Scot Loyd: [00:00:00] Welcome to Jimmy 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 Jimmy office hours. My name is Scott along with my colleague, Jakob Barnard from the University of Jamestown and Jakob.
How are you today?
Jakob Barnard: Well, getting back from a little family trip. So trying to get back two things and figure out what all I'm behind on, which is kind of the name of the game these days when we're coming up to finals and, and that sort of thing.
Scot Loyd: Yeah, this is a, the, the crazy time of year for academics and students alike.
It it's, it's a challenging time. For all of us and we're going to sort of be talking about that stress that we feel at a a [00:01:00] liberal arts institution and part of the reason that we started doing this podcast was to sort of Give a a defense of a liberal arts education And why we think it's important and why we think it is still valuable in today's world And so today we're going to talk about the opportunity to fail and a lot of times when we say that, you know, people sort of have a different kind of reaction, but failure if you've lived any amount of time on this planet, you know that failure is a fact of life.
And what a liberal arts institution like the University of Jamestown give students the opportunity to do is. By presenting a challenging and and rigorous curriculum, it gives students the opportunity to to practice and to fail in a safe environment because we can learn a lot [00:02:00] from failure, and I think that's a great opportunity and a great reason why we should continue to invest in the liberal arts and in rigorous curriculum.
Education, even if students don't see a, an immediate.Direct connection to what they will be doing in the real world.
Jakob Barnard: Well, and if you expand that, even, even just think of the, the term failure, you, you say the word there's emotion tied to that. You hear failure, you feel bad. I failed at something. And so one of the things we're trying to do in a liberal arts thing is, you know, just point out that failure is not necessarily a bad thing.
It can be in some context, but then what did you learn from that? So taking that failure and what can you do with it? That's part of what we're trying to teach as well. That yes, you, you will fail. You should fail. I don't know about you, Scott, but I know some of the best things that have [00:03:00] helped me out in my career to date have stemmed from things I didn't do well.
I, I failed. I, you know, I. Bounced around from undergraduate majors. You know, that's, you know, not quite what I want to do. That's not quite what I want to do it. Whoa. That's really not going to be good if I keep trying to do that. And then, but figured out by doing what didn't go well, what I could have more focused on and have the opportunity.
And so. But we seem to be struggling with that. We, we automatically hear failure and you know, what, what's the, the pop phrases these days, you know, too big to fail or, you know, we've got to, everybody's got to succeed well, the immediacy of that success is where I think people get a little confused and well, well, they didn't automatically get that they didn't automatically go out and get that job.
Doesn't mean it's a, it's a long term failure and that, that immediacy, we want that immediacy and [00:04:00] struggling with that is kind of one of the things hopefully that we're imparting to our students here.
Scot Loyd: I think that's exactly right. And you speak from a unique perspective because you are now teaching at an institution that you attended as an undergraduate.
And so, I think sharing your experiences is very helpful to students because I think sometimes students enter institutions of higher education and they are convinced either by their parents or by society that they've got to have everything figured out. When in all actuality college that period of time is a great time to sort of experiment and see if there are things that you might enjoy learning about and where your passions are at.
And then, and then once discovering your passions, having the opportunity to pursue those passions. In a safe environment. So [00:05:00] talk a little bit about your experience as an undergrad. You talked about how you bounced around from, from major to major. What were some of the things that you learned as an undergrad at UJ?
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. So as I always tell advisees, I kind of use it as a cautionary tale. I, I was here for five years as an undergrad partially because I loved it. Partially because I had four different majors and attendance there, there is a relevancy there in passing classes. But it it also was, was very, very useful to me.
At the time, this was before we had an IT major. I've always kind of been more of a, an IT by passion of the computer science types. We had a CS program, oh yeah, I don't want to do programming. And so A couple of renditions with that. And that being freshman year really learned that college I might actually have to apply myself high school, I, you know, [00:06:00] finally switched to the honors track senior year, but that didn't really apply myself at the time and college was the first time I started to run into some challenges academically and.
Learning how to, you know, I had to retake a couple of classes, you know, attendance had something to do with it and you know, striving to do that work, but also started to figure out, wow, that is not what I want to be spending my nights and weekends on was that topic. And so shifting a little bit of that, you know, doing some accounting for those systems, I've got three fourths of a comm degree as well.
