May 11, 2017
Al Cubbage: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Northwestern University Leadership Circle Insider Series. We're very pleased that you're able to join us today. I'm Al Cubbage. I'm the vice president for university relations at Northwestern University. I've been here for a while now, and have two degrees from Medill. And I am also a member of the Leadership Circle. So it's nice to be chatting with our fellow members. But most importantly, I'm the host today. And as a result, I really appreciate your joining us.
As those of you who have done this before know, the Northwestern University Leadership Circle Insider Series is a way of giving our members the way to look at new developments at Northwestern, and the opportunity to hear from really some of our top faculty and leaders here at the university. So it's always a good conversation. We're glad you're able to be with us today.
And a big part of that, really, is to thank you for your generosity. Leadership Circle membership is very important to the University. Annual support, and having that kind of leadership donors is something that really helps advance Northwestern in many, many different ways. So regardless of whether your contributions are for one particular school, or the University in general, that contribution truly is appreciated, I assure you.
We're going to introduce Adrian Randolph today. Adrian is the dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and a professor of art history. He's been here about two years. He joined us in July of 2015. And Dean Randolph, too, is a member of the Leadership Circle. So it's a kind of chat between a couple of our fellow members, which is great.
Prior to coming here, Dean Randolph was associate dean of the faculty for arts and humanities at Dartmouth College. And at Dartmouth, he also chaired the art history department and directed the college's Leslie Center for the Humanities.
Dean Randolph earned his degrees at Princeton, University of London, and Harvard. His research focuses on the art and architecture of medieval and Renaissance Italy. So Dean Randolph's going to talk a little bit today about the practicality of the arts in the 21st century, learning how to think, just a good overview of Weinberg itself, and the arts and sciences.
Several of you have already submitted questions, which is great. We've got those ready to roll. And if you're joining us by computer, and would like to submit a question during the session, you can do so by typing into the Q&A box that's in the bottom right corner of your computer screen. And we'll certainly try to get as many of your questions as possible. Discussion will last about 45 minutes, and we'll see what we learn today. Should be fun. So let's get started.
Dean Randolph, you've been here about two years now. What attracted you to Northwestern in the first place, and how's it going?
Dean Randolph: Thanks, Al. Thanks for the introduction. It's terrific to be here with my fellow NULC members. What brought me to Northwestern? You know, you look back at your life, and you see the winding path that brings you to where you are. It's complex with many turns and changes. But I think the fundamental decision was one driven by a desire for change in my life, professionally and personally. I thought it was the right moment for me to take on a new challenge.
And then learning, as I did, through the process of speaking to so many people at Northwestern, that this is an institution on an extraordinarily positive trajectory. And, you know, that's something you can say, I think, people say about their organizations, but I think it's objectively true at Northwestern. When you're an outsider trying to learn about this place, and you hear about the things going on, this is a university that has made extraordinary strides in the last four or five decades.
And that's not to say it wasn't an excellent institution throughout all phases of its history. But clearly, the leadership, the direction, the strategic direction it's taken, has put it in a situation to really aspire to be a place where great teacher-scholars want to come to teach students, talented students, from all parts of the world and the country want to come. So I felt really excited about joining this project.
Al Cubbage: Great. Great. Well certainly Weinberg has been a central part of the University for years. It was the original college, obviously. Talk a little bit about the role of Weinberg and its location. Or not just location, but it's actual centrality to the university.
Dean Randolph: Yeah, in a way we're one among equals. You know, the schools of Northwestern are its structure, its skeleton, if you will. The college is both one among those other schools, but also quite distinctive, especially when it comes to undergraduate education. Because in some ways, we admit students to the college, and many people listening, they have got their degrees at the college. But it's also a place where students from all of the undergraduate schools come to learn.
If you speak to the deans of Medill, Communication, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, you'll find out that their students almost take more than 50%, on average, of their courses in the college. So we're both a distinct entity, but also really the common space for undergraduate curriculum, the common experience for many of the undergrads who come to Northwestern. And we embrace that and think we're both equal, but also certainly different, differently structured, in that we provide services to all of the undergraduates coming to Northwestern.
