College should be a transformative experience. At Lindenwood University, the College of Arts and Humanities (CAH) has a mission to transform students’ lives by equipping them with power skills. We bring these human-centered and transferrable skills to the forefront of our innovative curricula. No matter a student’s major, CAH courses provide personalized experiences and meaningful professional relationships as they develop highly valued power skills such as critical thinking, creativity, effective communication, leadership and empathy. Students explore and showcase their talents while preparing for a successful future with skills that are increasingly vital to the workplace.
With technology exponentially advancing an ever-changing job landscape, we know students need power skills to succeed. The world will always need human beings to interpret data and make ethical decisions to change—or even save—the (digital and nondigital) world. AI creates even more rapid change, so we want our students to learn to respond with speed, adaptability and creativity. In fact, it should be no surprise that the College of Arts and Humanities has already developed a human-centered AI certificate, minor and master’s degree. AI is a tool for humans, not a substitute, and this is why power skills become even more important.
Consequently, our mission is humanity, and we include power skills on every syllabus, discuss these human-centered skills with our students and show how assignments highlight and develop them, all in an effort to empower our students and prepare them for any future.
Why “Power” Skills?
In the College of Arts and Humanities, we don’t use the very misleading and misunderstood term of soft skills. This terminology and its unfortunate connotation came from the military’s distinction of hard skills (those involving machinery and technology) from soft skills (which include leadership). However, our choice of terminology goes beyond renaming. We feel that power skills is an empowering term that helps get student buy-in. Our power skills methodology allows them to understand why we are asking them to do an assignment and what it means for them, which leads to higher engagement, performance, excitement and success.
Power skills are integral to education and career development. They are necessary to provide educational opportunities and resources to help students achieve. Our students are first-generation, nontraditional, traditional, online and on-ground. We want to ensure all our students have the same access to these skills because they are foundational to future success. We want them to understand that they are thinking critically, analyzing data, responding with empathy to others in their various subjects and assignments, so they can speak with confidence about gaining valuable skills.
So How Did We Do This?
We started with an idea from our dean, Dr. Kathi Vosevich. She was an academic who also worked at corporations such as Microsoft and Sprint, then returned to academia. She immediately recognized that, while students have many requisite skills for corporate jobs, they didn’t necessarily know how to talk about them. She told faculty they needed to tell students not only what they are doing (working in teams on a research project, for example) but also why (to gain effective negotiation and communication skills, critical thinking, leadership and so on). Students need to be shown the connection and why it is important. We can’t just assume they will get it. For example, we don’t just study history not to repeat it, though valid; we study history to analyze, build global competencies and debate respectfully, which is precisely why history majors are sought after in the workforce. These are power skills in action.
What Steps Did We Take?
We formed a taskforce from across CAH that Assistant Dean Dr. Shenika Harris led to see how to make this a consistent experience for all students in our college (and in our general education courses).
The team put together definitions of various power skills and came back with recommendations:
- Put a power skills statement on all college syllabi, emphasizing that power skills underpin all that we do to help students thrive in an ever-changing world and job market.
- Include power skills in the descriptions of methods of assessment, providing examples for professors to illustrate assignments effectively as well:
- Reflections help students synthesize and think critically about a topic, as well as find solutions to problems by reacting creatively.
- Group projects help students collaborate with others effectively to build successful and resilient working relationships, manage their time and resolve conflict.
- Essay exams help students analyze, evaluate and communicate information to others in a precise manner that will serve them well in any job as they complete assigned duties and negotiate with supervisors and coworkers.
- Oral presentations help students develop skills to stand out in their careers, as they demonstrate leadership, expertise and the ability to inspire and motivate others.
- Address power skills with your class in some way at the beginning of the semester (i.e., class discussion, reflection assignment, syllabus quiz questions, etc.).
- For the first (pilot) year, professors had the option of incorporating power skills into one assignment.
- For the second year, incorporating power skills was required for at least one assignment.
Dr. Ana Schnellmann, Senior Professor of English, goes a step further and refers to power skills as money skills. An award-winning professor, she reinforces the idea that these skills will make students more successful in their lives, whether she is teaching Shakespeare or art history. Analysis, creativity, effective communication—all are part of her high-impact practices. Dr. Justine Pas, Honors Director, and Dr. Travis McMaken, Associate Dean, embraced the concept of power skills immediately and say that honors students are particularly receptive to this consistent reinforcement of messaging, having even received grants for resume and interview workshops to practice these skills. But power skills are attractive and important to all students. They make them feel like they have superpowers, as a first-year learning community proclaimed. A couple of classes have even made videos with students shouting out, “Power skills!”
Results
Students find that power skills help them become professionalized. They realize that assignments are not only college work but real-world work. They have a better understanding of the importance of learning how to learn. They see dependability, responsibility, time management and work ethic as integral to their professional and personal success. They learn how to communicate their skills and value to employers who, regardless of the field or position, look for these traits when hiring. Research shows how essential it is to have these skills to stay ahead of the curve. With our power skills strategy, we prepare students for the future, and the power skill differentiation gives them a leg up over their competition. In many of our programs, 100% of our students are in jobs or continuing education within six months of graduation.
In terms of bottom line, Dean Vosevich says, “We want all students to do well and to do good. Power skills help develop in-demand lifelong learners who are ready for the future.”
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