I, I dropped that one cause I realized I'd been there five years and the bill was coming someday and maybe I should get a job, you know, they're not going to give me a doctorate if I'm there seven. So, you know, looking at that, but one of the other things that kind of point out is I learned just as much at a liberal arts institution outside of the classroom as they ever did inside the classroom.
And I really [00:07:00] think all of our students should be looking for those opportunities. I did a lot of the extra stuff I'd really wanted to get involved in college. One of the reasons I went to a smaller liberal arts school versus a large state school. One of the best things my parents did was have me two of those schools back to back.
We went to it was Jamestown college at the time, one weekend, very next weekend, we went to a very, very large state school or the other direction. Yes, seeing 40, 000 students change classes at 10 AM helped me decide where I wanted to go. But then when I was there, I had opportunities to get involved with things like student Senate did that.
I did the the, the collegiate, the college newspapers website for a year. The next year I got the opportunity to be editor in chief and all of those different little aspects. So I got to learn management, communication journalism. All while taking a bunch of tech classes, I did graduating with the history, political science major.[00:08:00]
Yeah. You're like, wait, that's, that's not even the department you're now chair of. No, but I went and got a job at Microsoft. Why? Because of those variety of skills and learning how to not do things, I was able to communicate very well, what I could do and demonstrate that I can learn how to do just about anything.
Give me an opportunity here. And that, that's how my. Career progressed for a good you know, 10 plus years. So I decided I really kind of liked that teaching thing. I kind of bounced around at the company training that I was at the large aerospace company doing report developer training. And I ended up in a tech job regardless in a little bit of that sort of software development aspects.
But I thought I really liked the, about the running the corporate training classes, spending a week. Teaching people. So that's what I said. All right, well, let's go get a master's and landed me back here. When I [00:09:00] completed that, an opportunity came to apply for a teaching job and I was able to come back and they let me.
So the, the failures led to success, certainly when you put it in that context.
Scot Loyd: And I think you make a great point because very rare is the individual that has a straight line trajectory from what they intended to do to what they end up doing for most of us. And looking back, right? And we have as.
As older individuals in society, we have the perspective of experience and I tell young people young college students, especially all the time that the only advantage that age has over youth is experience. You know, as young people, you've got everything going for you, and this is, this is the golden, golden moments of [00:10:00] your life.
But what we possess as professors and as older people in society is the perspective of experience. You have not yet been where we are, but we have been where you are. And so there's a great deal to be said by listening to stories such as yours and realizing the benefit of a place like the University of Jamestown, a liberal arts institution, where you can come and explore your interest, you can explore your passions, and try to figure out life.
And it's okay if you fail, if you make a few starts and stops. Along the way, because again, rarely does an individual take a straight line to whatever their life is going to be. And in our classrooms, I know from [00:11:00] the communication side of it, A lot of our curriculum is based in performance. So I tell our students all of the time, especially in public speaking that this public speaking course is going to be very different than anything else.
You experience on campus because most of the curriculum is set up in a way to communicate information to you and then evaluate your knowledge and your application and your receptivity of that particular information. But in communication studies, specifically public speaking, we turn the classroom upside down.
And you have the opportunity to demonstrate your skill set and your proficiency in developing public speaking by me as the professor sitting back there where you're at, and you standing up here in front of the classroom. And so what I tell students is. arts that look, [00:12:00] we all enter into this this this skill of public speaking with fear and anxiety.
It goes with the territory, and unfortunately it never disappears. There's not a magic feel that you can take to make it disappear. But by the end of the semester based upon your practice of this skill set, all of those butterflies that you feel in your stomach every time you stand up in front of an audience.
We're going to train those butterflies to fly in formation. We're going to get them moving in the same direction. And unfortunately, there's no easy path to that destination. It means trial and error. Sometimes you're going to have a good day where the communication lands specifically what you intended and your audience receives it in a very powerful way.
But there will be days where you don't quite achieve that mark. But the point is, is that as you continue to [00:13:00] practice that skill set, you're going to emerge on the other side of that semester far more proficient than you were when you went in. And I'm sure the same is true in, in your discipline of computer technology.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. And I'd see even more so in the terms of it is becoming more and more of a conversation not just as many other disciplines as well. But we're, we're kind of having to shift to a, tell me, show me versus submit something with what, one of the hottest topics right now, AI out there.
Is AI great? Can it write perfect code? Absolutely not. Can it write papers and code? Absolutely. So moving to that showing and telling is something we're seeing in classes and in something we're experimenting with in our own classes, but. You think that you might be the most you, where you're hiding in a cubicle and that's the job you [00:14:00] want.