Al Cubbage: Great. Well, one of the things obviously that, for those of us who did receive a liberal arts education, and I think is a question even more in the 21st century is, great. It's a wonderful education. You learn a lot about a lot of different things. But as one of our listeners really put, pretty bluntly right up there is, "It may broaden your thinking and perspective, but it's not known to provide the largest rate of return upon graduation."
So given issues about student debt and the challenges of millennials finding jobs, how do you counsel an incoming student, and say, you know, "Here's a great education. Is it really going to be something you can monetize?"
Dean Randolph: Uh-huh. Well, first of all ... I'll get back to this. But the rate of return of investment is not only money. It has some other things. But that's a work-around, and I'm not going to evade the question. Some numbers help. If you look at PayScale, Inc., which is a Seattle-based provider of salary data, you'll find out that it's true. At the point of graduation, a student majoring in English or sociology is going to make, on average, $39,000 salary, whereas a computer science major might make, on average, up to 63.
So there is a difference. That first job, there's no doubt that students can choose to major in economics, or computer science, or some of the hard sciences. And they likely will receive more income immediately upon graduation, or six months out. What's interesting is, if you look at other numbers, if you're using the Census Bureau data, the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project analyzed data over the course of a longer period. So if you look at lifetime earnings of, say, a computer science major, on average it comes out something like $32 million, by these numbers.
But if you compare that to philosophy majors over their lifetime and the same data set, it comes to 3.75 million. Now, data can of course be ... You can pick and choose data. You can use data in different ways. But on the other hand, we want to be very careful to state that we are investing not only in trying to hit particular numbers when it comes to lifetime or first salary earnings, but rather provide our students with the foundation where they can craft really productive careers.
And again, I'm not trying to evade the question. But I think what we call the liberal arts has morphed, I think, a little bit. I tend to talk about the interdisciplinary arts and sciences. Because although the major is a very important part of a student's career in a curriculum such as ours, structured interdisciplinarily, actually the major is only a portion.
So when we talk about interdisciplinarity, we're talking about giving students the opportunity to test their mettle in various disciplines across these boundaries. And we feel this breeds the type of flexibility, adaptability, and nimbleness that will help students negotiate a career, which likely will not be in one field. The fact is, most of our students go into a job market where they will be pursuing two, three, four, five, or more careers in their lifetime.
And then you have to ask, "Well, what's more important? Is it important to train within a particular discipline? Or is it best to train certain students, those lucky enough to come to Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, to have that, what we talk about as a sort of Northwestern mindset, a mindset which is not risk-averse, which is open to courageous choices, which is imbued with a certain curiosity to explore broadly across intellectual matters and practical matters. But also one which has the persistence to really work through tough problems. And that, I think, that persistence is often sort of trained by trying different things.
In other words, students will have talent. They will come, those students who choose to only play to their talents, I don't think are getting the most of our education. We want students to be open to risk and change and adapting to new circumstances. So I'd say, on the value of our degree, is ... You know, there's some numbers backing up the value of different fields. But the value really is that adaptability. And then... Sorry, go ahead.
Al Cubbage: Sorry. Yeah, sorry. No, I think one of the jokes years ago when I graduated was, "Well, you're a liberal arts graduate. And you're trained for nothing, but you're educated for everything." So it's kind of that adaptability and flexibility. One point I want to clarify though, because I think I may have misheard it, when you talked about the earnings data on computer science. It was 3.2 million, right? Not 32.
Dean Randolph: Oh, excuse me, yeah. 32 would be a bit of a sound investment.
Al Cubbage: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure, so the comparability we're talking about is about 3.2 for a CS versus about 3.5 or whatever.
Dean Randolph: .75.
Al Cubbage: Yeah. 75. For [inaudible 00:10:32]. Sorry. Anyway—
Dean Randolph: Thank you.
Al Cubbage: --just wanted to clarify that point. And yes, you can see, even liberal arts majors know how to do math. How's that for being pretty good?
Dean Randolph: Ah, I'm with you.
Al Cubbage: One thing I talked a little bit about there is really kind of trying to re-imagine arts and sciences in the 21st century. Certainly that's a very traditional way of referring to things. But what are the arts and sciences in the current century? Most of our students who come in next year have only lived in the 21st century. How do you educate them?
