Theme 1: Senate Executive Committee (Dec. 5th, 2006)

Facilitators: Dan Saveliff and Judith Little

Overview: The committee identified a number of qualities of the “Ideal Humboldt Graduate” and for what “every graduate should exemplify”, which is detailed below. When comparing their generated list to the pre-suggested themes, a number of committee members voiced considerable concern regarding our methodology (specifically in regard to having pre-established themes), which are also detailed below. Because of the time spent on these concerns, the pre-established themes were not discussed at great length.

Theme based concerns:

  • Outcome theme #1: The word “justice” has different connotations and meaning, especially in regard to “environmental justice”. One committee member expressed that environmental justice is incomparable to the concept of social and economic justice.
  • Outcome theme #2: One committee member voiced concern with the phrase “engage meaningfully”. He felt it was too intangible and wasn’t sure what it meant.
  • Outcome theme #1 & 2: One committee member stated that neither theme #1 nor #2 were “core academic expectations”.
  • Outcome theme #4: “writing” needs to be expanded to include both verbal and oral forms of expression.

Process based concerns:

  • One committee member voiced discomfort with the process of collapsing the 9 identified themes generated in our discussion into the 5 pre-established themes. He suggested that we use the accumulation of our responses and formulate themes based on frequency of response. This was generally echoed among the committee members, and was restated in different ways. One member voiced concern that it seemed that the outcome was presumed to be known by the WASC committee and that the process was disingenuous.
  • One committee member suggested that we review the presented ideas and themes and see if they are reflected in the Strategic Plan (and other guiding documents). If not, it was suggested that we review and revise the Strategic Plan accordingly.

In addition, there was brief discussion in regard to a question the Provost offered, which was “should Humboldt have a unique vision for students, or should we just look like ‘ Long Beach’”. One responder suggested that a “unique” vision for students might be represented in the “ideal student” profile (below). Another responder said that if Humboldt’s “unique vision” was based on social, environmental, and “greening” of the physical environment, then these were no longer unique to our campus and would be insufficient in distinguishing Humboldt from other campuses.

Generated List: Qualities of an Admired or Ideal Humboldt Graduate:

  • Students who are able to link their educational experience, and through personal self-discipline, are able to successfully attain a professional job placement at graduation.
  • Students who desire to make positive difference in the world.
  • Students who have drive and motivation for advanced study and lifelong learning.
  • Students who can be “radically creative thinkers”.
  • Students who have intellectual curiosity and ability.
  • Students who demonstrate multiple interests beyond their discipline; interdisciplinary curiosity.
  • Students who have respect for human processes, especially learning.
  • Students who have the ability to apply knowledge in a variety of arenas.
  • Students who are critical and analytical thinkers.
  • Students who have a sense of “self-responsibility” with passion and enthusiasm.
  • Students who have a modest self respect.
  • Students who have social skills necessary for leadership.
  • Students who have a commitment to values.
  • Students with perseverance.

Generated List: Qualities that every Humboldt graduate should possess:

  • To write coherently.
  • Possess critical, analytical, and creative thinking.
  • Open Mindedness
  • To be able to read, write, use rhetorical discipline based expression, and have a fundamental level of math competency.
  • Have subject based proficiency.
  • To have self-discipline.
  • Have a sense of personal values in relation to others.
  • Have technological competency and informational literacy
  • To be able to apply knowledge to solve real problems.