's funny, you mentioned the, the different ways of communicating online, recognizing those differences and then the generational differences you know, depending on the age of the person you're working with.
Send them a text message instead of calling them. They're going to be annoyed, however, you take somebody you know, gen X or younger, and you call them instead of texting them. Don't put that in email. I want documentation. But, you know, I'll get back to you when I get back to you, you know, recognizing those [00:12:00] different that can really change your tenure.
At a, at a company. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's the annoying person who just always calls instead of, or, wow, that person's fantastic to work with. I've always got notes, so on and so forth, where the person might be pursuing the same level of competency, the same level of working, and so. It's the bigger picture that they're conveying kind of with how we mix things.
And so regardless of what your discipline and subject is, it's conveying that ability to learn.
Scot Loyd: I think you're exactly right. And and I want to continue the conversation along the lines of 1st. I want to ask you about your particular discipline and how you see that evolving in the coming year. Certainly with a I, it's going to present some challenges.
But but how do you see the discipline of computer technology changing and adapting to the needs of students in the [00:13:00] future? I want us to speak to the general understanding of liberal arts. Where do you see liberal arts going in the future? But let's start by talking about your discipline. Discipline.
1st of all, in computer technology, what are some of the challenges that you see on the horizon? What are some of the changes that you and your colleagues are being confronted with right now? What And how do you plan to meet the needs of a changing student constituency in the future?
Jakob Barnard: Okay, well, the biggest short term challenge right now, and I don't know if this is not necessarily a new challenge, but if we can't even agree on where we're going right now as a discipline.
And what I mean by that is you've got the CEO of NVIDIA, you know, large hardware manufacturer. Makes graphics cards and things like that. Helps produce a lot of the computing power that powers all of the cool things that are, are [00:14:00] coming out. Oh you know, we're saying, nope, students won't even need a program in the future.
We don't need to teach program anymore because computers can do it for us. We've got the opposite side of folks who are saying we don't teach people to program Wow, we're, we're, we're in big trouble when something actually breaks. And so figuring out what the next steps are is the big challenge.
Right now, we've got amazing amounts of computing power more than we've ever had a lot of, you know, kind of the next step of technologies. All coming to fruition right now, the, the possibility of true AI I'm not saying necessarily sentient robot overlords, maybe not quite yet. But if, if you think about transcripts, just simple audio transcripts, feeding those into a tool like chat GPT, and you get something reasonable back, that's new.
That's new. Wildly. It irks me quite a bit. You know, 18 months ago I was [00:15:00] finishing up my, two years ago I was finishing up my dissertation. The level of accuracy with automatically generated transcripts two years ago, I spent a lot of hours manually re listening and fixing those transcripts.
Wouldn't have to do that now at all.
Scot Loyd: Right.
Jakob Barnard: So what would that mean though? That means spending my time somewhere else. So the whole concept of, well, if we're, if we're embracing the technology, how are we going to work with it? Will it change things? Will it shift things like jobs? Absolutely. Teaching, you know writing and evaluating writing.
It's shifting already. Where do we put our emphasis on? Programming. Is it possible that we can use AI tools to generate code? Absolutely. So evaluating code, we have to shift what we're doing there of, okay, no, show me, show me that you can follow the logic of what's going on here. Say, you know, a similar thing with a, an English essay.
Can you [00:16:00] follow the structure of what's been put together here? And so as, as a discipline, we're figuring out how to use that and where we're really going. You know, our computer is going to be more the, Wild animal that needs to be wrangled or the the, the horse on the long cross country track.
That's your buddy. The entire time the more the more positive viewpoint is it's going to be our buddy. Going along and whether you're the highly technical person or the please don't make me do much with the computer whatsoever, that ease of use is what makes us more willing to accept technology.
So ease of use, and it makes sense to us and how we're using it. That's what I see is figuring out kind of the short term and the long term. The continue to be that companion enhancing our lives and whatever it is that we're working on is hopefully where we're going with things.
Scot Loyd: Do you see some [00:17:00] bigger challenges with students coming into institutions of higher learning specifically here at the University of Jamestown?
