World Association of Cooperative Education (WACE) conference.
-Jim Stellar
I just came from the World Association of Cooperative Education (WACE) and as I post this brief note from the Vancouver airport, they are wrapping up the meeting. Some 400+ people from dozens of countries all over the world attended to discuss this powerful form of education that, to me, represents the calibration standard for experiential education in that paid full-time co-op is both authentic and substantial. Those words appeared in the strategic plan of Northeastern University, resulting from a task force that I co-chaired several years ago. More recently, Rick Porter and I (who co-direct the Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute on Global and Experiential Educaiton for WACE with Tim Donovan and others) wrote a grant application about creating an access pipeline from high school through college to professional schools or the job after through cooperative education. Much of the rest of the world calls this activity Work Integrated Learning and the point here is that it may have wider application than personal development leading to a great job after graduation or a good graduate or professional school.
The last element of the conference I attended was a terrific address by Nancy Zimpher, past President of the University of Cincinnati (a major coop school) and new current Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Among many other good points, she noted that so many Americans do not achieve a college education and that is a serious issue given the National economic and general needs for education in a modern information-rich society. This shortcoming particularly hits the lower socioeconomic classes where the college completion rates can be in the low single digits – a tragedy, in my opinion, for a country as rich as the United States. The reason I bring her address up here is that she pointed to cooperative education and experiential education in general as a potentially powerful element to help address this problem….something to think about, particularly on this website.
2 Responses to “World Association of Cooperative Education (WACE) conference, ending today”
Jim Stellar says:
Ashley, I do not want to put words in her mouth, but what I heard is that experiential education, in general, makes college richer and connects it better with what people want. This could even play out in unexpected ways, like helping create more access by showing people how a college education is relevant to them and their careers even if they involve more education. Think what working in a research lab might do for someone who never thought of themselves as a doctor but then finds they are good at and really do love biology, or consider a student that goes on a co-op period abroad after a study-abroad period and really masters a language/culture and then finds themselves very attractive to business which has an international component. So, it is a general appeal as well as the specific one you point out. At least, that is what I think I heard. -Jim
Jim Stellar says:
Ashley,
One of the things I learned at Northeastern many years ago was that a student could never earn enough money on co-op to make much of a difference in tuition at a private university. They could keep up with the living costs during the co-op period and that helped slow down the tempo of college tuition payments to famlies that were supporting their kids in college. So, adding co-op (and experiential education in general) has to be presented on the basis of doing a better job at education … and I believe it does just that. After all, that is why one goes to college in the first place – to get the education to get the career, have a better life, …
Now if we can make education more attractive and inspirational, then we also could use that to better attract underserved populations who might not really see themselves in college in the first place. We have to do something to increase the participation of the USA population in higher education. A key point there is price. That is one reason I wanted to try my hand at working at a public university (CUNY Queens College in the fall) where tuition is much lower and therefore much less of a barrier to college-going for most Americans.
I really appreciate your perspective. Since we work together on writing posts for this blog, sometimes I forget you are a Northeastern student.
-Jim