Dean Randolph: There may be a perception that because department names are the same for 50 years, and because faculty members don't necessarily change our rosters as often as in other industries because of tenure. But there is something static about our curriculum. Nothing could be further from the truth. We approve so many new courses every year, responding to new impulses and new things that are happening in the world, that really what we see in our curriculum are just legions of new ideas flowing in all the time.
So I would say the arts and sciences, while it may appear somewhat static when you look at the names of our departments and popular majors, some of those look like they've been there since time immemorial. But the fact is, under political science, under economics, the people we're hiring are constantly producing new courses and using new examples, new case studies from lived experiences out there in the world.
So I'd say we dynamically respond to what's happening in the world. We just had two courses this year on, this is just an example, on the musical Hamilton. Looking at it from different points of view, whether the history of early Revolutionary America, or whether looking at it through the Declaration of Independence and the relations between states, laws, banking, et cetera. I think our faculty are incredibly responsive, trying to pick up on what will speak to our students' interests, not just repeating their own.
So I think it really is a responsive education. Now, does that mean we don't believe in some core principles? No. There are some things that we think the past did really well. I like to think of the past, not as an inert set of ideas that we inherit, but rather almost a certain type of crowdsourcing. You know, we've got very intelligent people who've thought about a lot of issues in the past. I started out as a classics major, and you know, Plato and Aristotle and Euripides, they had some ideas that are still very valid today.
So I like to bridge a sort of conservative approach to what we offer, along with we are constantly trying to respond to what's there. I will say, and I won't go into any great detail right now, but the faculty of the college are looking at our degree requirements, which basically is a scaffold of our curriculum. So what do we expect our students to know in the 21st century? And we look at learning outcomes. What do we think our graduates need to know in order to succeed? And we focus on certain things. I can get into those later.
But I came to talk about, we're in a data revolution. We need to care about how students think about curating using data. We also believe we need to study what happens when people from very different cultures, whether their ethnic, religious, linguistic, or however you want to see it, what happens when they meet? Does it lead to conflict or conflict resolution? Does it lead to artistic hybridity and beauty? Or does it lead to misunderstandings? And we in the arts and sciences have a huge burden, I think, to shoulder those discussion in the academy.
I'm also very interested in promoting a new approach to the sciences through something we're calling the nature of things, which is really focused on how can we invite students to be excited about some of the most basic problems when it comes to investigating our environment and the atmosphere, but also the galaxy in terms of trying to come to grips with basic science and its relationship to translational science. And I can get into that, but many of our listeners will know there's a lot of premium in the world to produce ideas that you can very quickly put on the market, or you can solve problems directly. And it's very important for the sciences. But it's built on a very broad base of basic science, of discovery almost for its own sake. If you talk one of the best scientists Fraser Stoddart you know, the Nobel Prize winner this year. But Chad Mirkin, the leader of IIN, our nanotechnology institute here. They both do things that have real application to the world. But it's based on a fundamental curiosity of what drew them to these problems that are really quire removed from applicability. And we in the college, I think, need to span that breadth. So I can talk for a rather long time, but [crosstalk 00:15:36].
Al Cubbage: No, I think that raises a good point, which is one of the things that I think is kind of interesting, is then the change in the applicability of so-called big data in fields that traditionally have not been pure science. You know, the social sciences and even the humanities now. And one of the things that, certainly, I see in journalism students, where I teach is, the issue of, how do you interpret all the data that is now available? Real issues are, okay, we're swimming in data. How do you value that analytically? And I guess that's a question. Is that something that is occurring throughout arts and sciences as well?
Dean Randolph: I mean, it's happening in different places with more intensity. Certainly in the social sciences, there has been a quantitative turn over the last 30, 40 years. And we are now seeing a sort of modern maturity of that move. Big data and statistics more generally are truly problematic. You pointed to the fact that we're swimming in data. But the fact is, and the difficult thing, is to know what we don't know. Big data comes with lots of holes. It comes with lots of things we have to patch. And there are technical ways you can do that.