I know that I've experienced this in my discipline a lot of times when I give instruction about creating or generating some sort of speech, whether it's a persuasive presentation and informative presentation Or just some sort of impromptu presentation where students are required to sort of speak extemporaneously off the top of their head.
A lot of my students, what I'm experiencing with this generation that I haven't experienced in the past, at least not to this extent is difficulty in being creative in generating content. From their experience, and I have a theory that perhaps this is due to a dependence upon Google and other search engines, where the imagination isn't being cultivated, [00:18:00] at least to the extent that it was in the past, because First of all, we have all of this information at our fingertips, and so there's no need really to think or to engage the imagination in a creative fashion because all of this information exists.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely, I can kind of give 2 examples on that, but the summarization is our research tools have gotten really, really good. If you think about to the days of your you know, the Alta Vista's, Yahoo's, the early days of the Internet, it took a lot of renditions and a lot of effort. You had to very, very carefully search what you Put in that search string boats around this plus this, and then, okay, first revision.
I'm not finding what I was looking for. Second revision, so on and so forth. That careful structuring and still maybe not even always finding what you're, we had to continue thinking of a process. What's the next step? Well, you type something into Google. [00:19:00] Now we're getting that interpretation. You scroll down Facebook, you're getting an interpretation of this is what you're probably looking forward.
Scot Loyd: Right.
Jakob Barnard: Which that that's a side for it. We can look at in a minute too. But these algorithms search engines, tools like that have gotten really, really easy. An example for my discipline is we're learning in the last couple of years that we've really got to start being more aggressive in teaching file management.
Students do no longer have a concept of I store the file in my documents. I move it to my network drive. I copy the image over here that this hierarchical way that we structure things on computers. The concept's gone.
Scot Loyd: Yeah.
Jakob Barnard: Why? We save everything in 1 spot. We type search when we're looking for it. And most of the time it shows up
Scot Loyd: it's
Jakob Barnard: tagged with a date or a file or something like that.
So think about that in any context. [00:20:00] How many phone numbers do you have memorized anymore?
Scot Loyd: Zero.
Jakob Barnard: Right. I've got a couple of my parents phone number because it was mine growing up. Yeah, I've got that one. My wife's number, my number. My son asked me last week, well, what's my phone number?
I never bothered memorizing that 1, you've only had the phone for a few months. So you know, so the tools have gotten so good that you're asking what, what happens when we hit a snake, right? We go to Google search it. We don't, so I'm pretty confident to say that regardless of what your discipline is at an institution like ours, it's figuring out how to come up with a process
Scot Loyd: is
Jakob Barnard: one of the things that we are all trying to cover in all of our classes.
So, you know, whether you're a IT help desk person, okay, a person says it's broke, you go back and forth trying to dig into what that means. What happens when your, your [00:21:00] speech coach says, You need to rework on that. Come back. Right? Hey, do I go to chat? You can say, write me a better speech. I could, it's not going to get your point across the what do you need to fix and following that process to revise, expand, you know, maybe come to you and talk, right?
Hey, Scot, what did I miss here? Yeah. And then that back and forth. Exactly. So while you're doing that with a broken computer or a speech that could use improvement, it's that back and forth that process that. Our tools have gotten so good that it's just not a flex to skill. It doesn't seem to be as much of a flex skill.
It's certainly not a knocking cage while we're saying something's missing there, it's a, we lean on our tools. Yes. Let's use this technology, but we're missing something in the process there too.
Scot Loyd: And I think this is where. A liberal arts [00:22:00] education is so helpful because you're exactly right. The tools of technology have become so efficient that students can now go or anyone can can access this technology and then regurgitate.
Very easily information, but there is a difference. And we all know this as educators in regurgitating information and actually understanding the information and how to apply it in a variety of settings and circumstances. So, yeah, I've
Jakob Barnard: used but I've used that class of as the point of. Look, when I'm grading this, what I want to see is you rub two brain cells together.
I can look this information up myself. I want to see what idea you had. Right. And that's, that's kind of the problem though with some of the tools is we see like things like chat GPT, you'll hear a lot of [00:23:00] faculty really worried about it things like that. And, you know, there's something to be worried about it, but to students, they don't see using it as something wrong.
