ExperiencED

1.1 - The Role of Experience in Educating Today's College Students

Episode Summary

In this episode, Adrienne Dooley interviews Mary Churchill on her experience teaching and leading in higher education, looking specifically at the role that experiential ed plays in teaching, learning, and being a better human.

Episode Notes

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Episode Transcription

Mary Churchill interview by Adrienne Dooley 

[00:00:00] Adrienne Dooley: [00:00:00] Hey everyone and Welcome to our audio blog. This is Adrienne Dooley and today we're going to be talking to Mary Churchill. She got her PhD at the same school I got my bachelor's and my Master's Degree:Northeastern University. She worked there for almost 15 years as a Senior Assistant Dean of the highly innovative School of Professional Studies.

[00:00:21] After Northeastern, Mary was Associate Provost and Dean at Salem State University and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wheelock College as it merged with Boston University. After the merger, she now works at Boston University and the education school on strategic initiatives and community engagement.

[00:00:41] Some years ago, Mary also started a blog - the University of Venus about Gen-X women in higher education and has since moved that blog to Inside Higher Ed.com where she is a frequent blogger today. Mary, with all the rich background in mind we want to focus on your view of the function of [00:01:00] experience in educating today's college students.

[00:01:02] You came from Northeastern with its famous cooperative education program: a full-time paid internship that alternate with periods of full-time classroom-based studies. So students are not physically working and studying simultaneously. You've worked in other universities in the Boston area. Why should we increase our attention to the concept of learning from experience during a student's college years?

[00:01:28] Mary Churchill: [00:01:28] I have to say that teaching the Northeastern student was very different from teaching students at other institutions. I started teaching at Northeastern so I didn't realize it was going to be that different but then when I switched and started teaching at Bentley and then working with students at a couple of other area institutions, I realized that the experience that Northeastern students brought to the classroom was very different. They were able to- even in a class like [00:02:00] Political Theory which seems very abstract and kind of hard to link to reality -they were able to draw upon their Co-op experiences and really push back.

[00:02:13] Especially my lectures. So when I was lecturing about Marx or Foucault, they would say "well, you know in my coop we do XYZ and I don't understand how this theory of labor or this theory of identity actually makes sense," and it made me a much better teacher because I really had to think through their concrete example against my very theoretical framework.

[00:02:34] Adrienne Dooley: [00:02:34] So did you find yourself altering the way you taught different students in different classes at different universities? 

[00:02:43] Mary Churchill: [00:02:43] Yes, when I left Northeastern and taught at Bentley, I was shocked that students weren't pushing back in that way because everything was theoretical. They hadn't had the real-world experience.

[00:02:57] And so I found myself [00:03:00] trying to create examples of "this is what this might look like in the workplace" and trying to extrapolate which was much more difficult for both me and for them because it was all theoretical. Whereas at Northeastern, they were constantly keeping me on my toes and really helping me, with the rest of the class, really push everyone forward in this really amazing way. 

[00:03:26] Adrienne Dooley: [00:03:26] So did you find that the Northeastern experience was a little bit more beneficial to your students or was it just beneficial in a different way? 

[00:03:35] Mary Churchill: [00:03:35] Oh, definitely more beneficial because it was real world. And I know that "real world" we almost put that in quotes, right?, But, it's... They were real world problems and some are kind of textbook cases of what would happen in a non-profit, you know funding challenges something we would predict and the others were really just normal human interactions in the [00:04:00] workplace. They could occur in any workplace. But since they had experienced them firsthand, they were bringing them back for a check-in in the classroom.

[00:04:08] I would weigh in. But, I guess more importantly the other students would say, "yeah, something like that happened in my co-op too and this is how we dealt with it 

[00:04:16] Adrienne Dooley: [00:04:16] ...It becomes a lot more collaborative 

[00:04:19] Mary Churchill: [00:04:19] Yeah, they're learning from each other which is really the goal. Right? 

[00:04:24] Adrienne Dooley: [00:04:24] So how would you advise colleges or universities which aren't currently Co-op schools to make their way into that area of Education?

[00:04:35] Mary Churchill: [00:04:35] Well, I think every University and college has some level of experiential education whether that's through study abroad or internships optional internships. 

[00:04:48] Adrienne Dooley: [00:04:48] Universities require a certain number of volunteer hours as well. 

[00:04:52] Mary Churchill: [00:04:52] Yes. Yep, and Service Learning and then the majors, right? So I always try to use something like [00:05:00] nursing or social work or teaching have many many hours of field practice or practicum experience where philosophy English political science sociology, the traditional Arts and Sciences disciplines don't and so that's where I think they have to do a lot more work to incorporate that in a meaningful way.

[00:05:22] Adrienne Dooley: [00:05:22] How do you get faculty to get more involved in the experiential education process? 

[00:05:28] Mary Churchill: [00:05:28] That's a great question. So, I think it's very different for different faculty depending on their disciplinary backgrounds and their practical experience. So, I think that what I found to be really helpful particularly at a place like Salem State where there's a really good mix of practice-oriented professional Fields like Social Work nursing occupational therapy business education [00:06:00] with the traditional Arts and Sciences disciplines. So, a nice mix where they work well together is just to get them to learn from one another and they do. In general, I think faculty are much more open to hearing from fellow faculty about sharing ideas rather than Administration saying here are some great ideas and kind of pushing them down, if they can get it from their colleagues, it's much more effective and lasting.  And so, as an administrator as a leader, you can create situations where you bring them together to share those great ideas across disciplinary boundaries and across departments and colleges. So, if you're in a space where it is, mostly Arts and Sciences and very traditional academic backgrounds where there's not a lot of field experience or practical experience, I think it's more challenging. Then, it's bringing - often external folks in their area. So maybe English faculty from another [00:07:00] University who have done some really interesting practice-oriented pieces with their students in say working with Publishers or small presses locally. And so, kind of showing how that experiential piece has really changed the way their students learn and the way they teach.