I talk a lot about soft data because processing data in enormous amounts tends to take time, and in order to interpret it takes time. But as we notice in our lived world, we are in a very speedy data environment. Predictive analytics is determining our relation to technology and what it does, and in real time. Who has not experienced some website that knows already what advertisements we want to see, or what political message we want to see? And I think the academy has to be very nimble in trying to respond to that.
So what do we do? We are certainly investing in all sorts of growth in quantitative social sciences, along with growth in the traditional sciences in this area. We are trying to develop more data science and data analytics courses for our students, largely through the department of statistics. But also through other places, like economics, which has always been data intensive. But they're changing. So we are hiring more people who are working on ... And we are, while certainly hiring in theory and macroeconomics, but we're also trying to explore how can we take data from the real world and produce productive feedback loops?
The example of this is our wonderful hire of Chris Udry from Yale, who is probably one of the world's leading development economists. He worked on West Africa. And he has, almost single-handedly, but with a group, and with colleagues in Ghana, and another colleague of his, Dean Karlan who will also be joining us through Kellogg to develop these longitudinal data sets that trace the passage of families and success and failure economically in this country, in a way to try to inform policy. So he'll be joining the Buffett Institute for Global Studies as well, to produce not just the study of something, but then a feedback look where that data, that big data, becomes a platform for making wise policy decisions. So that's one of the great things we hope to do.
Similarly, in global health studies, that has become an area where data has become essential. We are trying to understand what are the health outcomes in various places on the globe. And how can we produce that productive feedback loop between studying anthropology, culture, techniques of delivering healthcare, but then also informing policy decisions around the world. So that's a growth area for us.
Al Cubbage: But I think related to that ... I'm glad you brought up the Buffett Institute, because I think one of the issues really is, okay well you know, you can get the data. But an important part of that really is, also, the second part of this really, is the culture. And you talked about the need for a better understanding of different cultures, you know, the speed at which information travels these days. So how do we educate our students to understand just how interconnected the world is, and what they need to know broadly about the world? It's just a much more global ... It sounds odd to say it, but it's a more global globe.
Dean Randolph: I was chatting with some of your colleagues in Medill actually yesterday, about how many of our ... You know, our students basically ... And our undergraduate students are born digital, in a facile way of putting it. In other words, they entered the digital world before they knew a pre-digital world, which those of us who are older, of course, experienced, or at least experienced to some degree.
Sometimes I think as teachers we assume being in a born-digital environment, our students understand technology and the digital world better than we might do. That is not always the case. The ways in which technology mediates our relationship to everything we do is actually very complex. And sometimes it's almost like you're mother tongue. You know? How many people learned grammar a bit late in the day? We all did, right? Maybe you know your language, you learn about it, similar to digital technology. I think the more that it's with us, the more we have to attend to teaching it to ourselves.
So I don't think we should assume that everyone can negotiate this very difficult area, just seamlessly. So we're trying to remind ourselves that we need to train new people and invest in those places in the curriculum that will help our students negotiate this new world. I think I got off your question a bit, but I hope I captured a little bit of the spirit.
Al Cubbage: Yeah, but I think, again, the question really I would come back to is, how do we make our students better global citizens, I guess, to an extent? The opportunities are to do ... I mean, the traditional study abroad, okay, that's a wonderful thing. But what else are we doing? And what are we doing in terms of bringing that global perspective here to Evanston?
Dean Randolph: Thank you. I mean, I got off on my technological arc.
Al Cubbage: Don't worry, we'll come back to that.
Dean Randolph: But it actually connects. Because I think in one way, technology does make the globe seem smaller, in the sense that we receive news and impulses just more regularly. And we know more about Chechnya and Australia than we maybe did when we were dependent more on print media.
But how do we address this? I would say, in a couple ways. Of course, our study abroad has grown, transformed, and I think now we are at an inflection point. The Global Strategy Task Force report released this year is providing a platform for us to think about where Northwestern should be in the next 10, 20 years in thinking about a global education.
I'd say, in the college, because we, within our organization, or the language department, area studies department, so African studies, Asian studies, et cetera, because we also have a lot of those departments dealing with diaspora, movement, international relations, et cetera. It means that we, in our curriculum, are very responsive to this new globalized environment.