They simply see it as another tool. Oh, it's a different Google. I got an answer. Here's your answer. You want it.
Scot Loyd: And
Jakob Barnard: so that's what we got to focus on. Really, the liberal arts, whether you're talking specifically computer science history, whatever, is not what tool did you use But what's the application?
What's the next 3 steps after that?
Scot Loyd: Yes, and and that's and and the liberal arts, right? It teaches us to ask questions rather than always providing the right answer. And so technology gives us the right answers, but it doesn't help us in asking questions that lead to breakthrough that leads to innovation and invention.
And new discoveries that progress humanity forward. And so when we think [00:24:00] about reading the classics or thinking about some of these difficult issues that are facing the world in my discipline, especially specifically when we talk about speech and debate, specifically debate where students are forced.
To sometimes articulate a position with which they might disagree and to learn more about the opponent. This helps cultivate those critical thinking skills that sometimes we miss if we just have a a quest for the right answer. So, when students are. Participating in an activity like debate or in an activity like a classroom discussion where their preconceived ideas are challenged that opens up the creativity and in a field like yours with computer technology.
I imagine that you can find technicians or people that are adequate or competent with the [00:25:00] technology. for having me. Are probably a dime a dozen, but those content creators, those that know how to apply the technology in an innovative fashion, those are the ones that are moving the industry forward.
And I think those are the types of people that a liberal arts education produces.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely, and I'd say so the cross disciplinary effort is really 1 of the things that we've been talking about that. What's what's really interesting is that the reverse is also true computer science as it's got grown and developed as a discipline and.
Started formulating at sub disciplines, you know, IT, cybersecurity, so on and so forth. CS plus X where the X is another discipline, is now part of the, what you should have in your disc, in your curriculum as well. So the, I, that, that outside idea of mixing other things together and mixing computing into other things has, you know, [00:26:00] Influence the discipline as well.
There's that recognition of you can be the best program on earth. But if. Nobody clicks the button on the left, they always click on the right. You know, those sort of human computer interaction. 1 of those fascinating fields. It's not my area of study, but I love looking at it. 1 of the really fun jobs I had for a brief period of time was director of data science at an eCommerce company which reported to the marketing team.
So a lot of what I did was marketing analytics, things like A, B testing, where you test the blue button, yellow button, which do people click on more you know, okay, you're advertising this ad works, this one doesn't how people react to all of that can get really, really technical. But it can be also very, very subjective.
Blue is great. Red is bad. Sort of those elements. So, understanding how to look at other areas definitely is one of the, the big benefits there. The example I [00:27:00] always like to give, again, the whole five year plan, four majors is not necessarily a solid career path. But one benefit it did give me is I graduated with a history of politics science degree.
All right, cool, because I kept taking those classes for fun. I was here 5 years. They pointed out. I really should graduate someday. And then I went and got a job at Microsoft and they're like, well, how? Well, I did have a majority of a com degree. Good chunk of a CS degree part of an degree but I was able to walk in and with that interview committee demonstrate that.
Well, yes, and how to apply this topic, this topic, talking with a variety of people the customers don't always make sense when we're trying to troubleshoot their software. So that, and then the company that had this software is enterprise resource planning software. So. Would be doing anything. So, the broad application definitely applied.
Now, I do give the [00:28:00] disclaimer of the four people on the interviewing committee, two were GME alums, so said, oh, you had this class for this professor you know, accounting, for example, and I said, yep, all three semesters there's two. If you take the first one twice, it counts as three. Apparently homework needed to be turned in once in a while.
I did better on my second round for that. But it also shows, though, how computer science or computing is being influenced by everything else. So you apply something to a thing, well, that thing can apply itself on back, too. You know, where was it Charleston, for example they started working with technology in their music program and then ended up with a whole music tech Probably a major, I don't remember the exact progress, but not an area that I would have thought of mixing together, you know, sure we use technology and music, you know, sound, light, so on and so forth to enhance shows and performances, but the mixing [00:29:00] back and forth was just a really fascinating example of a liberal arts mix and unexpected outcomes to kind of mix those things together.