It's perfect. You are still going to have to integrate with others. So present to maybe a department, a board, whatever or a team, whether that's a virtual in person all sorts of different potential aspects for that. And there are going to be times it does not go well. So specifically integrating your discipline into others is.
And, and that experience of it not going well, a public speaking, not going well is one of those just horrible feelings that you can't avoid, you know, poor paper code doesn't compile all of those things. You could feel bad on your own and deal with it later. The, on the spot stuff in, with an audience live Dealing with that.
And we need people in every discipline to know how to deal with that. Public speaking you know, quite literally that is, that is what I get paid to do for a living now [00:15:00] in many ways, I also have good days, bad days. I think you know, I'm sure you have as well gotten nervous speaking up in a faculty meeting, even though you're the debate guy, this is your job.
It still happens, but that's one of the things we're trying to impart to students is that's great. You're terrified in, in standing first. Students, thank you for speaking on it. Let's work on addressing that, but you're still going to have to do it because this is why this is experience we're giving you.
And it might not go well. You might get a low score for your presentation, but you did it once you learn from it and so those different experiences, I think that's often also what we're trying to emphasize in many of our classes is it didn't go well. Or if it didn't go well, here's what we could do about it.
And, and we don't always see that when we're looking at maybe very narrow niche programs where yep, as long as you stay on this track, you're good. [00:16:00] We don't want you to stay on that track. We might want you to get to point A to point C there, but B could be anywhere on the train. And when you're mixing stuff together.
You have more variables, more variables mean more chances for things to go wrong, but that's great.
Scot Loyd: Absolutely. And you know, the, the idea that failing is something that you can learn from. We all have experienced that in life, but the point of being able to do that in the context of a a liberal arts institution like The University of Jamestown means that you're in a safe space where if you fail the stakes aren't quite as high.
You were to fail in the real world, you might lose a job, you might lose a promotion, you might see a difference in your pay, or you might see that someone is [00:17:00] promoted ahead of you, whereas in the context of. The liberal arts education. You come and you practice that skill set and and you're right. There is a renewed emphasis now, and I think it's a positive move in higher education where we are emphasizing the application of knowledge versus the regurgitation of knowledge.
And if you're able to apply that and you don't quite get it right, then you have a meeting or an evaluation or you get feedback from your professor who has devoted a large part of her life or his life studying this particular subject. And so you have that gift of expertise And one on one with that expert to evaluate your application of [00:18:00] that knowledge.
And so talk a little bit about the stakes because you worked in the corporate world before coming to UJ and how, how are, how were the stakes different? And I, I think you can probably relate that, you know, in a lot of a lot of jobs outside of higher education, if you're, you're, you're not a student, Then you, you probably get one shot to get it right.
And then there are consequences and repercussions. Absolutely. So, yeah, I'm, I'm glad you mentioned the
Jakob Barnard: stakes because that that's one of the challenging just to, to, to back up, to, to mention that briefly that we've been seeing the last few years in higher and in specific narrative is the outcome of COVID where K 12 institutions where nobody can fail.
In many cases, you are not allowed to fail anybody because of COVID. So we, we had students coming in with one, two, sometimes even longer than that years of [00:19:00] K 12 education where no matter what they did or did not do, the outcome was the same. And so we're introducing stakes at, at, at the higher ed where you may get a lower GPA.
If you fail a class, you may withdraw from a class. But in which, you know, maybe that will cost you money by having to retake a class. So there, there are some stakes, but they're pretty low. And so to address your question, when you move into career you don't deliver, you don't show up. Particularly if you have no form of seniority or anything like that you might be called in, in given.
Give them the lecture of don't, you need to be showing up on time. You need to and those sorts of things, or thank you. This is the third time this week, you're late. Well, I need this job. That's great. Somebody else wants it or you know what, we're just not going to deal with you, [00:20:00] so we'll figure out how to cover it.
Thank you. Goodbye. You're dismissed or you're reassigned or in the corporate world, you know, the, the, the, the, the. Big projects that you want, you want to work on. You're not selected for those somebody else who has shown that extra initiative, creativity ability, whatever the standout thing is for, for doing those big projects, you know to go to the corporate environment, some of the influence software implementation projects.
Those were a lot of trust and responsibility. Here's the corporate credit card. Go fly there. Do X, Y, and Z come go over there. And so you're, you're not succeeding in those can have pretty big consequences. You can be, no, I like to use the nicer term disinvited to be, to be on a team or our community.