What does that mean? I would say we are hiring more people ... this is a very brief way of putting it ... whose work is no longer fully within the nation states. They were founded, really all founded, they came to be, in 19th century, really very strongly. And those are in some ways not ... certainly not disintegrating, but the boundaries of what that means, to be nation state, is different today. And I think we are hiring faculty members whose work tends to transcend the borders, rather than within borders.
So instead of only having people work on French literature, we tend to hire people now who work on Francophone literature. So instead of only thinking about France as the seat of great French literature, we think about, well, what's happening in Central Africa, where there's a huge number of French-speaking people, in French Canadian literature, in the Maghreb. So instead of thinking solely about the nation state as an organizing principal, we tend to think more in terms of intercultural relations. And this strikes through not just language departments, but also political science, through sociology, through other areas where we talk more about these relations between, as opposed to simply within.
Al Cubbage: Okay, good. Good, that's helpful. And certainly, the students that I have, have always come back really enthused and excited about their experiences. They have the opportunity to study abroad or go abroad.
Dean Randolph: It can be transformative. I think there's always going be a sliding scale because of some which are better than others. But I think we learn, and we try to make those experiences as rich we can.
Al Cubbage: Great. Great. Switching gears for just a moment. One of the things that you talked about was the need to kind of reimagine education in the 21st century. It seems an odd way to ask this, maybe. But physically, what does that mean? I mean, I think that for those of us who were fortunate or unfortunate enough to study in the old Kresge Centennial Hall, back when it had all the ambiance of a junior high school, the transformation of that into the building that it is now, is just remarkable. It is truly a completely different building on the inside. Why did we do that, and what is it that we are attempting to do physically, both in Kresge, and now in the new Kellogg Global Hub, where economics is. What is the physical need of education in the 21st century.
Dean Randolph: It's, I would say, complex and diverse. The college, of course, spans from philosophy, the languages, to the social sciences, statistics ... I've spoken about those ... but the hard sciences and physics, chemistry, earth and planetary science, et cetera. And all of those disciplines have different spatial needs.
If you look at Kresge, I think a lot of the refreshing of that building ... which, I urge you, have not been to campus and seen this building, it really is worth visiting. Because a lot of what's been done is to try to bring the classrooms up to the 21st century, so that they have the type of technological infrastructure to enable what we're doing today.
A lot of work is done now in classrooms that like to embrace distance technologies in some ways. To bring in a visitor, instead of having to fly that person in from Beijing and back, you could have them call in and have a videoconference, et cetera. But also simply to have the types of spaces that are inviting to students today. We're not catering to them in some way where everything has to be a country club. But certainly having group spaces where students can learn in the ways they learn today, that really is essential. We find the library is being transformed—it is a repository for books. And I work with books myself, and I love them. But it's also a meeting of minds. You know, it's a place where students can gather and work collectively on group projects—we’re doing more group projects—and that entails different spaces.
But even just the friendliness and ambition of the space. So we just opened the Global Hub as well. Kellogg and our Department of Economics have a new home. I think that building both is functional and provides office space, provides meeting space. But if you haven't been there, it's worth a visit. It also speaks to a certain ambition, both for us and the outside world.
Now, Kellogg has a global reputation. It's a wonderful place. But I think this building puts it on the map in a different way. But just being a member of the Northwestern community, going to that building and realizing this opens up, literally, new spaces for ideas. This is a new horizon, I think. And we're ambitious. So I think the new buildings and the renovations and the new buildings ... They can really symbol something to the world and to the Northwestern campus, where we want to be in the 21st century.
I will say some other things. We have some beautiful old buildings. If some of you haven't been the Harris Hall, that was renovated certainly within the last 10 years. You know, some of our older buildings are beautiful examples, and we are doing our best to make sure that they are brought up into 21st century in terms of infrastructure, but also like University Hall can symbolize the illustrious past of this place. So it's a juggling act. You know, we have hundreds of buildings. We work with very, very good people on how to bring them all to that state, whether it's new build or not.
I mentioned the sciences. One thing that is really essential in the sciences, is those spaces change radically depending on what type of science we've done. And that changes very quickly. So we are now in a constant planning process of reframing laboratory space, and making sure it's up to industry-wide standards. And buying the type of technical equipment we need is very challenging.
