The Skills Advantage!

Dr. Glenn Whitehouse and Patricia Rice join Maggie and John to discuss the new Quality Enhancement Program (QEP) at the university - transferrable skills. What is it? Well, employers are looking for skills like leadership, communication, teamwork, but most of our courses don't have that in their title, though students are learning these and many more skills that are vital.  Adjunct faculty are given a privilege to not only promote these skills within their courses, but can also be employed at this university to help support students in this process. 

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni.

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU. You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.
We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher
education landscape.
Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.
I'm John Roth, Adjuncts since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida
Gulf Coast University.
I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First-Year Seminars.
Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct Faculty.
This conversation today is one to do just that.
Welcome to the Adjunct Files.
It's great to have you here.
Sadly, it's just me being the host today.
You're going to miss out on Maggie, but please stay tuned because we've got some great guests
today.
We've got Patricia Rice or Pi Rice and Dr. Glenn Whitehouse.
We're going to talk about QEP, which acronyms, oh my goodness, I don't even know what to
do with all the acronyms at a university.
After a while, it's taken me a while as an Adjunct Faculty member to go like, what is
that?
What are you talking about?
Because people throw them all over the place.
But why don't you two introduce yourselves what you're doing now, but also what you've
been doing in the past here at this university?
That would be great.
Sure.
Hi, I'm Glenn Whitehouse.
I am at FGCU, the Director of Core Skills.
That means I'm in charge of two programs.
The Skills Advantage, which is actually the Quality Enhancement Plan, or QEP, and also
the Pages Program, which is a career program for liberal arts students.
So yeah, the QEP, which we've been working on for the last year, is just the Quality
Enhancement Plan.
You're not alone in not knowing what that means.
It's basically a part of our accreditation cycle, which asks the universities to take
on a major institutional improvement project during each accreditation cycle.
How long are those cycles?
Well the accreditation cycle is ten years, and then the QEP has to be run for at least
five years.
Okay.
So have we started this QEP cycle?
Well not exactly, but soon.
So we went through our SACS reaccreditation process, or we're in our SACS reaccreditation
process, SACS is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
We are in our reaccreditation process right now, and our project has been essentially
certified by the site visit team.
It's not finalized until the next national meeting of the accreditor, which won't be
till December, but we are...
It's a formality.
Yeah, we're pretty close.
Yeah, we're pretty close.
If, yeah, we're pretty close.
So we know the project that we're going to do, so this is year zero, and we'll really
start year one next academic year.
Next academic year will be year one.
Wow.
It was fantastic, because last year we just kept saying we were in year negative one.
Okay.
So, you know, it just helped leads to that anticipation.
Okay, T minus one type of thing.
That's right.
And our other guest today is Pi.
Yes, hello.
I serve as the coordinator for the QEP, and I work directly with Dr. Whitehouse.
He's been here since when he got founding dirt as a gift, and I have not been here
as long.
He's his oldest dirt?
No, not quite.
He's younger than me.
He was doing the implication with the jars of dirt that they gave to the founding faculty.
You are founding faculty.
I am, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
You must have been like six.
One of these boy geniuses.
Well, thank you for saying that, but I was a little older than that.
He was ten.
Okay.
Don't be bashful.
No.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, so I have not heard of it.
He's in philosophy of all things.
I know.
I know.
He useless degree.
No, I'm sorry.
I'm just kidding.
I know.
I know.
I know.
No, actually, I am so pro liberal arts.
I don't fit into the state anymore.
So.
Anyways, we have friends.
No, I just think people need to have a well-rounded understanding of the world that they live in
and not just know a couple of skills and a little knowledge.
And thankfully, I think the QEP is not just about a couple of skills and a little knowledge,
but it's really about, am I right, transferable skills?
Yeah, that's right.
That's part of it, at least.
Yeah, no, that's really all of it.
So, you know, transferable skills are what we call, you know, things like critical thinking
or teamwork or written communication or all communication.
It's all those skills that are general skills.
And then the reason we call them transferable is that they're skills that are useful and
almost any job.
Right, so that's the transferable part.
Okay.
So you mean people need to have critical reasoning to do almost any job?
I mean, it would be nice, right?
Yeah, it would be nice.
So, you know, I mean, the idea behind transferable skills is really that they're transferable
in two senses.
That you get them all across your college education.
Right.
They're not the property of any one major or any one class.
And then also, they're things that you use across the whole swath of different jobs.
Cool.
Sorry, just for clarification.
Yeah.