Scot Loyd: Absolutely. And I think you bring up a lot of good points. And by the way, for those of you that are tuning in, you're listening to Jimmie office hours. My name is Scot, along with my friend Jakob, and we both serve at the University of Jamestown, North Dakota, and we're having a conversation about the liberal arts, and we're going to take a short break.
And on the other side of this break, we're going to continue our conversation. And Jakob, I. I want us to talk about some of the problems that the liberal arts is facing in the next few years. As well as I want to hear your answer to the objection that many students have that I hear from a lot of students.
And that's this idea on return on investment for a liberal arts education. So, we'll, we'll come back with more of this conversation [00:30:00] on liberal arts education on Jimmie Office hours in just a moment. Stay tuned.
And welcome back to Jimmie office hours. My name is Scot, along with my friend Jakob. And we are professors at the University of Jamestown. And we are both privileged to invest in the lives of students on a daily basis. Jakob in the discipline of computer technology. And I serve as a professor of communication studies and speech and debate coach.
And Jakob, we, we certainly share a lot of praise for a liberal arts education, but I think we would be remiss if we didn't [00:31:00] talk about some of the problems as well. As the liberal arts continue to evolve and change, I know that you and I, along with our colleagues, we're having conversations about what belongs in the discipline of the liberal arts.
And certainly you have that foundation that you articulated well in the last segment going all the way back to to Aristotle. And I often tell people that the reason that I, that I teach at a private university and, and, and the University of Jamestown is a private Christian university is due to 2 people, right?
Probably it was Aristotle and Jesus. So that's the reason why we are here as a, a, a institution of higher education from a, a, a Christian heritage perspective. But there are lots of conversations about the liberal arts when we talk about the canon, the classics that are are taught what belongs in the canon and and the fact that that we do [00:32:00] have issues that a lot of the classics that are read and taught in institutions of higher education especially embracing the liberal arts happened to be from dead white men.
And so we know that in in the world and in the culture there are lots of other perspectives that we have yet to hear from. So, moving forward, just just sort of surveying the, the, the landscape when it comes to liberal arts education, generally, what evolutions do you see taking place? What changes in your estimation need to take place?
And what conversations do we need to have?
Jakob Barnard: So, I was going to start with the last 1, the being willing to have conversations is 1 of the biggest challenges that we have. And I don't think it's a new 1 just based on notes that I've read from previous department chairs meetings they had 20 years ago. You know, whether or not IT was an appropriate [00:33:00] discipline at a liberal art, appropriate major liberal art institution, we're having the same arguments, but being able to have those conversations, because it really came out.
So, in my, my dissertation I did qualitatively, which meant, you know, interviewing people and things like that. And it was, it was focused on cybersecurity, but it really ended up being more broad you know, cybersecurity in, you know liberal arts institutions. So interviewing faculty, liberal arts institutions from across the country.
And when 1 thing became abundantly clear that I, the most shocking aspect of that was how much semantics made a difference.
Scot Loyd: Yeah,
Jakob Barnard: You know, these days we can kind of, you know, my bias coming out here. Cyber security is a life skill. It's just a thing we need to be aware of and do. So did every university that I interviewed have some sort of cyber security in their curriculum?
Absolutely. Did every university call it that? No. Yeah. You'd have a university like ours [00:34:00] and we're like, yeah, then we need a class of that. Students said so. You know, we call ourselves a Liberal arts oriented or liberal arts tradition where preparatory school where 1 of the liberal arts schools.
I talked to you out on the East Coast is no, no, no, we don't call it that. We'd never get it through our curricular council, their faculty body. It sounds to career prep. We, so we call it this same course, same outcomes. But so being really just kind of for me, I'm like, well, they won't even talk about it if it sounds to career prep.
Nope. Okay. Here at least, you know, we've had some certainly lively passionate discussions on, for example, our gen ed curriculum, but we'll at least have those conversations and we might agree, disagree Win, lose, whatever you want it. So having that discourse, if we go back to the origins of liberal arts, that whole be able to have a discourse is one of the points.
