LiberalArtsOnline Volume 3, Number 2
January 2003
by Deborah A. Dougherty
Associate Professor of Spanish
Alma College
Sometimes scarcity of resources has a way of focusing the mind. During the economic upswing of the 1990s, no one gave much thought to the relative benefits of off-campus study. A semester in Spain, a year studying in Greece ... who would, who could, object?
But now, after the flush years of the 1990s and the academic entrepreneurship that decade fostered, all the various "experiential learning" programs must now demonstrate not only that they can be done, but that they should be done. After all, if we support Astin's assertion that a residential, liberal arts college is a nearly ideal setting for student development, we had better have a darn good reason for taking the best and brightest out of it on a regular basis. So, how can we determine which, or how many, opportunities should be made available to students by a serious program of off-campus study at a residential, liberal arts college?
We must keep in mind that off-campus study is no longer defined solely as study abroad. The "grand tour" that traditionally garnished the education of the elite has evolved significantly. Today, students participate in myriad service learning, internship and domestic exchange programs, each promising unique learning environments and opportunities. This trend represents a departure from a canonical "Great Books" curriculum, but not necessarily from the ideals of a liberal arts education. Many such programs are rooted in Dewey's call for an educated and engaged citizenry, while others are more Kolbian in their approach, citing experiential learning as an essential pedagogy which affords a deeper internalization of theory. While questions remain, regarding the relative benefit of experiential learning programs as weighed against traditional classroom methods, intuition and anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness have justified their relatively recent inclusion in the curricula of many liberal arts colleges.
Having arranged and supervised several study abroad, service learning and internship programs for my own students, I am convinced of their value in the educational process. However, our current situation no longer permits the luxury of supporting such a plethora of programming without hard evidence to support its effectiveness. Unfortunately, there is an abysmal paucity of objective data on which to base decisions, either by institutions in terms of which programs to maintain, or by students who deserve the most "bang for the buck". Current assessment tools and methods rarely move beyond the subjective information garnered by self-reported perceptions of efficacy or participant satisfaction surveys. While I am confident there are correlations between off-campus experiences and concrete learning outcomes, as well as criteria by which we can measure them, we are not yet in a position to properly tailor a balance of on-campus and off-campus pursuits to the greatest benefit of our students and our campuses.
As the saying goes, "What matters gets counted, and what gets counted matters." It's time we develop more effective means of assessing and evaluating the costs and benefits of off-campus programming in the context of residential, liberal arts colleges.