Because I don't think we actually set it.
Yes.
But that our QEP is called the skills advantage.
Oh.
And that is, in fact, all about transferable skills.
Yeah, you know, that's what happens in conversations here too.
Adjunct faculty sometimes are like in the middle of the telephone discussion, you know,
and it's like, what are you talking about?
Oh, wait.
And they have to kind of back up.
And since I kind of have talked with you about this stuff, I kind of assume certain
things and we can't assume anything.
Well, if it's any consolation, I do have a, like, part of my, one of my strongest skills,
which we don't have a badge for, is cat herding.
Oh.
Right.
So this is, Glenn has mentioned on numerous occasions, this is one of the reasons why
he hired me.
Okay.
So you're good at herding cats?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Which in the world of, you know, university is like ideation.
It sounds better.
Sounds much more fluff.
But, you know, for the layman, that would just be the cat herding.
Yeah.
And it is a good skill to have.
I don't know how you actually document cat herding.
You never put it on a resume.
I gotta say, I haven't done that.
Well, I think you could call that teamwork.
Could you?
Well, but a teamwork in a team that doesn't work.
Because cats don't work together.
Generally, no.
No, but you know, you just, little, little, little much.
No, that's good.
I guess you could call it teamwork.
I guess the big question, I didn't even give this one to you guys.
I had a yes.
We do help our guests sometimes and give some questions ahead.
But it's just, why is this important to adjunct faculty?
I mean, there is about 400-ish of us in a variety of capacities here.
And how is this, you know, it's like, how does this benefit or how should they engage
this or when they hear about this, why is it important for them to consider it?
Yeah, sure.
So, I mean, I think one of the big themes of the skills of advantage is the idea that
transferable skills lead to jobs.
I mean, if I just want to go ahead in a bumper sticker form.
And beyond that, that's still a long bumper sticker.
No, I know.
Take up most of the bumper.
That's okay.
Yeah, so, I mean, really, you know, our kind of contention is that college teaches transferable
skills, transferable skills leads to jobs.
That's one of the reasons why college is still worth it.
But you know, I do think that one of the things that's very important in that equation is
that all of college teaches transferable skills, not just the major.
People tend to focus so much on the major to the exclusion of things like Gen Ed or electives
where I think a lot of adjuncts teach.
And I think one of our central ideas is to really help to tie together the FGCU undergraduate
major, not the major, but tie together FGCU undergraduate degree, you know, Gen Ed electives
and courses in the major around a set of common skills that are taught in all those
different places.
So that those skills kind of become in some ways a through line for the degree.
There are things that happen in Gen Ed, there are things that happen in electives, there
are things that happen in the majors.
And they all contribute to student success.
I think, you know, sometimes students, parents, legislators make the mistake of thinking it's
only the things you study in your major that contribute to it.
Yeah, why do they need to learn history?
Right.
Or why do they need to learn writing skills?
Well, that one probably not as much.
Well, but that's actually a really good example because they will say, they will say why do
you have to learn history?
Well, what is your history teacher going to make you do?
They're going to make you write.
In and through all those subject matters, you're learning to use those skills and use them
in an apply one.
And critically analyze the data of history, right?
And then look and say, is that perspective that we're, you know, from the primary sources
to secondary sources, all that type of stuff?
You can learn in history.
No, that's definitely true.
And you know, I think for us, the skills advantage is a program for, you know, all the university
or at least all the undergraduate degrees in the university.
We're aiming to help all the undergraduate students.
But you know, I think it is really important also to point out that this has a special
application to liberal arts students because, you know, one of the things that is true,
take a degree like history.
And I'm the proud father of a history major.
Does he have a job?
He's in law school.
Okay.
Just, you know, but you know, he did have a before law school.
He was a school teacher.
But, um, is that, well, I'm sorry, getting a little too snarky.
No, I think pie you're rubbing off on me.
No, that is not me.
That's not my personality trait.
I'm not a snarky person.
Yeah.
So, so, if you could see what her face looks like right now.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, so, so here's the thing.
I think when people think only about content, like if the only thing you think about your
education is the content knowledge you learn, then that's what leads people to think that
every history major becomes a teacher, right?
Yeah.
Because that's the only job they can think of that connects with the content area.
Yeah.
But in fact, if you look at the actual national data on what history graduates do in the workforce,
the top, uh, the top degree, I mean, the top jobs are going to be education, law,
uh, management, marketing, you're going to find all these, you're going to find all
these business types of jobs along with it.
