Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Parker Banas

What is the point of the competencies at Champlain?

I honestly think that students need to know why they’re learning what they’re learning. I think oftentimes in our classrooms, we have content, content is desperately important. However, when a student in a traditional college class takes history, they’re not often told why they need to know history. The competencies are a way of saying, “We’re going to tell you not just what you need to know, but why you need to know it.” That’s how they’ve been engineered. We’re going to be talking about content, but the reason we’re talking about it—the “why”—is what is embedded in the college competencies.

How do you hope students will view the competencies?

I would love to see a situation where students say, I’m taking this course, and it’s a unique Wehmeyer course about the supernatural, but I’m really learning how to do this other skill. I would love for students to say, I learned quantitative literacy in this class, even if it was a philosophy class and wasn’t about math, because I dealt with statistics and numbers. I had experience with quantitative literacy.

What lessons about the competencies do you want students to walk away from your classes with?

I want students to walk away thinking: There are things I can apply that I learned in this class to things that have nothing to do with this class. That’s what I think the competencies do. Focusing on the competencies means we’re teaching skill sets that apply elsewhere. The class was about a specific topic, but you learned how to do something. You learned how to think critically, quantitatively, or qualitatively. You learned something beyond the class itself. Students walk away from a class thinking, I had fun in that class and it was interesting, but now I see how I can apply that elsewhere. That’s part of what the competencies do. They bring us back to what we’re really teaching. Is it content? Yes, it is. It’s also fundamental skills. I love the fact that Champlain is deliberative about that and wants to ensure students have that experience. It’s about reminding students that the point of the class is transferable skills.  

I teach a martial arts class. We had a conversation at training about the fact that there are fundamental skills and then there are culture-specific elements. The culture-specific elements are important, but the fundamental skills underlie those cultural elements. I think the competencies work in the same way. I don’t care what major you are—film major, cybersecurity major, social work major—you all have to think about certain things that underlie the content you’re learning. Those are the things the competencies stress.

We want to graduate students who can do things in whatever field they find themselves in. I guarantee that every one of you is going to find yourself in a job you didn’t believe you’d have. Every one of you will say, “I didn’t think I was going to be in the music industry, but here I am and I have the skills.” It’s training for skills, not just content. This isn’t to say that content isn’t important, because the content creates the skills. The content makes you excited about the skills.

Let me ask you a question: What makes you want to go to the library?

Parker: I’m interested in the skill I’ll learn. It’s not the act of reading the book; it’s what you gain from it.

Steve: Exactly. And the fact that you desire to—your interest is engaged. I was asked once by a senior administrator what I think about Champlain students, and I said I think they’re curious. But they’re curious about the things they’re curious about. When we say you need to have a bibliography about content that we, the faculty, are interested in and therefore are teaching a class in, the students sometimes respond with indifference. But you learn how to do research and develop research skills when your passion is engaged. I think one of the things about the college competencies is that they help us engage that passion. This class is about what I want it to be about. You may not be interested in that, but if I can help you find ways to engage with the things you are interested in, then we’ve done our job. The fundamental skills emerge from that engagement.

Parker: I remember I was in Professor Noonan’s class during the spring semester. She let us pick whatever we wanted to present about, and everybody had such vastly unique things they were presenting on. You could tell that the work they put into it was so much greater than if a professor said, “Present on this specific thing that I prefer.” That was a powerful example of that coming to fruition.

Steve: That’s beautifully put. Noonan is a master of her craft, so you couldn’t do better than that. I think that’s what the competencies do—they ask us, to dial back to what is the reality of this class. What are we really reaching for?

I’m building towards competency-based education. In the first couple of classes, the question is: what are we really doing here? You signed up for this class because it had an appealing title, because it was exciting and fit your schedule, but let’s start with what we’re really doing here. If we can dial down to that and repeatedly return to it, we can get excited about the content. That, I think, is the point of the competencies. They are the “why” as opposed to the “what.” The “what” is always important, but the “why” is crucial.

What are some of the ways that you integrate the competencies into your classes? You mentioned for the spring semester building those first couple of classes around the competency model and dialing in on the why. But beyond that, how do you integrate them into your classes? If you have specific examples—projects or activities that get students thinking in that frame of mind— I’d love to hear about that.

In the first class, we have a conversation where I say, “You signed up for a class on this subject, but it’s not really about this subject. It’s about a skill set that I want you to develop.”

In terms of specific projects, I would speak for all of my colleagues who teach field methods—although our field methods are different. The very fact that we ask people to interview other people means you’re going to learn how to talk to somebody. You’re going to need to talk to someone and extract their information in any facet of life you occupy. Given that this is one of our competencies, and also diversity, equity, and inclusion—I have to emphasize this one—you’re going to have to talk to and engage with people who are different from you in one way or another: politically, ethnically, regionally. If we can shape that skill in the classroom, we’re giving our students an edge, because it’s sometimes confronting to talk to people who don’t look, speak, think, or come from the same place as you. If you learn to do that in college, you learn to do that in the professional world. 

How have students responded to those activities that focus on preparing them for the real world with skill sets and the “why” of what you’re examining in the classroom?

I think it varies. Sometimes students grasp the idea of “what are we really doing here?” I would say the proudest example of that is the students who were part of the TechDren project. We took students to Zanzibar (2015-2016), and we had students who were in educational fields. We toured a number of schools, and our students asked elementary school students what their favorite classes were. The students said computers. Then the headmaster said that they only teach computing in theory because they don’t have computers. The Champlain students, who were all digital natives, said, “That can’t stand. That’s ridiculous. We’ve got to get these kids computers.” So they went out and acquired computers. They found businesses and schools that were offloading their used technology, and we brought computers to Africa—to mixed-gender classrooms where young women who would probably never think of a career in tech were presented with a keyboard and were touch-typing in a couple of days as a result of the workshops. I and Champlain only played an ancillary role in this. This was entirely driven by Champlain students.

We did subsequent trips where we brought computers and donated them to the schools. A couple of our students did presentations on how to use these in the classroom. In 2020, I went over with a group of Champlain students—not a class, just me and five students. We did a focused effort in these classrooms and donated close to 30 to 40 laptops. Our partners in Zanzibar had built a computer resource center. Students from Champlain went over and taught the students how to integrate with the technology and taught the teachers how to use the technology in the classroom. It was brilliant to see.

They did exactly what I expect Champlain students to do. They were determined to figure out how to do this, and they did it. It bore fruit. I think even in small ways, classes where students engage with people in the community, especially thinking about the DEI competency, where students engage with that, it makes a difference. That’s ultimately what the competencies do—they encourage us to make a difference.

Parker: Thank you so much for everything you’ve been able to provide today. I think this is really going to help students gain a perspective on why we’re emphasizing the competencies, giving them a different view and hopefully helping them understand that it’s not a rule book to follow, it is a tool for them.

Steve: Exactly. I think it’s absolutely a reasonable question when—thinking about Champlain’s structure and identity—we call ourselves a professionally focused college, and businesses say they need a bachelor’s degree to hire you. I think it’s absolutely reasonable for students to ask why. Why do I need to take this class? What am I learning in this class? I think the competencies help us answer that question. I appreciate that we are tied to the competencies and need to think about them. Students need to think about what they’re really learning in a class, and professors need to think about what they’re really teaching in a class.