But those are the stakes is that's your [00:21:00] employment. And in some fields, not just that player, but in smaller fields where, well, we know each other. For example, our, our community of Jamestown is a pretty small community. We, the it people, we, we used to joke that, yeah, we'll just go get a table and have our annual meeting at the local restaurant.
You know, there's a half dozen of us in it and in jameson at the time. There's more now but So the repercussions can can be a lot larger Having having failures now. Yeah, your professors. Well, hey, we do communicate with each other. We do talk, but having a bad, you know, hey, they didn't really do much in this class doesn't translate to another class all the time.
It's particularly when it's your passion, if it's a class of the student is struggling to find the application. And that's, that's what, yeah. One of the problems is in liberal arts is, well, why do I have to take all these you know, let's pick on gen eds. [00:22:00] Why do I have to take these general education course?
They have nothing to do with what I wanna do. And so helping students identify the application of courses, not even of our own is, is part of the challenge. But take it, you might get a low grade, but that's fine. You've progressed and. And then in career, that's like taking the required extra learning module that they just randomly assign you that's, that's part of that, but you don't do that though.
The stakes are higher.
Scot Loyd: Exactly. And I think that's, that's really, really critical to understand and for students to understand that once you emerge on the other side of your education you're not going to have as many opportunities to fail. And to fail forward like you do in the classroom, because this is a safe space.
We as your professors, we're rooting for you. We want you to succeed. The [00:23:00] institution wants you to succeed. Your family wants you to succeed. And so you're in the best possible position to succeed. And a lot of that success will depend upon your resilience. And I think that's a term that we really need to explore with this generation of students, because.
I have encounters with students all of the time that they face an obstacle and it's almost like, oh, there's an obstacle, there's a barrier, I give up and I quit. Whereas in education, as in life, Obstacles and barriers aren't necessarily a stop sign or an end of the road. A lot of times they can be used to propel you to a higher level of achievement, but it depends upon your attitude and And embracing those [00:24:00] obstacles.
And so just for our students that are listening I'll give you a little secret of professors sometimes we purposely put obstacles and barriers in your way. I know that sometimes. I design assignments and I don't necessarily give all of the details or all of the parameters. I'll give a very large idea of what I want accomplished and then I leave it to the student's creativity as to how to arrive at, at the end result.
And I know that doesn't work for every discipline. Some disciplines are very detail specific. I don't want the nursing school to take that approach. But in other areas, it would be interesting to
Jakob Barnard: see what happened though.
Scot Loyd: There's this idea that right. If it, just because you face a barrier, just because you face an obstacle, doesn't mean that you need to give up and quit.
You need to find a way [00:25:00] around it and, and persevere and develop that character trait of resilience.
Jakob Barnard: No, that, so that, that rolls right into the, kind of the other note I'd had for today of that is honestly one of the biggest issues I've seen is the, the critical thinking skills. I hit a roadblock and part of that, I, I feel, and we, we talked about this in the honors seminar I do with the psychology professors as well.
Our search tools, our help tools have gotten so good and intuitive that we don't go anymore often to what's the next step. Oh, I don't know the answer to that. I'm just going to Google it or, you know, use the search engine to follow it. I've, I've put it in assignments though, just kind of like you're saying hint, you can ask me for more information.
And very few students. Cause I know that I've, you know, I've done this in like a database design class [00:26:00] before where I've left purposeful gaps that it would be a lot easier if you came to me and asked me this, this, and this, but you can go and research and try to figure out the answer on your own, absolutely fine.
But what is the process to follow? Cause regardless, you know, I, I tend to put it in the it or computer science software development terms. But. What is the process to follow when this happens? So, you know your computer does not turn on. What do you do next? You just walk away saying, Oh, it didn't turn on.
No, you look at him like, Oh, let me hit the power button. Okay. That still didn't work. There's got to be more steps there. And thinking through that steps is one of the things that regardless of the discipline, there's something we can learn from that. I'm quite confident that you could give me a number of techniques, theories, what have you with public speaking of you've [00:27:00] lost the audience.
How do you get them back? Well, okay. Yes. Throwing something at, at them might work, but I'm assuming that's not at the top of the list.
Scot Loyd: Perfect.
Jakob Barnard: Perfect.