And, and the reason, and that by the way, would you get the same results if you look
at history, philosophy, all these other liberal arts programs.
The reason why that is, and I think this is the reason we need the skills advantage,
right?
The reason why that is, is that most of the jobs that are the most common jobs for people
with college degrees, and these would be things like management and marketing and sales
and HR and PR, those jobs are actually mostly applications of these general skills.
They're mostly applications of skills.
They're people skills.
Yeah.
They're, they're applications of skills like critical thinking and communication.
Most of the jobs that college graduates have are not highly technical in the way that like
engineering or nursing are highly technical.
And so again, those jobs in again, you know, things management marketing, HR, PR, sales,
things like that, are jobs that you can approach from a variety of different majors.
So part of what we're trying to do is build what you would call like a skills to career
highway.
We already have a majors to career highway, right?
That's kind of the way we encourage students to think.
That's the way we think.
That's the way we encourage students to think.
There's nothing wrong with that, but the problem with it is that if I, if I only focus
through the knowledge, skills and abilities of my major, it's very likely that at the
end of that tunnel of college, I'm going to see one job that I'm aiming towards.
If I think of myself as a bundle of skills and not just as an expert in my major, I could
be looking at 20 jobs, not one.
Absolutely.
And in fact, I have a feeling, I mean, it's true for me.
I don't know about y'all.
Like you are probably straight academic all the way, maybe not.
But for me, I got a major in biology and art, neither of which I'm using today directly.
And yet there are skills that I learned in all of those.
Yes, I did go right into graduate school, but if you'd asked me what you were back back
when I, you know, back when I first came to the FGCU in year one, at age 10, at age 10,
right?
If you'd asked me if I would ever become an administrator, I would say absolutely no
way, no, absolutely not, no way, no day.
Yet here I am, you know, with over over 15 years in administrative jobs.
So I mean, in a sense, I have, you know, I have done something I didn't expect to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How about you, Pie?
Well, I just wanted to go ahead.
Yeah.
And part of the question that you had asked, which was why adjuncts.
Yeah.
Right.
Why would we want to reach out to adjuncts?
Why, why should they care?
They should care because they're a part of the FGCU community.
Yeah.
And they are part of the FGCU culture.
And the work that Glenn and I have been doing over this last year is reaching out to all
of the people who help make up the whole, but are not always highlighted in the spotlight.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Like it's every, every time you hear things, it's faculty and students, faculty and students.
Sometimes staff gets thrown in there, you know, as a, as an extra word for fun.
But, you know, you don't.
Or an infection.
Right.
Like, but you don't hear the words plus adjuncts, plus campus life, plus student involvement,
all of the other things that actually make up the whole.
Right.
And so I think that it is absolutely vital for us to recognize all of those other parts
that help us actually function as an institution.
Well, and it isn't just recognition either.
You know, I think that adjuncts really, many of them have backgrounds that really enable
them to contribute to this career conversation in very direct ways.
Yeah.
You know, that the whole case that you just heard, the whole case that we're making that,
you know, general skills lead to jobs, you know, that's a sermon that we have to give
to students and that we have to give sometimes to parents.
We never have to give that students to employ that sermon to employers.
No, they know.
Employers already know that critical thinking skills.
So I mean, to have professional people, which is, you know, many, many of the ads are 40%
or more.
Yeah.
That they can bring that kind of workplace perspective that we don't always see those
of us who are inside the university all the time.
I don't remember where I read this and even when anymore, which is pretty sad.
But I believe liberal arts degrees, there are employers that look specifically at people
with liberal arts skills because of their creative ability to problem solve and bring
data from a variety of sets and backgrounds and not just having the skill and math or
something like that.
Yeah.
I don't know if there's some, there's some literature on this that you can look into
a lot of the literature having to do with career pathways, employment patterns or the
skills gap.
I don't know about ones that specifically look for liberal arts.
There are definitely, there's definitely, you read a lot of articles about for instance,
liberal arts people going into tech fields or going into software development and things
like that.
There are a great number of employers that are now what they would call majors agnostic.
You know, they'll tell you that they hire for skills and attitude, but not necessarily
for degrees.
And that's very common.
Mm-hmm.
There's an article in Forbes called The Revenge of the Liberal Arts Major.
I love that.
And it has to do with the rise in technology and AI.
Because AI is going to become, they're projecting that AI will become so mainstream in business
applications that they need people who have the ability to see things from multiple points
of view.
Right.
Right.
And problem solve or offer different solutions than AI will be able to offer.
