International education at Lewis & Clark College

The 2009 edition of OPEN DOORS, published annually by the Institute of International Education, ranks Lewis & Clark College 4th for Baccalaureate Institutions sending students on mid-length duration overseas programs (one semester) and 11th for long-term duration overseas programs (full-year.) In the latter category we missed being in the top 10 by 3 students! For more information, please see:

http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=150838

Undergraduate research at Lewis & Clark College, part 7 - Literature

Collaborative research with undergraduates in the humanities--often characterized as difficult to do properly because most scholars in the humanities tend to work in isolation--is not only possible but can lead to important achievements. An example is the ongoing collaboration between Lewis & Clark College's Prof. John Callahan and Prof. Adam Bradley, now at the University of Colorado, Boulder, but once an undergraduate at Lewis & Clark.

Eight Challeges for Liberal Arts Colleges - A Reading List

If you read my earlier post on the Eight Challenges for Liberal Arts Colleges, you may find these reports and sources of data useful and interesting:

• Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education: Knocking at the College Door
• Measuring Up 2008: The National Report Card on Higher Education
• Trends in the Higher Education Labor Force: Identifying Changes in Worker Composition and Productivity
• High-Impact Educational Practices
• How Should Colleges Prepare Students to Succeed in Today’s Global Economy?
• Facts & Figures from The Chronicle of Higher Education

Eight Challenges for Liberal Arts Colleges

I can enumerate eight challenges that liberal arts colleges must face in the near future:

1. Changing demographics:

(a) The number of high school graduates will level off in the next 20 years, so competition for students will be fierce.

(b) College students will be more diverse ethnically and culturally, so the curriculum also must become more diverse.

2. Affordability: Tuition and fees have been rising at higher rates than healthcare, median household income, and the CPI.

3. Dwindling resources and cost containment: Tuition revenue and endowments will level off or decrease in a difficult economy.

4. The value proposition: Colleges must communicate to students and their families that a liberal arts education has great value. See http://jdepaula1.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-is-value-of-liberal-arts-education.html.

5. Assessment of learning outcomes: Colleges must prove to students and employers that a liberal arts education imparts useful skills.

6. The student of the future must learn to think critically, communicate well, and understand science, technology, and global issues.

7. The curriculum of the future must make stronger connections between the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

8. The curriculum of the future must promote global citizenship and leadership.

The good news for liberal arts Colleges is that the existing curriculum--to the extent that it is possible to generalize--already teaches some essential skills: critical and creative thinking, analytical and quantitative reasoning, effective writing. But these skills are often developed within discipline-centric majors, which by design promote early specialization. Students have few opportunities to explore connections between disciplines, to understand "big issues" by examining multiple perspectives. For example, seldom is an English major--even someone who meets all requirements of a general education program--asked to think critically and creatively about solutions to a complex problem, such as climate change, by synthesizing concepts of economics, chemistry, political science, philosophy. Yet a student who faces and conquers such an intellectual challenge is prepared to articulate the value of a liberal arts education to a prospective employer. More importantly, this student will become an informed citizen with the potential to lead local and global communities.

As Professor Copenhaver stated in http://jdepaula1.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-is-value-of-liberal-arts-education.html, a liberal arts education 'makes a certain kind of good life possible – one that is embedded in relations that provide life with meaning: relations to the past, the world, and to other persons.’ Relations to the past, the world, and to other persons change over time because society, perspectives, and our collective body of knowledge change over time. Therefore, the liberal arts curriculum must change over time as well. So let us renew our commitment to reform by engaging actively in open conversation about the curriculum we want to create for our students. And let us broaden access to this curriculum by making a liberal arts education affordable to all students who want it. This curriculum will be our legacy.

Undergraduate research at Lewis & Clark College, part 6: The role of the Student Academic Affairs Board

At Lewis & Clark College the Student Academic Affairs Board (SAAB) makes research grants to students, enhancing the undergraduate research options discussed in earlier posts. For an example of a SAAB-funded project, please click here.

The Value of Undergraduate Research

Much of what I wrote in my opinion piece from 2001 on undergraduate research is still valid today. The same topic is addressed in the same issue of Chemical & Engineering News by Profs. Abrash and Bussell.

Incidentally, the student profiled in my opinion piece, Shelli Frey, went on to receive a doctorate from the University of Chicago and is now an assistant professor of Chemistry at Gettysburg College.

Undergraduate research at Lewis & Clark College, part 5: Mathematics and Computer Science

The following summer undergraduate research projects in Computer Science and Mathematics were funded by grants from the National Science Foundation:

Title: Computer Go: Enhancing Monte Carlo Tree Search
Faculty mentors: Peter Drake, Yung-Pin Chen, Jens Mache
Students: Walt Javins ‘11, Jessica Mullins ‘10, Seth Pellegrino ‘10, Bobby Dygert (University at Buffalo), Travis Mandel (Carnegie Mellon University), Drew Tillis (Hendrix College)
Abstract: The Asian game of Go has simpler rules than Chess, but writing a Go-playing program that can compete with strong human players has proven exceedingly difficult. In fact, Go is considered one of the "grand challenges" of artificial intelligence. The Monte-Carlo approach has significantly strengthened the performance of computer Go programs. The team examined and improved the RAVE (Rapid Action Value Estimation) algorithm proposed by Gelly and Silver in 2008, and enhanced the Monte Carlo tree search with two revised RAVE algorithms. Click here for Lewis & Clark’s Orego page and here for more information about the NSF grant that supported this work.

Title: Towards Contour Tracking with Wireless Sensor Networks.
Faculty mentor: Jens Mache
Student: Samuel Bock '11
Abstract: An emerging class of small computers, outfitted with sensors and linked by radio transceivers, can form perceptive sensor networks that will connect more intimately the virtual and physical worlds. This work focuses on making these new technologies accessible to undergraduates through the use of activity based labs and a web accessible collaborative environment. The team explored communication, localization, power management, security, data aggregation and contour tracking. Click here for information about the NSF grant that supported this work.