But it's a fun challenge. It's a really intriguing. And there, I would say, that feeds into how can we attract the very best students and faculty. Because, you know, you need to have the spaces not only to be ambitious, but to physically have the stuff they need to do the work they need. And in order to hire the best people, and to attract the best students, we need that.
Al Cubbage: Yeah, that actually is where I was going to go next, is that one of the challenges I know, for a dean, any dean, is simply attracting the best faculty. And Northwestern is sort of an interesting place. It always has been, in that we want people who are top researchers, absolutely. But we also want people who are committed to teaching. That's been the University's tradition for years, and continues to be. So that's a challenge? How do you find people who are both terrific researchers, and good teachers? And what are the things that it takes to get people like that to come here?
Dean Randolph: Well, I'm going start by saying I'm a dean. And I honestly didn't know what a dean was when I was a student. I'm not sure. I mean, they always seemed slightly threatening things. You know, you see the dean if you do something wrong.
Al Cubbage: The dean of students, yeah.
Dean Randolph: Yeah, my role is many things. I care about facilities. I care about curriculum. I care about students in the college, et cetera. But a lot of my job is focused on how to attract and retain the very best faculty, and to support them in their careers. People like Rick Silverman, who's on the screen now, for those of you who are looking at it, you know? And others, I'm going to respond as they come up.
No, but and that is a huge part of what my office does. And we're just coming to the tail end of our sort of hiring season. And how we do it, to answer your question. Well, we want competitive compensation. We, like any industry, we have to step up to the plate and we’re always responding to the market. And the markets in the different disciplines change quite radically, and so we have to be nimble in trying to understand what it is that it'll take to be at the very top level.
We have to care about physical plant, as I mentioned before. A lot of what will happen is individuals coming to campus. If you're a scientist, like Vicky Kalogera in astronomy, you will need certain instrumentation to do your work, and we have to attempt to have that, or purchase it if we don't have it. So that's another budget line we have to think about. And I won't go into details of the finances, but to hire now let’s say a junior assistant professor in experimental science, it's certainly a start-up package of a million to two million dollars. You need something in that range in order to let them do their research. And that comes down to people and things. It's oftentimes getting post-docs and other graduate students. Because they're like little mini-businesses, experimental scientists, right? It's like running a little, small start-up. So that's expensive and difficult.
I would say, certainly you want buildings that speak of a certain ambition, of where you are in the world, so that can be symbolic. And they also, most faculty members want to be around other brilliant faculty members. So it's an ecology. You can't, if you have a unit, let's say, that is weaker than the rest, you can't necessarily hire the strongest people into that unit. And so it's easier to grow strong units than bring up weaker units, if you know what I'm saying. So for hiring, it's always calibrating how ambitious can we be in these different sub-units. And of course, we always wan to hire the best. And we put a lot of energy in trying to get them.
Now, to get to your question, how do we get the best teacher-scholars? Different at what level we hire. The assistant level, we give people six years to prove their mettle as teachers. So we have time, and then we grant tenure only if we feel satisfied that they are both great researcher, and also teachers. It's trickier at the senior level. Because you're hiring people already with tenure. And so we try to do due diligence in finding out about their teaching from their previous institutions. And I think we do a great job.
I've got to say, I've been very, very impressed even coming from Dartmouth College, which is a place, I think, that has great research but is known for its teaching. I actually see Northwestern as very similar. The faculty I speak to care deeply about undergraduate instruction, graduate instruction, and their research. And I know, of course, there are outliers to that. But then generally, the culture here is very strong, so I think faculty lead that.
Al Cubbage: Yeah, and that actually is, again, something that I think has been the University's hallmark. And in a way, I think, sometimes higher education is criticized for the fact that places like Northwestern, Dartmouth, and others, do it in a somewhat uneconomical way, in that we have full faculty that are sitting who are sitting in classrooms teaching. And, you know, it'd be a lot cheaper to have a teaching assistant do it remotely via the web, or whatever. Why do we keep doing it the old-fashioned way? Or maybe I shouldn't use the word "old-fashioned." The traditional way.