Or to correct what AI has written.
And so while I think that that is actually part of the superpower of a liberal arts major,
because it's so very much ingrained in their education, I think that what we're doing with
helping people to understand that they are coming out of this educational experience
and their academic career with these skills, that it's helping people in business and
in health and in engineering understand that they actually have these skills too.
That's so they get to articulate what they start to know what they actually do know or
can do.
Yeah.
There's a great quote that we use in presentation sometimes.
And it's Warren Buffet and he's saying, in graduate school you learn all this complicated
stuff.
But what's really important is being able to communicate your ideas to people, whatever
you do in life, communication skills are incredibly important.
And so this is a really important point.
We've been talking about liberal arts degrees in part because their main value proposition
to employers is through these transferable skills.
That's what makes them good employees.
But if you're majoring in English or if you're majoring in engineering or entrepreneurship,
business, whatever it is, even if it's something highly technical like Warren Buffet and his
financial knowledge, it's important to understand that even if you're specialized knowledge
is your first calling card to your first job, if you ever want to have clients.
If you ever want to get a bank loan, if you ever want to start your own business, if
you ever want to manage that business once you started it, that's when these general
skills become really, really important regardless of what your training was in.
So one of the things we're really trying to emphasize is that this is definitely not
just for liberal arts students.
This is for everybody across the university because again, no matter what your field
of specialty is, these kinds of general skills are going to be really, really important
to your long-term success.
So why don't you go through some of the skills that these badges are highlighting?
You got the list?
You just rattle it off?
I don't care.
Well, I think we really, we're almost, we should probably be working on putting them
into music and coming up with a song for them.
Kind of like Turkey in the straw.
Yeah.
I'm just a bill here on Capitol.
Yeah.
Okay.
Sorry.
Yeah.
I do edit stuff out of these.
So that might be out of the...
Including any point at which you break out into song.
Especially if it's off key.
Right.
We use a list that is based on what we call the NACE competencies as the National Association
of Colleges and Employers.
It's a pretty standard list that empowers you.
Okay.
It includes things like critical thinking, oral communication, written communication, teamwork,
leadership.
Those are some of the main ones.
It also sort of maybe work a place specific ones like professionalism or career management.
So there's a list of 10 and all.
Oh, 10.
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
All right.
We named about eight of those.
There's communication, there's communication, technology and digital literacy.
Cultural competence.
Cultural competence.
I think that's...
That might be all of them.
Yeah.
Okay.
Wow.
How is AI going to impact any of this?
Do you know?
I mean, that was another question I did not ask.
Sure.
No, no, no, no.
No, it's a valid one though.
Because like I said, AI is...
I mean, you know, we're just at the...
We're just at the...
We're at...
We're at...
The whole domination.
In Skynet.
Here we come.
We're actually exploding, either wrecking, transforming or just changing a lot of things.
Yeah.
But I don't know.
Some of these are still going to be important no matter what.
So, you know, because I'm old as dirt, I'm old enough to have been through a few of these
things that we're going to change.
Everybody said we're going to change everything that didn't.
Okay.
I'm not saying that AI is not going to change things.
I know it will.
But, you know, I do think that one...
I do think that, you know, this list of general skills has a lot of different names.
Transfersible skills is one of them.
But another term that people use sometimes is evergreen skills or adorable skills.
And I think that's really important because I do think that...
So when I started to learn to write, you know, it was with...
Canaya form a quite tab.
Yeah, quite tab.
Well, no, actually this is the point, right?
Like when I started...
When I first started to learn to write, you know, it was pen on paper, right?
And then it became word processing.
And now...
The technology...
And now we have all these things that you can use to...
You know, my first time, you know, you had to use these complicated drafting programs to
work on the school newspaper and high school.
Now you can do it all on a desktop, right?
Desktop publishing.
So, I mean, I guess my point is like the basic skill of being a good writer is not going
to change.
It has not changed throughout all these technological transformations.
I mean, the technogological transformation that counted was the invention of writing
itself.
And, you know, that everything since then has been a tweak to how you read it and where
you read it.
And thank God we got beyond Canaya form because...
Yeah.
...less those little hashes.
So now you've asked for it.
So very recently, this is...
You should always put some random stuff on the podcast, right?
Right.
This is my travel log advice.
One of the most wonderful museum exhibits in the world, which I've seen quite recently,
is in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, the ISAC Museum in Chicago, there's
a Cuneiform tablet that they've put up, which is a student's bad homework.
So like...
Oh.
It's a piece of math homework.
