After a series of meetings, a select panel of university presidents along with deep-thinking advisors had concluded that the measure of intelligence in the 21st Century would require a mentality shift to a collection of personal traits they identified:
- Spontaneity · Purpose
- Judgement · Authenticity
- Sensibility · Playfulness
- Visioning · Awareness
Before they further explored how these would be taught, they wanted to identify the challenges they would face in shifting their focus to these traits. For this reason, they invited faculty to join them. Each faculty member invited had a reputation for holistic thinking about education along with a legendary record of student development.
After an extensive series of meetings, the group arrived at a series of guiding perspectives on the development of the new traits of intelligence.
Guiding Perspective 1: The new traits of intelligence will require a new form of educational model. Existing course structures will no longer be applicable.
Guiding Perspective 2: Current faculty priorities are fundamentally at odds with the development of these new traits of intelligence.
Guiding Perspective 3: The development of these traits of intelligence cannot be accomplished in one semester. They must be continually developed over a student’s entire time in college and afterwards.
Guiding Perspective 4: The development of these traits of intelligence will encounter a very diverse student baseline from which to start. This baseline will be unlike any existing admissions criteria or prior credentials.
Guiding Perspective 5: The development of these traits of intelligence will fundamentally change how we view academic achievement. Traditional grading rubrics will no longer be applicable.
Guiding Perspective 6: The development of traits of intelligence are likely to reduce the gap between students with privileged backgrounds vs those who come from backgrounds with less resources.
Guiding Perspective 7: The development of these traits of intelligence will be expensive but are more likely to attract more public and private support, which have been on the decline. The value of a university education might be reestablished after years of public doubt.
As the participants reflected on these guiding principles, they realized that they were calling for a disruption in higher education. Whether that disruption would ever materialize would depend on the next series of discussions. The faculty were asked to come to the next discussions on thoughts for how to start developing these traits.
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“It is only through disruptions and confusions that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own.” – Joyce Carol Oates (Author)