Even if, [00:35:00] even if we're shifting what we might encompass in a liberal arts based or inspired institution we need to be able to have that, that civil discourse, which is so, but the civil discourse that that's kind of where I was going with that future problems. It's never been a great thing. I mean yellow journalism and things like that is, it's been a thing since, well, probably we started putting things down on stone tablets, but technology has made it worse.
Scot Loyd: And
Jakob Barnard: what I mean by that is things like social media,
Scot Loyd: right?
Jakob Barnard: We might have a bad or sensational article or skewed or a great article that doesn't get blasted all over social media. So we get our news. And then we think about these algorithms. They are designed to show us things that we might like.
Scot Loyd: Yes.
Jakob Barnard: So if we spend time looking at an article on one topic, you know what we see?
More articles on that same topic. And then I'm sure you cover it in your com classes and whatnot, about those whole [00:36:00] echo chambers.
Scot Loyd: Yeah. They're
Jakob Barnard: way easier. Do not accidentally where, where do we get some of our best outcomes or best ideas? Those conflict of ideas where we see opposing viewpoints can discuss it.
And so we, we. It becomes very, very difficult. Social media is just really escalated that in because it's far quicker and easier to share whatever our viewpoint is.
Scot Loyd: Yes. And, and you talk about those echo chambers and, it leads to confirmation bias, right? If so, if you're living in a, if you're living in an echo chamber and the algorithm starts feeding you what you want to hear and what you want to see, then you become convinced right through that fallacy of confirmation bias that your position is right.
And I want to point out that just because we are college professors doesn't mean that we aren't susceptible to those same sorts [00:37:00] of fallacies. And that's where the the institution and the faculty have to come together and have those difficult conversations. Because as someone who obviously has made a career out of coaching a debate, I see, I see great benefit in the clash of ideas.
And one of the things that the echo chamber of social media doesn't provide us the opportunity to do is to have that pushback, meaningful pushback where someone says, no, I don't think you're right. And here's why. And one of the things that we endeavor, we don't always get it right. But we endeavor to train our students in when they are practicing the activity of debate is you're not allowed to disagree with someone until you can first articulate their position to their satisfaction.
And what that does, it helps you avoid the confirmation bias of assuming that [00:38:00] you know what the other position is and setting up the straw man fallacy and knocking it over very easily because when you go through the hard work. Of attempting to understand the opposing position. A lot of times you realize, oh, we're not as far apart as I thought we were.
And yes, this is an incredibly complex and difficult situation and circumstance and issue that we're trying to solve here. So, maybe if we collaborate, we're Collaborate and work together. Maybe we can, we can solve this issue instead of trying to set up a competition of ideas that you're right. And, and I'm right and you're wrong.
And this is the problem that we see in our politics today in America.
Jakob Barnard: Yeah. Or, or, you know, what examples that comes to mind is the play of the devil's advocate,
Scot Loyd: right.
Jakob Barnard: Foreign department, got an individual on there who loves to do this. [00:39:00] Generally, for very good reason. Did we think an idea all the way through?
Well, what if, you know, or, you know, what could go wrong? And with technology, that's one of the skills we really we tend to be very poor at in computing is what could go wrong, you know, adding it, making the passwords tougher and things like that, you know, let's put Wi Fi in it. We figured that out before that it fortunately, it's still popular enough that some of my students get the reference, but the old Jurassic part, well, you know, whether or not we could before, whether or not we should that's definitely, you know, technology, it's, it's nothing new, but hopefully students coming out of our institutions Or doing the second, third, fourth.
Well, okay. How could somebody misuse that? Take some of the AI generation. Do you have a wild guess at some of the first things that got disabled in AI generating [00:40:00] tool? Inappropriate images.
Scot Loyd: Yeah.
Jakob Barnard: Why? What's 1 of the 1st things that the Internet facilitates inappropriate usage, right? In fact, that
Scot Loyd: was that was the application that pushed the technology forward.
If I remember. Correct.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. 1 of it or just. People like to see if they can break stuff. Cortana, Microsoft's solution. The first rendition of that as a chatbot online years and years ago before they, you know, built it into Windows took less than an hour for the internet to turn it into a wildly racist chatbot.
Scot Loyd: Hmm.