Where was this at?
This is in the...
What they used to call it, the Oriental Institute or this Institute for the Study of Ancient
Chicago.
In Chicago.
It's called now, but it's a Cuneiform tablet with somebody's mistaken math homework and
the museum folks have put a display around it that shows you where they made the mistake
and then there's a part where the teacher came in to correct the end.
I'll scratch onto this play.
Wow.
And it's the...
Like for a teacher, it's really wonderful because it's like the history of...
It's the first...
The first red line paper.
4,000 years old, right?
And the student's...
Is there a rubric that goes with this?
Exactly.
Right.
The student's complaint was not registered.
I'm sorry.
What was the question?
AI.
But we're good.
I think you answered it well actually.
That though AI is probably going to change things a lot, in some ways they aren't going
to.
And these skills like teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, all of those type of communication,
right?
They don't go away.
Yeah.
So, two, this is something...
Another interesting piece of research is this police skill shift, which was put up in the
McKinsey Global Institute.
And one of the things they did was survey C-suite executives about what skills they expected
to be important in 2030.
And what the various executives said was that they did predict that tech skills would become
more and more important.
But along with them will be the skills that computers can't do or can't do well.
In other words, as we become more automated, as become robotics and AI become more important,
it also becomes important for...
It puts a premium on the skills that people have that are not going to be replicated by
the computers.
So high tech, high touch.
Yeah.
Well, right.
Sure.
I mean, there's...
I believe too, there's a certain wisdom to being contrarian.
Like, you don't want to be...
No.
If people stop reading, you don't want to follow them.
You want to be the last person in the room who's still reading?
Yeah.
You know, I don't know if you've seen this.
It might be an interesting video for you to watch by Seth Godin.
I don't know if you've ever heard of him even.
He's kind of a leadership guru in some ways.
He wrote a book called Lynchpin.
And in it, he doesn't talk about what it's going to take in the future.
And it's not to hunker down and just kind of try to do your job.
But it is to become an artist.
And he puts an artist is doing things that nobody else can do by basically combining
the very human and the very tech together in some way.
And he gives like 10 different ways to do it.
Like being the person who knows everything about everything in this one little field
to the person who encourages everyone behind the scenes and is the best team player.
Yeah.
Well, there's a great book called You Can Do Anything by George Anders.
And one of the, it's kind of a career book for liberal arts majors.
But one of the things he talks about early on in the book is he says, if you could imagine
a table where one access was new technologies and the other access was human skills, at
each intersection there's going to be a new job that didn't exist 10 years ago.
Oh, that's cool.
You know, that brings together that skill and that technology.
And the technology is going to change, but you still need the people to know the applications
of it, to know who to sell it to, you know, what are the off-label uses of it?
Right.
So, you know, that idea, I mean, yes, technology is going to change a lot of things, but you
only, only as much as people use it.
So to Glenn's point that he was making about, you know, word processing and then the next
evolution, next evolution, I think that's what AI is, right?
Yeah, it's basically the new Google.
Right.
Instead of Googling now, you ask and you get the letter.
Right, but you still have to know the questions to ask.
You need to know good questions to ask.
Right.
And so that's where those human skills keep coming in.
And you know, and it's so funny when you're talking about the, you know, the person who
is the expert in technology versus, you know, the person over here and being the person
in the middle is also the evolution of the Renaissance man.
Yeah.
Or Renaissance person or individual or however you want to know.
However you want to say it.
Right.
Because it is, it like, again, and I think that this goes back to the super powerful
liberal arts students is that they are always going to be able to be a translator of those
different fields and worlds.
Very good.
Because they can see both of the, both sides and speak the language to both different,
to both parties.
Well, I think too, this would be true really for people across all kinds of training, all
kinds of education.
You know, if you just take a, if you just take the perspective of new technology and change,
it's kind of depressing because if that's the way you look at things 10 years after
we go to college, you know, our knowledge is useless.
Right.
But everybody, everybody whose middle age knows that that's not really true.
No.
Like you use your education in all kinds of ways that you don't expect.
You know, the issue isn't that, you know, the issue isn't that you're going to learn
this stuff and it's going to come out dated immediately.
The principles that lie behind it are not going to become outdated.
And the basic skills you learn are not going to become outdated.
You just need to go out throughout your lives and update yourself on the technology.
You'll be fine.
Right.
And it's kind of, to me, the difference between knowledge and wisdom.
You know, wisdom is basically timeless in the end.
It is what you gain over time, many times through hard knocks, but you gain over time
that type of maturity.
