Priming for the Summit
Twelve years ago, in the fall of 1998, faculty in the Division of Business adopted a set of ten competencies that we agreed formed the major skill sets that business graduates needed for success at the turn of the 20th century. The competencies were developed from an extensive review of the current literature on the changing workplace, studies of employers' expectations of workers, and critiques of business school curricula. The original report was called Ten Essential Competencies for the New Workplace: What Our Business Graduates Need to Know.
The report defined a competency as a cluster of related knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes that enables workers to engage in a broad array of cognitive and intellectual activities, handle various problems, and deal with events across many diverse situations. It concluded that the Division of Business needed to ensure graduates were proficient in these ten competency areas:
- Functional Expertise & General Business Integration
- Advanced Literacy & Numeric Proficiency
- Oral Communication Proficiency
- Computer Expertise & Technology Competence
- Teamwork, Human Relations & Organizational Effectiveness
- Information Literacy
- Problem Solving & Decision Making Proficiency
- Global Awareness & Multi‑cultural Empathy
- Capacity for Life‑long Learning
- Complementary Personal Attitudes, Values & Traits
These ten competencies have influenced our Division strategies and curriculum decisions for more than a decade.
The original Ten Competencies also formed the foundation for the seven broad competencies that Champlain College adopted and mandates must be met across all our programs. These include:
- Critical & Creative Thinking
- Ethical Reasoning
- Global Appreciation
- Oral Communication
- Quantitative Literacy
- Technology & Information Literacy
- Written Communication.
In the twelve years since the initial Ten Competencies report, the business world and Champlain College have witnessed many shifts, changes, crises and trend changes. Just a few obvious examples of them are these:
- The sudden and unexpected onset of the worst economic recession since the 1930s and the uncertainty that lingers in our still fragile recovery.
- In 2009 the national unemployment rate for young college graduates (age 20-24) was 10.6%, the highest rate since 1983.
- The collapse of once iconic corporations like Lehman Brothers, AIG, GM and Enron under the weight of questionable management practices and poor ethical decisions.
- Mounting concern about environmental issues such as global warming, carbon footprints, recycling, fossil fuel dependence, etc.
- Heightened interest in entrepreneurship as an alternative to unstable corporate careers.
- Embracing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a legitimate competitive strategy by some organizations; acceptance of it as a necessary defensive strategy by many others.
- Recognition of the important role of creativity and innovation as routine "left brained" jobs continue to be outsourced to foreign countries and the "innovation economy" gains momentum (Daniel Pink).
- The enormous growth of electronic communication in its many forms, most notably social media and its impact on business.
- The emergence of "radical transparency" as a new reality for businesses - there are no secrets anymore, and businesses are more easily held accountable.
- The mounting concern over the quality of goods imported from certain foreign countries and the growing interest in supporting local economies.
- The acceleration of team-based (self-managed) projects and contingent workers in a downsized workplace where every employee must add discernable value.
- Careers composed of many different job experiences with many employers and a "spiral" career path with many lateral detours.
- The demand for skills and knowledge continues to rise each year and life-long learning, along with the willingness and ability to embrace constant change, are keys to success.
Since 1998, Champlain College has also been transformed by many factors: new leadership (a president, two provosts and several deans); new initiatives (LEAD, BYoBiz, EMC, etc); new curricula and programs (CORE, e-gaming, etc); new student qualities and attitudes (higher SAT's); new challenges (declining number of high school graduates, demands of colleges for greater accountability, fewer jobs for graduates, etc); and division and program realignments.
Graphic Design work created by student Amanda Jones