Jakob Barnard: Wow. So, but, hey, we thought, you know, can we do this and let's see what happens. We need to ask those questions. We need to have that debate. So I come up with this great app that's going to solve all of the problems for tracking liberal arts things. Now, having a discussion with you and like, well, yeah, but could you use it for something else?[00:41:00]
Oh, okay. You switched what track my thinking is on. Right. And those are the sort of skills that we really, really need to be pushing, regardless of what our discipline is. Technology, we can pick on it all day long with with AI because it seems like every day there's a new article coming out of how, you know, Or something went wrong with AI or Microsoft's thing is gonna world domination was it to answer whatever the scenario is, okay, well, we need to have these discussions is, is that a problem?
Scot Loyd: Yeah, you're, you're, you're exactly right because that's one of the, that's one of the skills that we, we, we endeavor to teach in, in debate is when you're on the negation, when you're not advocating for a particular position, your job is to poke holes right in the affirmative position. So they're affirming the resolution, or they're proposing a plan with all of [00:42:00] these benefits and something that the affirmative.
Obviously, it's not their job to do so, but it is the job of the negation to bring up unintended consequences. And when you can work through those unintended consequences, and as the affirmation, if you're advocating for this position, if you're going to represent your position well, and in a persuasive manner, then you need to anticipate what those objections are going to be and have a good answer for those questions.
Unintended consequences of this, this great thing that you're proposing. And I think a liberal arts education when applied and, and practice well cultivates that sort of thinking.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely 1 of the other examples that kind of comes to mind for this is I didn't really get it till years later, but I had a manager.
When I was an IT help desk admin that always insisted you bring them three solutions to a problem, which, [00:43:00] well, okay, you know, antivirus or whatever the case is no, I found the solution to this one, which is, no, you find me two others and how they could also work. So that really became a challenge because, well, you decide on the solution.
You've got the pros and cons for this. You know, why do I need to think that hard about these other things? Well, by exploring different avenues, whether or not you agree with them, you find more evidence for this is right, but the cost or whatever the stereo is, you, you, you further emphasize why the path you pick, but you understand it better.
And it took me probably the whole year of working with that guy to really get why he did that. I always said it was, I just need three things and you give me three, we pick the right. Okay, fine, we'll pick three, you know, and some things it was that straightforward. You put the effort to one and you're like, well, it's so clear that.
We could do this or this, but we're not really [00:44:00] gonna bother explaining that. Yep, that's fine. But it's still, it forced you to do that. What's the next step? And so if we kinda circle back around to what's the problem with the student handing in a chat GPT generated speech or, or assignment chunk of code?
Did they think about the next steps? You, you look through it and you know, the, the tools aren't quite there yet where it doesn't plug the different sections very well through. And so have you thought this all the way through? And what's the next steps that the computers aren't very good at yet?
Scot Loyd: Right. Absolutely. And that's why this sort of education is needed to, to help students think through the implications of new technology. And speaking of students. We've got a few moments left in our time together today and Jimmie office hours. So I wanted to ask you this question because I hear this objection a lot.
We're starting to hear [00:45:00] it from politicians in the United States and, and certainly I, I think we can all agree that the cost of higher education is out of control. And that certainly is a problem that needs to be addressed. In our nation, but what you're hearing from a lot of students and their families today is that the cost of a liberal arts education doesn't equal the benefit.
And so students are asking, what is my return on investment? I'm here to learn a skill or to learn. A particular set of knowledge and information that I can apply in the world so that I can get a job so that I can can make a comfortable living. So why do I have to read that book? Why do I have to make that speech?
Why do I have to think through these particular problems if they don't apply [00:46:00] to what I want to do in the real world?
Jakob Barnard: Yeah, so we've got a few things stacking together and then some of the classic examples of years and years of a rhetoric of. I did my education, I paid for it just fine from older generations where it was a 10th of the cost.
And so, you know, we don't make that adjustment. And then decades of career counselors secondary ed counselors saying college is the only way to go. I'm probably unintentionally devaluing anything else, right? So that the whole concept I'm a failure if I don't do this. So then we've got the, you know, 20, 30 years of students who there is a percentage that don't graduate go for a little bit.
