Higher Education's Digital Divide

Photo Credit: Marshall Franklin Long

If you’ve ever been a teacher, you’ve faced one of the most pressing and often difficult questions to answer: “When am I going to use this?” The student looks imploringly at you in hopes that your response will relieve their underlying worry that whatever is happening in the classroom is somehow disjointed from what they’re likely to face in “the real world.”

If you're lucky enough to be teaching something like how to balance a checkbook or tread water, the connection between point A and point B is pretty clear and the answer is almost moot. But what about the more esoteric areas of teaching? When will a student actually use Macbeth? Or actually use the Pythagorean theory?

The role of higher education is particularly wedged between two forces in this regard. Not only must higher education prove its relevance to students, it’s also beholden to the future employers of the students. The demands of both end up placing higher education in the cross-hairs.

This article began as an exploration of how higher education was and was not meeting those demands, specifically how graduates of marketing and advertising schools were prepared to use emerging social media strategies. What has emerged, however, is a broader rumination on what higher education’s role is in any sector as it prepares the workforce of the future.

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But let's start by looking strictly at social media education.

This story began with a blog post by Andrew Eklund titled “Education Indictment,” in which he laments how ill-prepared graduates of traditional marketing schools are to work in today’s digital marketplace. Eklund wrote,
“Sure, there are classes. There are books(!). There are professors. Everything appears to be a class, but what they're teaching isn't marketing, rather it’s a relic of time gone by. To a person, no student who entered our offices arrived in the business world of marketing having completed a thorough study of digital or Internet marketing. In four years of education, these talented students tell us that there's been a section on the Internet and its effect on the world of communications. A section. As in one.”

The post spurred a round of discussion among employers and graduates who shared a similar reaction. But there was little response from anyone within higher education.

“Actually, I’m glad the article called attention to this. We in higher education are guilty to a degree and we do need to rethink our curricula,” says Scott Rader, professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas. “The theories and foundations of marketing and advertising are still sound. But the tools have changed and continue to change. It’s our job to make sure we’re translating sound practice with current tools.”

Nora Paul, director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota echoes Rader’s sentiment. “It’s true that some professors might not have the most current experience in digital media, but that does not diminish the need for students to have a good foundation and understanding of the core principles of advertising and communication. Our students are deeply versed in social media’s usage, but not always in how to use communication strategically.”

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Part of the fear in academia is that social media tools change so quickly that the investment of time and resources into learning any particular tool does not necessarily ensure that graduates will be well-trained within a few years of graduation. Hey, how are those “using MySpace strategically” classes paying off for you mid-’90s grads?

At the heart of this conversation, then, is how to remain relevant when the tools of a trade change so rapidly. If you went to school to learn how to build boats, the laws of buoyancy. But if you were learning to build boats with only wood and hand tools, you’d be ill-prepared to build with carbon composites. So what fills that space in between the fundamentals of a trade and the practices of a field?

The same thing that has always filled in that innovation gap: an individual’s sense of curiosity and critical thinking. The fact is most employers, regardless of what industry they might work in, want to hire people who are able to think creatively and critically. Had any advertising firm hired someone 10 years ago because they had impeccable training in how to use MySpace, the hiring criteria would certainly be called into question.

There’s the rub. Today’s Facebook and Twitter will turn into something else before we blink.

Gordon Leighton, a long-time lecturer at the University of Minnesota notes that the University has a “robust curriculum” in terms of strategic communication training. Housed within the College of Liberal Arts, the U’s advertising students take about 13 different courses revolving around the core principles of communication. Within the strategic communication focus, there are a variety of courses that are squarely professional skills-based—the courses that train students for the real world—and six are required. These courses cover everything from basic Web design to studying the economics of new media or looking at the Internet’s role in global society.

Leighton notes that he presently has more than 65 students placed in internships around the country. When businesses hosting an intern are asked if they would take another university student next summer, the response is a resounding yes.

That said, Leighton does highlight that technology moves so quickly that it is challenging for higher education to stay entirely current. “Platforms change. Technology moves on. But we’re teaching our students the core relationships that matter between a company and its audience, regardless of the technology used to reach the audience.”

What emerges in this conversation is that either everyone involved is right, or everyone is wrong. Caught in this vise are the students themselves.

Ellery Luse, a recent graduate of St. Thomas, is living out this tension between higher education and starting a career in the world of advertising. “I worked really hard. I had three internships during college to learn what I wasn’t learning in class. Now I’ve graduated with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and I’m in another internship still learning. I was prepared, but it’s because I prepared myself.”

As Luse notes, this lack of preparation falls on the colleges.

“I had professors using overhead projectors. The theory they were teaching was important, but when I’m getting interviewed, employers aren’t asking me about advertising theory. They want to know what I can apply. They want to know what I can do. I shouldn’t have to rely on reading Advertising Age to become relevant.”

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In many regards this tension is as old as education itself. How can the principles and lessons of yesterday remain relevant in modern times? But there is something utterly new about this tension as it plays out in a digital arena. While education has probably always lagged behind innovation, there is a pace to digital innovation that exacerbates this disconnect even further.

Craig Lien, associate dean in the College of Business and Organizational Leadership at Concordia University in St. Paul, has dedicated himself to staying ahead of this lag.

“Higher education [institutions] can’t be islands off on their own. We must be tied into the most recent developments in industries.”

To that end, Lien has focused his attention on educating adults whom he realizes are going to inherently question the end value of education.

While Ellery Luse values the broad liberal arts education she received at St. Thomas, a graduate-level adult is probably looking for a straighter line from education to career.

As Lien notes, “There’s a new sense in today’s market about the value of education. We’re being questioned. People want to know what the actual value of their education is. Traditional advertising and marketing education probably focuses too much on what it is. But students today want to know how to use it.”

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There seems to be a common agreement in higher education: Lessons of the past still work, but not unless they’re merged with the tools of the present.

John Purdy, clinical professor in the University of St. Thomas’s Communication and Journalism department, outlines what might be at the heart of this conversation.

“No one in the academic world doubts the importance of social media. But at the same time, most of us didn’t grow up with it. So the ability to teach students how to tell stories and reach customers is still important. I have a responsibility to teach students what I’ve learned from 40 years of working in the advertising world. But I also have to account for the question of, ‘How am I going to use this?’”

As Purdy notes, he believes that students not only have a responsibility to learn, but also to enter the workplace with the openness to admit what they don’t know. Quite simply, in a field propelled by innovations, students need to enter the workplace as learners and as innovators. While this truism has bearing in all fields, it is especially germane in fields involving technology. Beyond the question of relevance, there’s a pressing fear of complete obsolescence. The terrain simply shifts too quickly.

Ultimately, this a story where all involved parties share a degree of responsibility and culpability. Higher education owes its graduates the most useful and applicable education possible. Businesses need to collaborate with higher education in order to shape the education of graduates. And at the end of the day, as it has always been, students need to approach their educations and careers with curiosity, critical thinking and a lot of hard work.