Scot Loyd: Exactly. And, and that's very critical to, to the, the safe place of a higher education is that yes, in computer technologies, there's going to be times when the technology fails.
What do you do then in public speaking in communication? There's going to be times when you lose the audience, how do you recapture their attention? And so we're going to take a short break, but on the other side of this break, I want us to talk about some of those. Applications right that the changing face of higher education where we're moving from this model of students simply regurgitating information.
And applying the information that they learn so that they can be more effective in the real [00:28:00] world and how failure is often a key component in that process. You're listening to Jimmy office hours, and we will return on the other side of this break.
Welcome back to Jimmy office hours. My name is Scott Loyd, along with my colleague, Jakob Barnard and Jakob before the break we were talking about this idea of how sometimes as professors we design assignments that won't give students all of the details because we want them to embrace that critical thinking component.
And so what are some of the ways in your [00:29:00] discipline that you're looking for application? And how does that apply? Because I would guess that like Communication Arts, Computer technology, especially on the graphic design and and and the software development. There's a lot of creativity that goes into the process.
And so you don't know what these students are capable of. So you have to design. You have to design assignments in a way that that pulls that out of them.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. And so it even goes to the old you know, a student asks for whatever newfangled programming language has been invented this year.
Technology's always changing. There's always something new. Why don't we cover X, Y well, we don't have a class on that. Is it because we couldn't or because we don't necessarily need it because the concepts and theories. Or that are being taught using one programming language are [00:30:00] transferable, but that's, that's exactly what we're trying to do in any of our classes is come up with that.
Well, here's the application. So how did you reach that application and pull them to think about the process that they used to get there? Or, Hey, you hit a roadblock. Okay. How would we get her past this roadblock next time on the next assignment? And so that, that reflective nature of trying to dig out when things don't go a hundred percent correct, because, and that's why, like, for example, in one of my classes web design that I have taught before I don't do quizzes anymore.
I do things. Well, I did the kind of like open ended untimed quizzes, open book simply because I'm like, I want you to know how to look up information. I've done web design. I I've done that. I have never been asked, what does this obscure thing mean? No, [00:31:00] I want to know that, you know, the process of if you need this, you know how to go and do it.
So that's what I'm trying to teach you in this class. And so I give them that kind of application but, but really emphasis on Your process might be different, but you need to develop a process. You're asked this, here's how you go find it. And that kind of back and forth thing. So liberal arts is often where, where we're, we're, we're.
Painted as theory academics, you know, academics doesn't mean not applied, you, you develop the theory, you develop the process, but it's the translation of that process. That, that in an institution like ours, that's what we're really priding ourselves on is that we, we are finding that application for the theory where we're, we're getting those to go hand in hand and, and so.
We also then on the pure liberal [00:32:00] arts thing, we get a little bit of the knock for being too career preparatory to a couple of things for that. I mean, career preparatory is the, the expectation of our audience these days. What job am I going to get? It might be an academic, that's great. So they're not mutually exclusive terms, but that process is what underlies all of them.
Scot Loyd: And that's something that I really appreciate about the University of Jamestown is that there is at least we are aspirational towards an equal emphasis on a theory and practice on both knowledge and application. This is an original with me, but I, I remember reading somewhere that that someone agnosticated and I think it, I think it's come to pass that the most.
important important skill set of the 21st century is [00:33:00] the ability to know how to learn. And so sometimes that means unlearning something that you thought you previously knew and understood. And I, I think, you know, we, we can both relate that with students, we have to deal with this all the time. I know that especially from the freshman class and when I deal with students in, in speech and debate, debate, especially, especially there's a, there's a certain mindset that you approach.
You're a critical thinker you're sort of a divergent personality to begin with, and, and you're a leader, you have those, you have those natural giftings but you, you have to submit yourself to the humbling process of, oh, I was wrong about that. And and then make a course correction. And so unlearning what you thought you knew and then learning something new and not being satisfied with [00:34:00] the status quo as far as your, your, your knowledge threshold is concerned, but always cultivating that intellectual curiosity about life.
About about knowledge regardless of the subject. I think that positions anyone for success in the 21st century. And you're exactly right, because the technology is forever changing. And, you know, AI. It has only accelerated that process. And so, yes, you can be dependent upon a search engine. You can be dependent upon AI, but if you don't know how to ask a question.
Then what you find may be suspect and, and may be limited in satisfying what you need to know to succeed.