Out of crude debt have felt it's worthless and these aren't silent people, nor should they be. And so you get this, this out there that, well, I did a bit of college and it didn't benefit me, but I lined it up with a lot of debt.
Scot Loyd: [00:47:00] Yeah,
Jakob Barnard: and so it was, we're not necessarily comparing apples to apples here, but that is, that is the, I paid for mine.
I got a lot of debt, nothing out of it. That's some of the groundwork we've developed the last 20, 30 years. And now with politics, we've got a rise in, I think it's best being described as anti intellectualism.
Scot Loyd: Yes.
Jakob Barnard: The, you know, try not to go down that rabbit hole too far but, you know, sensationalist social media.
The college has become a consumer driven thing. I want my immediate gratification. I paid for this, I get this. Whereas, you know, higher ed in general is like, that's not quite how it works, buddy. But we will add some extra things because we want you to keep us going here. So, liberal arts, we typically don't do a very good job at selling the immediate gratification.
It's there you can immediately leave here and apply your thing to anything. That's what [00:48:00] I tell perspective students, you know you can leave here and you can get a job as as a programmer. But you want to be the barista is keeping the Wi Fi going. You're capable of doing that too. Whatever. And so that flexibility, we're going to boil down liberal arts, one word, which is pretty much impossible, but I'd use the term flexibility.
You know, that that broad base we can apply or think anything. So pick a random major here. at UGA, how many different names could we give that program? You know, computer science, computer science, software engineering, so on and so forth. Yep, could be any of those, depending on how you plug your elements together and interface with other things out there.
So our graduates aren't qualified for just one thing. Now, these days we have to compete against trade schools. And that sounds kind of odd, but that's our 30, 20, [00:49:00] 30 years of baggage of rhetoric, devaluing those when college is not necessarily for everybody. Boy, did I waste a buttload of money being here 5 years, taking history classes were fun, knowing that I probably wasn't going to get a history job.
So that's that, that also the traditional, you know, oh, you just take basket weaving courses. It seems like I wasted my time doing that when I put it that way. Right? Right. I took all these history classes and I didn't do a job in them. What did those history classes teach me?
Scot Loyd: Exactly.
Jakob Barnard: Each of the different areas.
So I was able to go into somewhere and say, no, you should hire me. And then from, you know, a few months at Microsoft, then I ended up being a consultant. I get paid to fly around the country and work on their software and so on and so forth. That the application, how you apply your education is something [00:50:00] immediate.
That you can do as soon as you leave here, or even while you're here, and we don't always do a good job at selling that. We, we, we sell where we are, you know, a little bit who we are, our identity the community, the community aspect, University of, we do wonderful at, at selling that part, and those are all absolutely true.
Wonderful things. That's how we recruit students here. But emphasizing the outcomes. Here's what you could do when you leave. We're not always the best at that. And so that whole thing going, that's the other thing I always see online, particularly with computer science or technology related majors is as soon as you learn that it's dated, or they're teaching program languages from five years ago.
And then you know what? Some of that's absolutely true. Professor Sand has been here. since the 80s, was my professor as a student here more than 20 years ago, and but [00:51:00] is still teaching the same program language, C But it's not about the programming language that the whole point of that introductory programming course sequence that he teaches he could, you could teach Python, whatever a different program.
It doesn't matter. It's what is the process? What is the thought process behind what you're doing? How do you apply that thought process elsewhere? I know we're running short of time, you know, just to. Pull an example from continuing that on. I've been at the, the large aerospace company, oh, six, seven years at that point and got asked to fix a report.
Going through the code, if you're, I, I spent about three, four days going through it, getting very mad at the person who'd originally done it. There was chunks that were done weird, incorrect but no notes anywhere. And one of the things Professor Sand always harps on his document and your stuff, but I'm like, wow, it's clearly never in a classroom.
You're just mad. Fifth day, I [00:52:00] finally get to about the end of it. I think I fixed all the stuff. I found some notes at the very end. They were signed by me. It had been my work from 4 years before I'd finally been at the company long enough to forgotten some of my old work and I'm like, oh, so this person did actually have a class.
