007: Jumpstart General Education

12/18/17 • 27 min

Solutions for Higher Education with Southern Utah University President Scott L Wyatt

Quotes:
"Jumpstart is kind of the Marketing Department’s title for this integrated General Education program that we have at SUU where a student in her or his freshman year gets all the general education classes in one cohort taught around a single theme."

"...we went to lunch, and you proposed this crazy idea of, “Is it possible to create a General Education program that would be so engaging that students would actually choose to come to Southern Utah University because of it?” "

"...until I taught the first cohort of Jumpstart and I realized, “No, Jumpstart is the coolest thing, as a faculty member, that I’ve ever been able to participate in.”"

"...we do know that in talking with students who have now been out of the Jumpstart program—they are all juniors this year—that seeing things in an integrated nature is something that sticks with them."

"But now, once we start integrating these topics together and we light a fire under the student, it’s, “Wow! This is relevant to me. This is interesting to me. I see how all of these things relate.”"

"Jumpstart gives them a year to sample all these really neat areas in engaging ways and it’s really interesting to watch the student slowly decide, “I want to go into art history” or “I want to go into physiology or agriculture.” It’s fascinating to see."

Full Transcript

"...until I taught the first cohort of Jumpstart and I realized, “No, Jumpstart is the coolest thing, as a faculty member, that I’ve ever been able to participate in.”"

Full Transcript

Previous Episode

006: General Education

Quotes:

"What’s unique about an American higher education, one of the primarily unique things, is General Education. That we think that somebody who is majoring in engineering, or art, or education, or business, that they need to have this broad understanding."

"...but it’s what helps us understand other peoples and cultures and ideas and informs our lives. It enriches everything about us..."

"Because if, in fact, you could record it and play it back then you probably should. So we’re experimenting with a variety of kinds of General Education classes "

"We pride ourselves in all these things, but really for the last decades, we haven’t shown that that’s something that we care about because it’s received the least amount of attention. "

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Next Episode

008: Jumpstart Student Retention

Quotes:

"We are more concerned about students finishing than students starting."

"So, amongst all public regional universities in the eight intermountain west states, Southern Utah University has the highest graduation rate, and you don't get a high graduation rate, unless you continually improve your retention rate—the number of students that come back for the second year. "

"But there hasn't been, over the last decades, a lot of effort put into seeing how much teaching itself can have an influence on retention. Until recently. "

"So there are a couple questions that we would ask about the success of this program and one question is, “Is learning better?” And another question is, “Is retention better?” They are both important."

"But the point is, is that our Jumpstart program has...we have invested our very best, experienced, tenured faculty members in a freshman experience that is dynamic and integrated. And the result seems to suggest that that the outcomes go way up."

Full Transcript