Jakob Barnard: And, and refining and changing a question. Cause you know, think of just utilizing [00:35:00] one of the main bottles out there you know, opening as a chat GPT, it's great. You ask a question, you. You're not going to get exactly what you're looking for.
So the process of taking those prompts, I think, you know, search engines 20 years ago, that's how we found anything on the internet was we, we took that. Okay. Now I need to add the extra keyword, the extra keyword, and you know, minus that we'd have to refine that to intuited of AI might get there. But did search engines take away our job to research?
Absolutely not. It impacted how we did it. So the, the thought process behind that, and that's something I try to do with every, every class I teach as well is help students find the application. They might be taking it because it's required for their major. They might not, you know, networking student might not care at all.
Networking technology behind it, but [00:36:00] stressing the application and how that can be personally useful to them is something I try to do in any class that I do because they don't, they haven't had the life experience or context yet to realize, Hey, if you're working in, in computer science or, or I.
T. Or anything else that requires connecting the Internet problems with this will disrupt your life and make things very problematic. You know, the example I've given to advisees before is the most miserable class I ever took was a, let's see, it was in my PhD program on Technology policies and the literature for it was technology policies in Eastern Europe and stuff like that.
I really don't care about 10 years ago, but you know, I fell
Scot Loyd: asleep when you mentioned the title.
Jakob Barnard: Yes exactly. However. [00:37:00] You know, and I'm like, I'm not going into government politics. I don't care. This has zero weight. I could be teaching students who could be the next going into public politics.
And if I can impart something, okay, maybe I get why they're making me take this. But that process of thinking through. How could this ever be relevant for me? You know, okay. This that's why this is considered a core class, a niche. When it, now I start running out, working on my dissertation, public policy does impact curriculum development.
Okay. But undergrad students don't have that ability. They just don't have the context to figure out why they should care.10 years between my undergrad and starting my master's. Was a very, very good thing that gave me a lot of context. I had a very high GPA with, with my masters. I barely graduated with my [00:38:00] undergrad because I just blew off a lot of things.
If I didn't see the importance, I didn't focus on it. So that, that application in, in. Application of critical thinking also go hand in hand that that's something hopefully we're imparting and we're doing hopefully really, really well in the liberal arts. And that's our utility. Our importance perspective.
Students come in with their parents. They're like, well, what kind of jobs can they get when they graduate from here? And my answer always starts with Whatever they want, we're training them to be able to apply technology to anything. What, what, what type of job are they interested in? And, oh, well, so yes,
Scot Loyd: there's an analogy that I use.
And this comes from my teaching sports communication and what sports communication deals with. It deals with the practical aspects of, of, of broadcasting live sports events, but it also deals with. [00:39:00] The philosophical underpinnings of why sports is so important in our culture. And so if you've ever watched a sports broadcast on television or listened to a broadcast on the radio, and it really doesn't matter the sport, but you know, in the United States, the most popular sports Football, basketball, baseball, typically what you have in the broadcast format is you have a play by play announcer, and then you have the color announcer, and so the play by play is usually a person, a broadcast announcer who has the voice, who has the expertise, who's who has the ability to communicate well over the airwaves and to describe what is happening.
The color announcer is usually [00:40:00] an ex athlete who has actually played the game, who has a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge and a lot of context and a lot of institutional wisdom and knowledge about that particular sport. That when the play by play guy Describes what happened the color personality can describe why it happened Compare it to something else that happened or another player that came before that developed the innovation that all of us are witnessing.
And so as an analogy for the liberal arts, if you want to get a certificate, or if you want to go to a trade school, or if you want to go to a two year junior college and community college, there is nothing wrong with that. And that will adequately. Prepare [00:41:00] you to meet the demands. Of our culture to to meet the demands of a particular job to meet the demands of society But a liberal arts education Is the difference between the play by play announcer?
And the color announcer so and I As a liberal arts, you have the ability to now provide context and history and understanding that is applicable across the board and details that wouldn't otherwise be available to you.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. And I think in the liberal arts, we catch a little of the flack from it was the mantra for what, 20, 30 years that everybody needs to go to a four year college.
That, that is the end all and be all. Andjust like liberal arts, society's more, more variant than that. We've got a lot more variety. There, there you know, old, old high school friends. I know who absolutely went to [00:42:00] trade school and have excelled at done, done extremely well, and it's so, so great.