Knowledge can, you know, the knowledge shifts, but the wisdom, we need a lot of students
with wisdom.
You've seen that New Yorker cartoon called the Tree of Information.
No.
It's a great New Yorker cartoon.
Instead of the Tree of Knowledge, it's the Tree of Information.
And it just has things like, apples have about 60 calories and they weigh about 4 ounces.
Yeah.
And yeah, we are in a sea of information, right?
And misinformation.
And it's just what you need is the skill to be able to critically think through it rather
than you won't know everything.
Even Glenn Pi does not know everything.
He doesn't know some things.
Yeah.
Well, I said he doesn't know everything.
Right.
He probably can baloney his way through any discussion, but it was a lot of stuff.
I don't know.
Okay.
Plenty, baby.
Yeah.
He also hired me because I know some of the other stuff that he doesn't know.
Cool.
No, it's good.
It's a good team, I think.
Hey, I'm perfectly happy with this situation.
I'm not going to lie.
Some of the pragmatics wouldn't be bad right now.
So I don't know if any students will listen to this, but I know adjuncts will listen to
it, maybe other faculty.
How should faculty, anybody communicate with the students to get them involved in doing
one of these or multiples?
Yeah.
Sure.
So probably the answer to that would help to know something about the structure of these
badges.
Yeah, that might be good.
Yeah.
So each of the badges is basically, it's a micro credential, but it's not like new information,
if that makes sense.
We're not trying to teach students something new about oral communication or something
new about critical thinking beyond what they're doing already in college.
The idea is much more to document, recognize, and become reflective and articulate about
the skills you're already getting in college.
Right.
So we are not adding new courses, we're not adding a new minor, a new major, or anything
like that.
Instead, what the badges do is sort of allow students to get recognition for the things
they're already doing.
So my model for these badges, badges, I think, in higher education can either be like instruction
that's smaller than a course, like where you're actually learning something new, or
they can be recognition for things you're already doing.
We're with the transferable skills is definitely the latter.
So my favorite analogy for this is that these are Wizard of Oz badges, right?
So you know, the trick of the Wizard of Oz is we know that you already have it.
You know that you already have it.
We know that the scarecrow is already wise, he demonstrates it all throughout the story,
is that he himself doesn't know it, he's not articulate enough about it until the end
of the story when he gets this little token.
That's what we're going for here.
We're not trying to teach people something new.
So it's things that students are already doing, but now they're going to assemble together
in document to show that they have learned critical thinking, or they've displayed oral
communication skills.
Yeah.
And so they're going to do that with a portfolio and an interview.
So the portfolio part is they document things that they've done typically in a class, like
an assignment, or they can also document some things that they've done outside of
class, like in a co-curricular space.
Service learning hours here.
So through working with the nonprofit or doing something in the community.
So they document those things, they write a little reflection where they basically explain
why that's a good example of the skill.
That's the portfolio.
Then we take them to an interview and in the interview we ask them questions like, tell
me about a time you use teamwork to solve a problem.
That's what you call like a situational interview question.
Invites the person to tell a story.
Obviously those are very common.
Bright light, dark room, in an electric chair.
No.
No.
No.
Usually not.
You know, we would, John, but it's really hard to get dedicated space in a university.
I know.
To set that up.
I mean, to set that up.
We're going to make sure you really mean it.
Yeah.
To set that up to to reserve.
Right.
To reserve the warehouse and two at the morning.
It'd be really, really difficult for us to do that.
Sorry.
So part of the, what we're also trying to help students do is to develop their storytelling
ability about themselves.
So when they are in an interview, they can share why they can handle it.
Right.
And a rich story.
Yeah.
And unique to them that also gives them an opportunity to highlight their personality
through their storytelling as well.
Which I think, like, because you've sat in on interviews, right?
Yeah.
And people who come in and have personality in their answers.
Oh, yeah.
And they're not just the standard canned answers or the, oh, wait, let me think about.
I mean, I'm guilty of it too.
Right.
Oh, that's a really good question.
I mean, if you think about it, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, you know.
Awkward.
Right.
And everyone's just sitting there like, and time.
Now students will be able to come in and just speak with confidence about their experiences
and their knowledge.
Without any of those ums or pauses or having any of that awkwardness kind of come into
the conversation.
And without just bullet listing their traits, which is kind of what the resumes sometimes
encourage.
And then resume or LinkedIn encourages you to just bull, oh, I'm, you know, hardworking
industry.
Yeah.
