Professional Habits: The Most Neglected Component of Employability
When hiring managers are asked what is essential in candidates, their responses are informative for candidates and educators. In recent Harris Poll research conducted with Express Employment, hiring managers identified work ethic (60 percent), dependability (59 percent), and willingness to learn (57 percent) as absolutely essential. Many institutions name attributes among their educational goals. Fewer […]
The Kodak Moments Higher Ed Can’t Afford to Miss
Kodak case study for higher education
General Education Is Not the Problem. The Employability Architecture Is.
General education is not the problem. The problem is that many institutions have not designed a coherent employability architecture. Students develop the skills, attributes, and professional habits that constitute employability across general education, the major, co-curricular learning, work-related experiences, assessment, career services, and employer engagement. But these components are often managed separately, assessed separately, and […]
Five Questions Every Chief Academic Officer Should Ask About General Education and Employability
Nearly 20 years of AAC&U employer surveys confirm that employers value the development that general education promotes. Critical thinking, problem solving, communication, teamwork, and adaptability are some of the skills identified by employers as important, and these are often listed as the goals of general education programs. Despite this focus and apparent connection between general […]
Applying Employability Futures: Three Questions for Educators and Employers
In the first two parts of this series (blog 1 and blog 2), I proposed that the future of employability, exploring the skills, attributes, and professional habits that enable people to gain, sustain, and transition between employment as work evolves, deserves the same attention we give to the future of work. The future of employability […]
Defining the Future of Employability: Scope and Methodology
Future of Employability shown with future of work
The Future of Employability: Why the Distinction Matters
From LinkedIn feeds to strategic plans, discussions about the future of work are everywhere, but the future of employability is barely discussed. This gap has consequences as unemployment and underemployment remain elevated, and graduates struggle to translate education into first jobs and sustainable careers. This is not just semantics. Terms shape priorities, and the terms […]
Bridging the Gap: How Higher Education and Employers Can Collaborate to Prepare Futures-Empowered Graduates
What Employers Want from Recent College Graduates A survey from Intelligent.com found that 6 of 10 companies surveyed fired a recent college graduate they hired this year. Why? The top reasons given for recent college graduates’ lack of success are (in order) a lack of motivation or initiative, lack of professionalism, poor organizational skills, poor […]
Navigating Uncertainty: The Power of Scenario Planning in Higher Education
2025 may be a year of significant change for the higher education community. This community, which includes colleges, universities, accreditors, and nonprofits focused on higher education, may see significant shifts in higher education policies. Some of the proposed changes include eliminating the Department of Education and restructuring the accreditation system. Other proposals focus on affordability, […]
History Majors: Beyond the Myths and Into the Workforce
What are you going to do with that major? This is the question often posed to humanities graduates. The assumption behind it is that while it may have been enjoyable to study the humanities while pursuing your degree, you will have difficulty securing meaningful employment following graduation. Although this myth has been addressed many times, […]
The complexities of leadership in the age of AI
In this episode of Inside West Point: Ideas that Impact, Colonel Chris Mayer from the Department of Law and Philosophy at West Point discusses the importance of balancing technical competence with human skills in the age of AI. Mayer shares his extensive military and academic background, highlighting his work in integrating future force capabilities and his […]
Change Management in Higher Education
In this episode of the Change Management Review™ “From the Field” Series, Managing Editor Brian Gorman interviews Chris Mayer, a career Army officer who is serving as associate dean for strategy, policy, and assessment, and associate professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Chris has led, been part of, or observed efforts […]
A Philosopher’s Take On The Future of Leadership, Education, & A Lot More
Cathy is joined by Chris Mayer, philosopher & also Associate Dean for Strategy & Initiatives at West Point. Among the many things Chris does is teach Philosophy to cadets. Cathy and Chris met at the University of Houston’s Strategic Foresight Professional Certificate program earlier this year. During this episode, they talk about the future of […]
A Conversation With West Point’s Associate Dean for Strategy and Initiatives
Chris Mayer is an associate dean for strategy and initiatives, an associate professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a colonel in the U.S. Army. I first ran across Mayer on his active Twitter feed, @ChrisMayer_WP. Mayer generously offered to answer my questions about academic life within the military, his thoughts […]
Hacking HR Podcast: Humans at Work
Podcast Interview with Enrique Rubio. Listen to the podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hacking-hr/episodes/The-Hacking-HR-Podcast—Episode-22-ejute0
The Future of Work, Education & Leadership with Chris Mayer
In this power-hour conversation with Chris Mayer, Assistant Dean at the US Military Academy at West Point, we deep dive into the most pressing issues of Future of Education, Work, and Leadership. It is so refreshing to hear from the best, Mayer’s independent perspective on many other issues and great opportunists to elevate leadership skillset […]
Higher Education’s Impact on the Future of Water
What will be the necessary skills, abilities, and knowledge necessary for the future leaders and followers within the world of water? Dr. Chris Mayer of the United States Military Academy (a/k/a West Point) joins the Water Foresight Podcast to discuss the future of higher education and how it is changing and will shape the future […]
Review of: How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading, and Enacting Change
Internal and external forces continue to push for change in higher education. Political leaders, the public, and foundations advocate for lower tuition and higher quality; boards of trustees and accreditors also serve as catalysts for change. Additionally, administrators, faculty, and staff seek better ways to promote student learning and more effectively accomplish their institution’s missions. […]
Review of: The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most
The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most identifies successful practices in undergraduate education worthy of adoption by others. The foreword, written by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County, highlights two overarching ideas that serve as the foundation for the book’s six themes. The first is that successful institutions […]
Review of: Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success
It is not unusual to hear a member of the faculty and staff claim that many of their students are not ready for college. High schools, socio-economic conditions, parents, and students themselves are blamed for this problem, even as there is debate as to what college readiness means or whether career readiness should be prioritized […]
Review of: Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in American Higher Education
The idea that higher education reflects and is a significant contributor to a country’s well-being is a key assumption of Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in American Higher Education. The book’s authors, Michael G. Bowen and Michael S. McPherson, argue that American higher education ‘needs to do much better than it is doing at […]
Should higher education be bundled, or unbundled?