Do you value in one or the other was, I think that's a real big mistake that they made for, for 20 years of all the high school counselors saying you have to go to college, you have to go to college. Cause then we sent a lot of people to college who either weren't prepared or it really wasn't going to be their niche in life, so they didn't do well.
And now we're, you know, 20 years down the road, we're saying, well everything's really expensive because nobody went to trade school. Well, yeah, that's one outcome from that, but we also sent a lot of people who weren't prepared for the variety and the training a little bit in everything that, that broad nature that we're trying to do in the liberal arts.
Even though a lot of fields are recognizing that their one thing isn't. Just it anymore, computer science curriculum guidelines, for example even the most stringent niche accredited ones are bringing in outside disciplines that it's called CS plus X [00:43:00] of computer science, plus whatever the other topic is.
We're recognizing that even our own discipline. Can't be its own thing or has grown too much and integrated into everything else, the liberal arts in particular that, and you said it well earlier that that how to learn a quote that that's what we're, we're trying to emphasize so that it doesn't matter exactly what we teach you by the time you leave here.
It doesn't matter what we've called our major. It can be whatever you want it to be. However you apply it, you've developed the, I know how to learn. I demonstrated that. I know how to learn. I demonstrated that I can. Develop a process. I might not know the process because the professor left out that critical gap of information, but I know how to figure it out.
That's how jobs are. That that's how career you go on a team. They're like, great. We've got to deliver this reports by the end of the month, [00:44:00] make it happen.And you're left there to figure out how to do it.
Scot Loyd: Yeah. And that's, that's well said. And I think you're, you're exactly right. That as the university and as the liberal arts model continues to evolve, it's not an either or it's, it's a both and and through the application process, you are positioning yourself as a student.
To be better prepared because that's how knowledge happens in the world. That's how progress takes place. Someone comes along with an innovation that is built upon the previous knowledge that has already been established. And so in the context of the university, you receive all of this wisdom, all of this knowledge of the ages, but then you also get the added benefit and the tools and the skill sets needed to apply [00:45:00] and to build and to innovate and to move forward based upon that knowledge in the in the few minutes that we have left, I'd like to revisit something that we talked about in the beginning, just to come full circle was this idea that there's a lot that you learn, there's a lot that I learn outside of the classroom, and a lot that our students learn as far as life skills that perhaps you might learn elsewhere, but you might learn them the hard way, and I'm not suggesting that you're not going to learn them the hard way at university, but at least you're in a safer environment where you're set up to succeed and to learn from that, that failure.
So, I remember reading in leadership literature that and I believe this comes from a lot of the work of, of John Maxwell, the idea of what employers successful businesses, fortune 500 companies are looking for [00:46:00] in their ideal employee, and that's a combination of the traits of, of competence.
You've got to be able to do the job.Chemistry. You've got to be able to work well with others and then character. Are you going to? Are you going to show up on time? Are you going to tell the truth? Are you going to take personal responsibility when something goes wrong? And so competent chemistry and, and character.
And so in the liberal arts institution, you can certainly become competent in your field of knowledge. But you can as well develop those important character traits. That are going to serve you well in the future, and perhaps the greatest benefit of being in a liberal arts institution where you are in classrooms that with people that maybe you wouldn't normally interact with other people that maybe annoy you, professors that annoy [00:47:00] you roommates that, that for whatever reason you ended up with that you can't stand mid semester And, and you've got to learn how to get along and play well with others in pressure field context.
And that ability to, to develop chemistry is one of the greatest assets. I think of the liberal arts institution.
Jakob Barnard: Absolutely. And just dealing with personalities is one of the things, because you will end up in a job Career or even just working at a client site, cause you're, you're the consultant getting paid a lot of money to be there where you have to work with somebody you don't like, whether for good reasons, bad reasons, it doesn't matter that those interpersonal conflicts they happen.
Okay. So I have to go deal with them again, but you still have to do it because that's not your job. But you know, when we go back to, to failure and the ability to [00:48:00] deal with it. The, the example I love to give in, in kind of the, it's, it's my start of every class that they teach is the majority of it projects fail as article last year, 75 percent of it projects fall short of goals.
How does anybody in it have a job? Well, they, they, they, they say what went wrong and they, they communicate about it. So here's a status update. Here's what I'm going to do. I let you know before it's due that it's going to be late. You know, I, I do that back and forth, the soft skills, I document what went wrong.
So we can learn from it next time. Those sorts of things in projects, that's how people are employed. The, the 25%. Well, maybe those people get promoted or, or big raises. I don't know, but you know, the, the, the failure happens if we just take that metric from just that one industry, I'm sure there's [00:49:00] examples from other industries as well.
