In higher education, like any field, a book or study arrives every few years and shakes up the status quo.Last month, that book emerged, painting a less-than-flattering picture of American colleges' ability to affect students' critical thinking skills and learning. In Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa discuss a study that tracked 2,300 students at 24 American universities for four years.

The results they share aren't pretty: using a written measurement tool called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and student surveys, they found that nearly half of students "did not demonstrate any significant change in learning" over the first two years of college, and the same was true for more than a third of students over four years. Blaming a lack of academic rigor for the meager or non-existent student gains in critical thinking, the study concludes that many college students are simply "drifting through college without a clear sense of purpose."

The book taps into a larger discussion surrounding higher education, one that focuses on what students should be learning, how we measure that learning and how challenging college should be. We spoke to three representatives of Minnesota's Private Colleges to get their perspectives on the book, academic rigor and the ways they are constantly trying to ensure their students aren't "adrift."

Monitoring student learning often
The significance of Academically Adrift comes from the attempts to measure student learning in higher education across institutions using a common tool. It's a goal that isn't often attempted because of the great variation in American higher education institutions, each with their own ideas of what should constitute student learning.

However, while using a common measurement to assess learning in various schools is unique, according to Hamline University president Linda Hanson, having "specific learning outcomes in place to assess what students have actually learned" at an institution is known to be "best practice" in higher education, she said.

Beth Domholdt, vice president for academic affairs at The College of St. Scholastica, agrees that a university that is doing its job should be trying to ask important questions about rigor all the time. "To me, you're only 'academically adrift' if you're not measuring student learning and then trying to improve it based on what you find out," she said. And as colleges devoted to teaching and student learning, many private colleges have long been doing this, she added.

But measuring student learning and defining what high academic standards are for an institution can be tricky — and figuring out what changes to make in curriculum as a result isn't any easier. The question is how colleges ensure they are challenging students and graduating critical thinkers.

Academic rigor starts with student writing
For Minnesota's Private Colleges, focusing on student writing seems to be a universal priority. The relationship between producing strong written work and learning isn't debatable; it's no accident that the Academically Adrift study used written performance tasks to measure critical thinking. Further, one of the study's findings was that college students write less than one might expect, with half of students not having taken a course requiring more than 20 pages of writing in a typical semester.

Nathan Grawe, associate dean and associate professor of economics at Carleton College, emphasizes that small, liberal arts colleges like Carleton already promote the development of writing skills through small class sizes that guarantee students will be required to write frequently. Faculty are able to prioritize grading written work in a meaningful way because of this, he said.

An emphasis on writing may take many forms, from more time spent instructing first-year students in how to write well to supporting struggling writers. Hamline's Writing Center, where students can work one-on-one with mentors and instructors, is one example. Colleges also work to ensure that writing assignments aren't just for English class anymore.

"We have a strong writing-across-the-curriculum initiative that is committed to encouraging faculty to create high-quality written assignments that require critical thinking," said Grawe. "Also, in terms of looking at student work, our Sophomore Writing Portfolio ensures that every student develops a facility with writing so they can be stronger writers in their major."

He explained that the required Sophomore Writing Portfolio involves three to five student papers from different disciplines, which are assessed by faculty members. The portfolio then receives a rating; if that rating is "needs improvement," the student typically works one-on-one with a faculty tutor to bring their writing up to par.

At St. Scholastica, the recent hiring of a full-time rhetorician has been a catalyst for examining the curriculum of first-year composition classes. The new faculty member has also helped lead ongoing faculty development sessions focused on building critical thinking skills in students through "creating better assignments and projects, pedagogically," Domholdt said.

Such an emphasis on training faculty to create better classes with more challenging assignments is another part of ensuring academic rigor, said Grawe. At Carleton, that means December is devoted to professional development workshops for faculty, many which also cover how to build cross-discipline critical thinking skills, such as quantitative reasoning and visual literacy.

An emphasis on student projects and research
While the results of any measurement tool, even a well-designed one like the CLA, can always be debated, it's harder to argue with concrete examples of student work. Having students engage in student-driven independent work or another type of creative production, like undergraduate research or senior capstone projects, demonstrates both critical thinking skills and content-area knowledge that students can apply directly to their career or future studies.

This is true at Minnesota's Private Colleges as well, with many institutions encouraging more students to complete such projects.

At Hamline, this hands-on emphasis is seen in the large number of students participating in undergraduate research, Hanson said. Last year, the institution sent 40 students, one of the largest numbers of any institution nationally, to the National Conference for Undergraduate Research.

A similar philosophy about the value of student projects pervades at Carleton, where every student completes a senior capstone project, typically involving research in their major and often in the form of a senior thesis. Grawe also said that opportunities for collaborative faculty-student research projects are widespread during the summer and throughout the academic year.

Finally, Domholdt said that St. Scholastica is also "ramping up" their commitment to undergraduate research at the college while also encouraging students to participate in prestigious summer research programs at other universities.

It is all "part of one of our three macro goals here, related to cultivating a culture of achievement," Domholdt said, explaining that everyone from athletic coaches to student Academic Role Models living in residence halls help promote the importance of academic learning on campus.

Campus culture and academic rigor
Indeed, the student culture of college and institutional expectations is likely a key component of increasing levels of academic rigor in higher education — and also the hardest to quantify or describe. The authors of Academically Adrift suggest that student culture at many schools encourages students to become experts at figuring out exactly how little they have to do to get by, devoting the rest of their time to social pursuits.

Thus, students' own attitudes toward their education must be examined to ensure that they get the most out of their time in college, Hanson noted. "As high school students and their parents begin exploring higher education options, they should remember to select a school that will not only offer high academic standards but also will hold itself, its faculty and its students accountable," she said. "And be sure that if you are going to make the financial investment in college, that your student is willing to make the investment of time and energy."

Whether one reads the book as critical of "kids these days" or higher education as a whole, the most important outcome may be the increased focus how institutions are advancing academic rigor and student learning. "If this study causes those involved in higher education to ask more questions about what we are trying to teach students and how we're trying to do it, then that's a positive thing," Grawe said.

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