Those things don't even mean anything.
You have to be able to tell a story about it to make it kind of like.
And so that's, we've built into the structure having students do that.
That's awesome.
Because basically that's the only way we get to know anybody is through narrative, through
story.
We don't really get, I'm five feet 11, my eyes are this color.
You know, I've got this degree.
Doesn't tell you anything really about me.
I just find stories are so fascinating.
Don't you?
And hence why you're leading a podcast.
I know in a goofy sort of way.
But it's fun, isn't it?
Right.
But it shows your personality.
Yeah.
And they still hired me.
I know.
That's what amazes me.
Let's do another pragmatic though, because we've talked about it's like, okay, so adjunct
say I'll add this into the class.
It is extra work for them to throw it in.
Or not that much really, I guess.
Because I think they're on canvas, these little like badges, right?
And you can just say, hey, this is an assignment to put up one artifact from this class on
this badge.
Is that correct?
It is, however.
Okay.
So good intentions are fan-
Caving the road to.
They are wonderful and the enthusiasm is touching that people want to become involved
and they want to believe in it.
Right?
So that's great.
However.
You're going to do workshops to help people.
We have workshops to help people learn how to do it.
Awesome.
So that they do it well and not just throw it in there.
Well, and so that they don't wind up sort of inadvertently telling students things that
are going to not leave them as well, leave them as straight or not make a work.
And then they get frustrated.
Why didn't I even do this?
It didn't work.
They didn't accept my artifact for this.
So they can do that.
But I think there are other ways that adjuncts can be involved.
Maybe in the longer term for you.
Yeah, they're sure are.
Let me just mention a few of them.
So one of them is to go ahead and take our workshop and our training to embed a badge
of both assignment and your course right away.
The other thing that's a little more intensive than that is we are running faculty cohorts
where faculty are creating new assignments that they embed right into their courses.
In those same cohorts, they're learning sort of skills for pedagogies that have been found
to help students learn these enduring skills, these transferable skills.
Those are cohorts that we piloted in year zero with full-time faculty.
One of the things we'll be doing starting next year is creating an adjunct cohort.
So that's the same experience we have by adjuncts.
Another thing that we're doing is that I'd like to mention is we're building some programming
onto the badges.
And one of the things we're doing in that interview stage of the badge is we're developing that
interview stage so that we start doing the interviews with guest interviewers like where
we bring in actual employers or local professionals to be the guest interviewers.
So students have a chance to meet a local professional, to network with them, to get
advice from somebody who has experience in the working world.
So I mean I really think that some of our adjuncts who have experience in the working
world would be really, really good candidates for this to come in as that guest interview
spot to fulfill that kind of workplace perspective.
I have a feeling some adjuncts might hear all this and go like, oh great, more work.
It is more work but it is compensated.
The cohorts are...
Did you hear that?
Yeah.
There is financial compensation.
Yeah, the cohorts are compensated activities.
So if a faculty member goes through one of our cohorts, that cohort is compensated.
Okay, great.
Another compensated thing that we're looking at that we're implementing again starting
into next year is bringing in some folks to help us with the actual assessment of the
student badge portfolio.
Pye, do you want to explain how that works?
The student submits the portfolio for review.
Yeah.
The person would read, they would look at all of their artifacts and the essays regarding
those artifacts and how it applies directly to the rubric.
And really your interaction, you don't necessarily have direct interaction with the student other
than you write them back.
Right?
So it's kind of like Canvas comments.
Yeah, it's like a critique of it all.
Okay.
And you'll be trained how to do that.
Yes.
Yes, because really we want people to read with kindness.
Because we want students to succeed.
Oh yeah.
So the answer...
It's more formative.
Yeah.
Glenn and I always say the answer is yes or not yet.
Okay.
We need to improve this, but you can use this and we just need to add this and articulate
it better.
And we want you to get through this program.
So they need I think three artifacts?
Three artifacts.
Minimum of three yes.
Minimum.
And then once that's finished, then they can do the interview.
Right.
Then the student...
So if you're the person who's reviewing the portfolio, you write the student back and
you write them again, write them back, encouragement, right?
Your first artifact was an incredible story.
Please bring that into any interview that you have.
This is a wow moment that needs to be shared with employers.
You are all set for the interview.
Let me know how you want to proceed.
Here are some options.
And then toss it back to the student.
They reply with if they want to take option A, B, or C as far as the interview process
is concerned.
You help guide them through that.
They go through the interview degree or you batch certified.
Boom.
Just like that.