I mean, how many public speakers don't do well, I'm sure that that's on the list. As well, and we, we've all seen people not do well at public speaking as well, or, Hey, that, that history researcher really got that wrong. You know, those things happen, but how do we handle that? And hopefully we, we have stakes in, in higher ed and arguably, at least in the last few years, more so than high school, but our stakes are a little bit softer, you fail a class.
I don't dislike you. I'll make you retake it, but I know you could do better and I will help you do better the next time. Let let's let's. And so with our hopefully lower stakes, that's much better than you failed the project because you didn't communicate for two months and we're just going to fire you.
And so we ease them hopefully into real life, but in the process of doing so, Let them [00:50:00] develop that process of what did not go well. You know, being editor of chief in the college newspaper for a year. It was at the time kind of, I like to think of it as the height, the journalism you know, the college newspaper was doing well.
We had advertising. I had a very large staff. I learned a lot how to not manage people by doing it wrong by, by doing that. And so failure definitely taught me. And I was, I've been able to utilize those the methodologies and resources ever since being a team lead for a software team working in as part of other teams department chair, all those sorts of things.
That started with that experience there where if I'd failed, what was going to happen? The collegiate wouldn't have been published one month. It would have been at the time utterly horrible and, and, you know, crushing, but in the giant scheme of things that wouldn't have been the end of the world. I think we, you know, had to slide the deadline once.
So, yeah, [00:51:00]
Scot Loyd: And, and those are lessons that you can learn in the safety of, of a liberal arts institution that perhaps you could learn elsewhere, but, but not with the efficiency I think that you can hear. And, and I think this is very important as, as we sort of wrap up this episode on the importance of, of failure in, in the pathway of, of success.
I tell students especially young ones it's, it's, obviously, it's never too late to pursue. I was a nontraditional student. I returned to education late later in life. But I, one of, one of the things that I wish I had done was, was pursue higher education earlier in life, because one of the things that I tell students is this idea that when you are young, you're unencumbered, you're unobligated, and there will never be a time in your [00:52:00] life where you are less.
You are a lot more obligated than you are now. So you have the ability and the freedom and the liberty to say yes to a lot of things. You have the ability, depending upon your capacity and your time and, and, and your, your devotion and your, the, the effort that you're willing to put in, you can say yes to a lot of things.
It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to like every one of those things. But at least you will know. And so say yes to experience. Say yes to the opportunity to learn. Say yes to the opportunity to risk. Because if you fail, what you earn from that failure is experience. And that experience will serve you very well in whatever is next for your life.
So Jakob, I'll give you the last word on this subject. Yeah, well, particularly in the, the returning to [00:53:00] one
Jakob Barnard: I, I too, I wish I'd gone to grad back to grad school earlier, but I'm also glad that I didn't you know, graduating in well, many years ago now 2005, and then not starting a mast. The 10 full years out in the field, cause it was what, 2015, I think I started my, my master's 2014.
It doesn't matter that, that those 10 years gave me the context that provided me why I wanted to, to graduate school. And I did way. Way better in a master's program that I did in undergrad. I didn't have the context to know why I should care when it, when a student's in class, if they're not succeeding, we tend to follow up on that.
Or as much as we can, we, we, we, we don't catch every instance, but if they're coming back for a class, we make sure to spend that extra time. The, we care about failures way more as a professor than the students typically [00:54:00] realize. And that that's been one of the. The worst and best things about going from starting teaching as a corporate tenor to a professor is just that investment, investment in the success and the future success.
Scot Loyd: Well said. And, and Jakob, I really appreciate what you've shared today. And I think it's so important for students. I think it's important for parents and I think it's important for us as professors, as we continue to explore. All of these issues that surround the liberal arts. And the good news is that we will continue this conversation next time.
If you like Jimmy Office Hours do us a favor and share it with someone. Give us a rating. Give us some feedback. Let us know what you think. And share this information with a perspective student or someone who is considering a liberal arts education. Thank you so much, Jakob. And thank you to all of you for listening.[00:55:00]
Until next time, I'm Scott Loyd for Jimmy Office Hours. We will see you again soon. This has been Jimmy Office Hours, where academics talk about academics. If you enjoyed the program, be sure to like, share, subscribe, and rate our program. We'll see you next time on Jimmy Office Hours.