Dean Randolph: No, I'm fine with "old-fashioned" in this realm. I remember a professor of mine, or an advisor of mine said, "You can be a great teacher without being a great researcher. But it's also really great to have both in the classroom because students are not only transference of knowledge. When I tell my students about Italian Renaissance art, it's not simply, "Know the date. Know who made it. And repeat what I'm telling you about the interpretation." It's a matter of hearing someone speak from a position where you know they are an authority in the field. And I shouldn't have used myself as an example because I'm probably not the best.
But if you go to a classroom, and you've got a Nobel Prize winner in the classroom, not only do you know you're hopefully getting good knowledge. But you're also seeing an example of what success means. And I think that sense of being around people who are at the top of their game has maybe an invisible effect, of breeding a type of ambition among students.
And that's not to say ... I think we have an ecology. We have teaching track faculty in the college. We have promotion. We have full-time employment for them. And they play a very important role in making sure that we have great teachers for those areas where they can be best deployed. But I think there's also a great role for the majority of our faculty, to have that balance between teaching and research.
Al Cubbage: Good. That actually leads to a question that one of our listeners sent in. And that is, the challenge of teaching in the 21st century, which I thought was a good question. "How are our teaching methods evolving to deal realistically with our undergraduates who may have a somewhat shortened attention span?" I mean, they've got instant access to it, and I always worry about the students in my class watching cat videos while I'm talking. You know, how do we deal with them sitting in the lecture halls and looking at their phones? Other than telling them to put their phones down?
Dean Randolph: I had to check my mail just then. No, yeah, we are helpless to technology. And they certainly have that as well. I would say, in the college, I would not want there to be one approach to that problem. I would like the students to encounter a variety of approaches. I, for example, do not let my students use technology equipment in my classroom. Because it's quite difficult looking at a picture, taking notes, and listening at the same time. And you add technology to that, and basically your brain can't seem to process it.
I think there are other places where technology should absolutely be integrated into the curriculum, in a way that capitalizes on the students' facility with certain technologies and things and objects. I'll say another thing. I do think, to some degree, we should meet student where they are. I think there are places in the curriculum where we should say, "Okay, maybe attention spans are shorter. But we will accommodate to that, and we will break up the class in different ways." More group projects. Maybe breakout sessions. And maybe there's even ways to integrate the development of apps and software in a way that plays to those strengths, as opposed to seeing them—
I think we have another responsibility, is to slow things down. I think in our culture, we shouldn't only accommodate to my and everyone's shortened attention span. We should also be a space where we ask students to read really long novels, and to dwell on poems, and to really trouble over philosophical problems that will not suffer quick and easy thinking. So I would want to have the breadth. I would not want to say, "Oh, we have to accommodate to where they are and we will now develop all those things built around the presumption of the short attention span." I think we need some of that, but I also think we need the long ... You know, like slow food, or something. We need a bit of the slow education as well, where we remind ourselves it's actually really important to trouble over long, difficult things.
And I think that would be a good framing, actually, for life. Because as we all know, a lot of our jobs are ... I don't want to say "cat video-like". But in the sense that we're responsive ... You know, there's always 10,000 things going on. And most professional lives are like that. But there's other thing have to do with planning, strategy, and complex personnel problems. You know, the things where our students are going to need that type of patience. So I hope we can train them in both.
Al Cubbage: That's interesting, because someone just sent in a question very much along the lines of, in cases of universities these days, in your mind, a reluctance to really look at some of those basic questions, the discernible truth in the philosophical first principles, and those important things that are there. Or, you know, realistically, is it because we're so busy trying to teach our students marketable skills, that universities have turned away from some of those more traditional approaches?
Dean Randolph: The liberal arts ... The word "liberal" goes back to "free." And to some degree, it is the freedom for students to choose their own curriculum. We have some distributional requirements, et cetera. But students are free to move more toward the vocational, and more towards the big questions. And I don't want to socially engineer that. I think they are adults. They have a right to explore that.
I will, however, be an advocate for urging the students to take a variety of courses. I think it's great if they learn skills and learn the techniques to do things. But I want them also to take these valuable years to spend time troubling over those and dwelling on issues to do with truths, problems, and I think philosophy, history is filled with these. And we urge students to take those courses, and they do.