[00:07:20] Adrienne Dooley: [00:07:20] How important do you think post-graduation employment possibilities are to today's Generation Z college students and do you see the experiential education impacting those job opportunities? 

[00:07:34] Mary Churchill: [00:07:34] I think that job opportunities in post-graduation employment is more important now than ever before. I think the amount of debt many students are taking on has really forced that issue to the forefront and so unfortunately, the rising cost of tuition and student debt has created a major preoccupation with [00:08:00] job right after college. And so, and it's influenced major. It's influenced their ability to finish their major while they're in college working through college all of that and so but.

[00:08:15] In reality that makes experiential Ed even more important because that's really where they are able to build their resume and get job experience that will land them that first job that's a really good job that's related to what they studied and will set them on the path to their future career. 

[00:08:34] In some cases, it (experiential ed) feels like a luxury that's why I think the coop model is fantastic because it's not optional whereas internships that are optional- we know from the studies that most of the students who do experiential ed that's optional -either study abroad or internships or service learning. If it's optional the kids who have the most connections [00:09:00] and the most wealth are the ones who have the ability to take those opportunities.

[00:09:05] As a first-generation students or students who are from very poor backgrounds and don't necessarily have those networks, don't have the ability to take those opportunities, especially if they're unpaid. 

[00:09:18] Adrienne Dooley: [00:09:18] Yeah. 

[00:09:18] Mary Churchill: [00:09:18] Whereas if it's paid, it's worked into their program it's required. So, it's in some senses, helps to level the playing field 

[00:09:27] Adrienne Dooley: [00:09:27] That's exactly what I was just about to say is that everyone starts to become on the same page, if not advance them a little bit further ahead of those students who didn't do an experiential education approach to their college career. I know from personal experience. I can go in and talk about my Co-op experiences and how it led me to apply for a specific job. Whereas a lot of the people that you might be in competition with for your first job experience are talking about things that maybe they learned in a [00:10:00] book or something like that and so you can kind of put behind a little more validity behind your resume when you have the experiential education on there for sure. 

[00:10:11] Mary Churchill: [00:10:11] Yeah, and I think for the average student who doesn't do something like a co-op at any institution, they're referencing group projects that they did in the class.

[00:10:21] Right? And I think that. As I mentioned earlier the human dynamic on the job is really the most challenging piece and it's the most abrupt transition for people who they when they go into their first professional job and they realized oh my God, I know my hard, you know stuff. I know that I have the hard skills, but wow, I have no idea how to make this work in a group situation and the learning curve and I think students who've done Co-op have that usually multiple times over. And can speak to it in an interview. 

[00:10:58] Adrienne Dooley: [00:10:58] Exactly 

[00:10:59] Mary Churchill: [00:10:59] Like [00:11:00] a situation or a challenging situatio, they're not going to say something about building an Excel spreadsheet. They're going to say this time when my colleagues and I didn't get along at work 

[00:11:09] Adrienne Dooley: [00:11:09] And it comes across a lot more valid a lot more impressive when you have those kinds of experiences to draw on so Mary, is there anything else that you want to add today or be sure that we cover and discuss?

[00:11:26] Mary Churchill: [00:11:26] Yeah, I think that as a sociologist. I think it's important to also realize that what human beings what students are learning in their co-op experiences is how to be a better human being right really, you know, how to get along with people and how to, in a structured situation kind of where they can go back and check in with their adviser and professors and other students about what just happened . Once you're in the real world in a job full time and you're not in school anymore, you don't have that [00:12:00] network of folks to check in with. You got to work something goes south, you know, you could have a conflict with another employee or with your boss. You really don't have a lot of options over who to go to. 

[00:12:11] Adrienne Dooley: [00:12:11] Right

[00:12:11] Mary Churchill: [00:12:11] When you’re a student in a co-op, you have this rich network of advisors kind of there for you. 

[00:12:18] Adrienne Dooley: [00:12:18] And I think that creates a much more transitional environment in the sense that we go to school our whole lives and we're not in careers usually before college at least more often than not and then you go through college and all of a sudden College ends and everyone expects you to be ready for the real world and it's black and white.

[00:12:40] College and then the real world, where as this approach - making College transitional experience where you get a little of the structure of school  and the supports and all of that, but you're also being pushed into balancing it with a real-life career that you might not have that same support and it's all new experience and it's [00:13:00] more of an adjustment phase rather than slamming kids from going from classroom right into the real world and going. "Oh wait, I didn't learn all these little things that would have been a lot more helpful." 

[00:13:12] Mary Churchill: [00:13:12] Yeah, yeah. No awesome. Thank you so much for asking me to be here, 

[00:13:22] Adrienne Dooley: [00:13:22] and I'm sure we'll want to speak with you again. We have lots of topics to cover. But thank you for being our very first audio blog interview.

[00:13:29] This is Adrienne Dooley signing off from Professor Stellar's Virtual Lab the center for neuroscience and experiential education at the University of Albany. Visit us at neuroxede.com. That's neuroexed.com and look for the audio blog link for more conversations around this topic coming soon.