And he had not applied the lesson that was from the class properly in his career. And you know, what it's. It's been a little bit better ever since that yeah, but so how do you apply things to other things is a really, really vague sentence. But if we're getting 1 thing on liberal arts and selling that thing, we're also the media gratification society.
I want my level up. I want my gamification. We just don't sell it as the, you know, we talk with the lifelong contributor to society over the course of your life, getting a college degree will make you X number of dollars [00:53:00] more. The studies are there. The research are there that shows that's still true, but that doesn't help me when I graduate.
And then that bill comes due in six, 12 months, whatever it is. If you look at it, you're like, wow, that's a really big number. And you're looking at your paycheck and you're like, Who's FICA and why, why was I robbed? You know, when you're comparing those numbers, that doesn't help, but what can we do with that?
How can we change it? We have a lot of options when we're graduating with a liberal arts degree. So,
Scot Loyd: yeah. And I think that's well said. And I think a lot of this comes from generations where we have been convinced here in the United States and, and even globally that the, the pathway to success. Is a specialist whereas I think the future has changed and even the present is demonstrating that the day of the specialist is, is bygone.
And what you need to [00:54:00] do now is be a generalist, perhaps have a, a specialist knowledge and skill set, but then have a generalist where you can walk into any situation, into any circumstance. And speak intelligently on a variety of sex to a particular person and share that information with them. For instance, if you are a plumber, right?
Absolutely a needed skill set in our world today, but the. customer base and the clientele that you're able to serve might be limited if you don't have a general application of knowing how to speak intelligently to a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. Can you sell your services Effectively and charge a premium based upon what you know, and what you understand [00:55:00] about the changing world.
And so when we talk about return on investment, that is what a liberal arts. Education offers the student is that you emerge from the institution, not only with a specialty skill set that you can apply to make money. In a specific sector, but the application as you talked about beautifully, being able to go into a variety of worlds and be effective and successful in those worlds.
Jakob Barnard: I would also say though too, too, that it's, it's not just those variety of things that we can do wider variety of things that we can do. It's also recognition of limitations. We have had exposures to things that we have not. Done well. And so you are, you're going to go and start your business you've discovered that coding you absolutely loathe coding.
You might be, they'll do all the graphics keep all the computers running but coding, you, you loathe it, right? Okay. [00:56:00] Are you going to do that for your business? Are you going to try to find somebody and be able to have the knowledge to vet them, work with them? You will build your team based on your limitations.
Because no matter how independent and introverted we are. Part of being in a society is you're going to have to interact with people somehow, some way. And so, knowing your limitations, getting exposed to things that, maybe I'm not the best at that, is something we're also doing. We don't necessarily talk about that much, that as much either, but those barriers, those limitations, exposure to that, exposure to ideas that make us uncomfortable failure, makes us uncomfortable.
But I'll tell you, I learned the most about management the year I was editor in chief of The Collegian here, because I did everything wrong, or I did a lot of things wrong. I did not manage. I was instead of a editing, I was more of a manager and managing people. I carried the lessons from that year forward into any job as [00:57:00] a, as a team lead, so on and so forth.
I learned a lot of things by not doing it right.
Scot Loyd: Right.
Jakob Barnard: And, and that's, you know, Additionally, what we're, we're convene here.
Scot Loyd: Yeah. And that, that gives, that gives you an opportunity as a student here in a safe space where the stakes aren't as high as they will be in, in the work world where you can fail and you can fail effectively because you're exactly right.
We do learn the most from our mistakes. Well, Jakob, this has been a delightful conversation and we're not finished. We're going to continue this in future episodes of Jimmie office hours. And do me a favor. If you like the content, if you benefit from the content, share this podcast with a friend or family member, or perhaps a perspective student who is considering coming to the university of Jamestown or continuing their education in some other.
Institution of higher education like share and [00:58:00] subscribe to our podcast. And we appreciate you doing that. So Jakob, thank you very much. And we'll see you on the next episode of Jimmie office hours.
This has been Jimmie office hours where academics talk about academics. If you enjoyed the program, be sure to like share, subscribe and rate our program. We'll. I'll see you next time on Jimmie office hours.