I will say the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities next year is running an entire year-long series on the conflict of truth. So my hope is that students will avail themselves to this opportunity to hear some of the world's greatest thinkers about this odd, troubling, interesting, challenging word. It's not an easy word. And I think we're stumbling across it, of course, now in popular culture, or in our general culture. But it's always been a problem. It's not something which is only newly a problem. It's just newly in the headlines.
Al Cubbage: Yeah. I think you're right. It's interesting that the issue of, "What is truth?" Is a question that's been around for a couple of thousand years in one form or another. But how do you deal with it now, is something like that.
I realize this is not really, totally your responsibility, but I think one of the challenges our listeners always are worried about is affordability. And how is it that the liberal arts education pays off? Okay, we talked about that. But what about the fact of, what can we do at Northwestern to really make that high-quality education affordable and accessible to families?
Dean Randolph: Well, I think one of the reasons I was delighted to join Northwestern was because we have Morty Schapiro, world expert on the financing of higher education. And I'd say Morty, on down, we all believe very strongly in college affordability. So what do we do? We invest an enormous amount of energy, time, and money in making sure we have the very best financial aid packages we can offer. We do not ask our students to repay loans to Northwestern any longer, which opens up a whole other level of affordability. That's not to say some students don’t graduate with some debt, but not debt from us.
We've opened that up to international students. And I think we are working hard, not only to help access ... In other words, to increase the ability of students from all walks of life, based on need ... you know, need-blind ... come to Northwestern. But then, also increase the equality of experience. In other words, when students come to Northwestern, we admit now in the college about 20% and across the University it’s close to that for Pell-eligible students, who are from families making less than $40,000 a year. That's a lot. 20% of our students coming to Northwestern, their families are making less than $40,000 a year. That's great. Right? That is an engine for meritocratic change in this country, and this world.
But we also need to understand that those students may need slightly different things than other students. Or more of our students need help. So we're developing various programs that help ease the transition. So a lot of my work on the academic side goes into producing robust pre-matriculation programs in the summer before first-year students come in, to engage in summer Bridge programs. Well, we call it the Arch Scholar program, which if you're looking at the PowerPoint, you can see now some information about, or at least a card.
And what it means is trying to get students into these especially quantitatively challenging disciplines, without facing trouble fall of their freshman year. So we're really trying to produce this ramp into the curriculum. And that's been successful. Also now trying to expand that. So there's year-round resources available to students through something that's going to be called the academic resource center. And this will be in collaboration with the library and the Searle Center for Teaching and Learning, to try to make sure students go to one place, this central place in the library, and know precisely where to go for help.
Al Cubbage: Great.
Dean Randolph: So access—jump in.
Al Cubbage: I know we're going to run out of time. And some of that's my fault, I realize. But a question, really, we always get is, how can Leadership Circle members get involved? Obviously, the donations are a terrific way to get involved, and that's a key part. But are there any unusual or new ways that Leadership Circle members can get involved to help?
Dean Randolph: Well, I'll echo your—
Al Cubbage: Career exploration, for example.
Dean Randolph: Absolutely. So we are, first of all, very grateful for financial help. That, of course, is a big issue for us. But really, we're trying, the college, to expand the ways in which we connect to alums. We have a student-alumni engagement office, the Austin Waldron Student-Alumni Engagement Office. We're very proud of this. And this is a way, certainly in the Chicago area, of reaching out to alums in all walks, all professions, to try to expand what possibilities our students see. And if you're interested in participating in that, we'd love to have more people join our network. And there's many Northwestern networks, as we all know, and we encourage you to participate in the ones near you.
Al Cubbage: Great. Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap up. That went quickly. It's certainly come to the end of our time though. So I would, first of all, thank Dean Randolph for his participation. It's great. Well done. And our next installment will be next fall. So take the summer off. Have a good time. And we'll be back in the fall. We're working on what should be a great line-up of speakers, faculty, University leaders. We'll send email invitations out to the Leadership Circle members, when the schedule is finalized. And we certainly hope that you'll plan to join us.
And for those of you who would like to, the recordings of our previous Insider sessions are available online. You can get that at wewill.northwestern.edu/nulcinsider.