Drop mic.
All right.
Any chance any of this is going to be highlighted at graduation?
Or no?
Yes.
Funny you should ask.
Because I think that'd be so cool to have.
I don't know.
It's not like brownie patches.
Oh, oh, but it is.
Oh, but it is.
It's...
Oh, wow.
Yes, yes, yes.
So our...
On top of the mortar board.
Our stoles are currently in production.
Seriously.
Yes.
They will be embroidered with the skills advantage on one side and the FGC will go
on the other.
And I know that sounds odd, but if you don't highlight it...
Oh, no, no, no.
It's all about the spray.
It's all about the spray.
No, specifically requested graduation swag when we were doing focus with them.
Okay.
So I'm also in conversations with my supplier as to the creation of the badges.
Because for every badge that you complete, so if you complete oral communication and
communication technology, you will get a physical badge of both of those to put on your
stole.
Oh.
That's graduation swag.
You're also getting a digital badge.
And one of the features of the digital badge is that you park it on sites like LinkedIn
or Indeed.
Cool.
And one of the things that does for you is it makes you more searchable by employers.
So like an employer.
Wow.
Yeah.
You know, typically employers who are recruiting on a site like LinkedIn, they're using sophisticated
search engines where they put in keywords from the job notice.
So you know...
And since these are the ones you're looking for, this makes the most sense.
Digital badges also have metadata behind them that the employers can review.
So if they click on the actual digital badge, information is generated and they can read
about it and they find out that this is not a participation badge.
But there was actual academic rigor that went behind the award.
So is that the general...
Metadata is general or is it specific for that?
No, it is general.
But it does tell what the student had to do for that badge.
In order to get that.
Okay.
And it also connects it back to FGCU, frankly.
Yeah.
Like one of the things we thought was really important was that we have a badge that was
tied to the university, validated by the university and tied to best practices for
badging.
Because you know, frankly, one of the things about, you know, badging is kind of a trend
and there's all kinds of people trying to make money off of it.
So there's a lot of sort of low quality badges out there.
Our badges are based on best practices.
They also are no additional cost to the students.
So that's important to know.
You know, we're really trying to kind of essentially have control over what constitutes
a badge.
So some of the ones that are out there that are maybe badges you get for doing an online
course or something are not necessarily...
They don't necessarily tell you a lot other than the fact that you click through the
screens, right?
QEPs can be sound kind of wa- wa boring, but I'm kind of excited.
Actually I think this is going to be very useful for both the instructors and the students,
right?
Yep.
Well, we do have an email that you can...
People can contact us at.
It's the skill...
The skills advantage.
All one word.
Okay.
At FGCU.edu.
We'll put that in the notes too.
We'll see it there.
And we also have a sub page on the FGCU website.
Okay.
We'll put that link there too.
And in the future, you give me an article.
I'll put in the adjunct faculty news about when the cohorts, when you're looking for
the cohort, or...
And when you are looking for people to review these things and get paid for that as well.
And I will say that regarding the review, the reading of the portfolio may be 10 minutes.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Looking at the things and reading the things.
It's the writing of the response.
Yeah.
Because if you just want to be thoughtful about the response.
So Max, you're probably looking at about 30 minutes per portfolio.
30 minutes per portfolio.
Yeah.
And eventually we're going to get up to fingers crossed about 800 or 900 portfolios a year.
That's kind of a problem.
Not for one person to assess.
No.
No.
For one person to do.
For many persons to assess.
Yeah.
Exactly.
But that's the goal.
That's great.
That's to go to that kind of scale.
Awesome.
Well, thanks for being with me.
I'm sorry.
Maggie, I probably messed up and somehow thought I had invited you.
But I miss you, Maggie.
But I'm...
I recognize.
Yeah, I know.
That was the only reason why I came out.
More fun pie with Maggie here.
She is a lot of fun.
I don't know if you've...
She works with first year seminars now.
We know Maggie.
Oh, yes.
Maggie was in Glenn's class.
Was she?
Like when she was a student.
Yeah.
Well, I know.
She's an alum and she's doing an excellent job.
And I bet first year seminars in some form need to have QEP at least introduce these badges,
introduce to them so that they're used to the idea when they get beyond...
It's part of our plan for world domination, Don.
They're going to rule the world through these transferable skills.
Yeah, right.
All right.
Well, thank you all for listening in.
Thank you, John.
And thank you to...
I really enjoyed it.
Bye-bye now.
Music for the adjunct files was written, composed, and produced by James Husband.