Higher education today faces many challenges, including lower than desired completion rates, the high cost and resulting debt associated with attaining a degree, and low educational quality that leaves many graduates unprepared for the workforce and employers disappointed with their abilities. One approach to these challenges currently receiving a lot of attention is the “unbundling” […]
Trends in Curricular Change
Undergraduate curricular change at colleges and universities is undertaken for many reasons. At some institutions, the curriculum has been in place for many years, even decades, and it is time for a change. Demographic pressures and concerns about the value of degrees are also a motivation for curricular change as some colleges and universities, especially […]
Empowering Students to Thrive in a Variety of Futures
Imagine two college students who graduate with bachelor’s degrees. The first is completely unprepared for the uncertainty that exists following graduation and struggles to find and keep meaningful work. For the second, her skills, knowledge, and attitude empower her to successfully navigate uncertainty. This does not mean that she never needs to learn again. What […]
Opening Students’ Minds to Futures
In my last blog, I suggested that educators should be more intentional about empowering students to thrive in a variety of futures and that one way to do this would be to require students to complete a foresight course. It is rare for undergraduate students in the United States to be required to take a […]
Review of: Realizing the Distinctive University: Vision and Values, Strategy and Culture
AT A TIME WHEN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES are competing for declining numbers of high school graduates, receiving reduced state support, being criticized for high tuition, and facing a public that questions the value of higher education, Mark William Roche presents his thoughts on how institutions can thrive in this environment. He argues, “For a university […]
Review of: Improving Quality in American Higher Education: Learning Outcomes and Assessments for the 21st Century
Arum, R., Roksa, J., and Cook, A. Improving Quality in American Higher Education: Learning Outcomes and Assessments for the 21st Century. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, 2016. Improving Quality in American Higher Education: Learning Outcomes and Assessments for the 21st Century documents the work of the Measuring College Learning (MCL) Project, an initiative coordinated by the […]
Review of: The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World
Students are often discouraged from studying liberal-arts disciplines by people who think it will be difficult for them to find jobs in a world dominated by technology. Scott Hartley, a venture capitalist and former researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, bucks that trend in The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts […]
Review of: Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Aoun, Joseph E. Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017. Advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data will radically change the nature of work. Predictions on the impact of these advances range from the elimination of many types of jobs to the automation of a significant number of […]
Review of: College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World
Gallagher, Chris W. College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. High tuition and resulting the resulting loan debt, along with low completion rates and concerns about how much students are actually learning in college, have led critics to call for the unbundling of higher education. Unbundling higher […]
Review of: Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education
Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Bryan Alexander. Johns Hopkins University Press (January 14, 2020). Baltimore. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought institutional preparedness to the forefront as many campuses are discovering that they could have been better prepared to do such things as shift to remote teaching, transition employees to telework, provide support for […]
The Evolution of the Liberal Arts (The Great Skills Gap: Optimizing Talent for the Future of Work)
To fulfill their potential of preparing students for the future of work, the liberal arts (both programs and general education offerings) must evolve in terms of their curricular and pedagogical design. While there is a great deal of work to do in this area, there are many examples of colleges and universities strengthening the connection […]
Exploring the Future to Create Pathway Opportunities that Empower Students (New Models of Higher Education: Unbundled, Rebundled, Customized, and DIY)
Book cover for New Models of Higher Education: Unbundled, Rebundled, Customized, and DIY.
Playing to Win in Higher Education: Developing Effective Strategies for Colleges and Universities (Journal of Higher Education Management)
The Playing to Win framework is worthy of consideration as a strategy framework because many college and university strategic plans are not designed to advance a real strategy. One indication that strategic plans do not produce real strategies is their similarity to one another. If there are any choices reflected in strategic plans, they often […]
Strengthening General Education to Prepare Students for Today and Tomorrow (Restructuring General Education and Core Curricula Requirements)
There is increasing skepticism in the United States about the value of higher education, and some of this skepticism is focused on general education. General education is an extremely important part of the undergraduate experience, but in many cases, it has failed to adapt to current needs. Three challenges that many general education programs face […]
Enhancing General Education with Strategic Foresight (Journal of Futures Studies)
Group of people walking towards the sun representing how general education and strategic foresight open up future possibilities.
Thriving in an AI-Dominated World: Why Higher Education Must Produce Graduates who are Uniquely Human and Technically Competent (International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education: VISIONARIUM)
This article delves into the evolving job market landscape, highlighting the dual demand for technological prowess and uniquely human capabilities among employers. It advocates for educational strategies that integrate AI familiarity with the development of critical human skills, positioning such an approach as vital for preparing a future workforce capable of thriving in an AI-dominated […]