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[spork]

[. . .]

 I'm a literature & composition prof, but no one wants to hear about human values.  Do my classes help students get jobs?  Even by teaching writing skills and critical thinking? 

[. . .]

Do they? Has anyone been collecting data that demonstrates this? It isn't happening here, and we have employers that have instituted writing tests for job applicants.

BTW, I work at a private. In 2008, when it looked like the sky was falling, there was a 10 percent across the board cut in academic program budgets, which translated into the much of the liberal arts core curriculum being farmed out to adjuncts.

[rebelgirl]

[. . .]

 I'm a literature & composition prof, but no one wants to hear about human values.  Do my classes help students get jobs?  Even by teaching writing skills and critical thinking? 

[. . .]

Do they? Has anyone been collecting data that demonstrates this? It isn't happening here, and we have employers that have instituted writing tests for job applicants.

You're right - these are the kinds of data we need.  It's hard to tease out the impact of specific humanities courses, though.  State data show that for the junior & senior years, our cc's transfer students do better at our state 4 years than students who matriculated there to begin with.  But how can we link this to, say, Comp II, or an American literature survey?  We can make arguments, but the solid data link is missing. 

If we had employers giving writing tests, and could look at our students' performance there, we'd have something to analyze.  But how many employers do that?  And how could we prove that it was, say, a sophomore literature survey that led to positive results, rather than a senior project written in, say, anthropology?  We can document outcomes of our courses - did students demonstrate mastery of skills in course objectives, and how, based on our own tests and papers.  But proving the link to later success?  Harder, I think. 

[msparticularity]

[. . .]

 I'm a literature & composition prof, but no one wants to hear about human values.  Do my classes help students get jobs?  Even by teaching writing skills and critical thinking? 

[. . .]

Do they? Has anyone been collecting data that demonstrates this? It isn't happening here, and we have employers that have instituted writing tests for job applicants.

BTW, I work at a private. In 2008, when it looked like the sky was falling, there was a 10 percent across the board cut in academic program budgets, which translated into the much of the liberal arts core curriculum being farmed out to adjuncts.

The Carnegie Foundation has funded a lot of the work in this area: examining the degree to which various approaches and curricula facilitate the development of a variety of critical thinking and reading skills--or fail to.

[systeme_d_]

Here's an apologia from a former PhD student in my field:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/4636/why_the_world_needs_religious_studies__|_culture_|_/

[spork]

[. . .]

 I'm a literature & composition prof, but no one wants to hear about human values.  Do my classes help students get jobs?  Even by teaching writing skills and critical thinking? 

[. . .]

Do they? Has anyone been collecting data that demonstrates this? It isn't happening here, and we have employers that have instituted writing tests for job applicants.

BTW, I work at a private. In 2008, when it looked like the sky was falling, there was a 10 percent across the board cut in academic program budgets, which translated into the much of the liberal arts core curriculum being farmed out to adjuncts.

The Carnegie Foundation has funded a lot of the work in this area: examining the degree to which various approaches and curricula facilitate the development of a variety of critical thinking and reading skills--or fail to.

Is this data online anywhere? Does it agree or conflict with Academically Adrift, which demonstrated that in general there is no learning during the first two years of four year university programs? And is the data tied to graduates' incomes?

[msparticularity]

[. . .]

 I'm a literature & composition prof, but no one wants to hear about human values.  Do my classes help students get jobs?  Even by teaching writing skills and critical thinking? 

[. . .]

Do they? Has anyone been collecting data that demonstrates this? It isn't happening here, and we have employers that have instituted writing tests for job applicants.

BTW, I work at a private. In 2008, when it looked like the sky was falling, there was a 10 percent across the board cut in academic program budgets, which translated into the much of the liberal arts core curriculum being farmed out to adjuncts.

The Carnegie Foundation has funded a lot of the work in this area: examining the degree to which various approaches and curricula facilitate the development of a variety of critical thinking and reading skills--or fail to.

Is this data online anywhere? Does it agree or conflict with Academically Adrift, which demonstrated that in general there is no learning during the first two years of four year university programs? And is the data tied to graduates' incomes?

I believe that, in part, Academically Adrift relied upon the Wabash National Study, which you can look at here. While Academically Adrift was focused upon the overall means, you'll notice that there really was some meaningful difference among the various institutions, and it didn't all boil down to socioeconomic status and family educational level. If you want to think about it from a slightly different perspective--the broader "liberal arts experience," you might look at the Colleges that Change Lives project.