| |
News & Events 2006-2007
Former College President Addresses Blair Faculty
 Dr. Richard Hersh spoke with Blair’s department heads and Faculty Executive Committee at a luncheon on January 3, covering a range of topics related to assessments at the post-secondary level and what they reveal about “value added” by a college education. Dr. Hersh served as president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Trinity College (Hartford), and provost and vice president for academic affairs at The University of New Hampshire and Drake University. He also served as vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Oregon and was director of the Center for Moral Education at Harvard University. In his early career he was a high school teacher.
During his presentation at Blair, Dr. Hersh remarked that there is a “difference between transition—where the student changes place or grade—and transformation, where the student him or herself changes,” and that this “transformation” is the area most in need of assessment. In his following talk to the full faculty, he dwelt at greater length on the focus of day-to-day assessments and their place in the educational process. In doing so, he reflected on Bloom’s Taxonomy and the generally accepted criteria for effective schools/classrooms.
As Dr. Hersh noted, both students and faculty at Blair are “privileged in the best sense of the word” in that they live and work in what is a “true community of scholars,” one that is dedicated to student learning on a day-by-day basis in the classroom and out and has sufficient financial resources to support their best efforts.
Dr. Hersh was a member of the Association of American Colleges & Universities GREATER EXPECTATIONS panel and for the past five years has served as co-director of the Collegiate Learning Assessment Project (CLA) that has developed an innovative “value-added” approach to assessing student learning. The journal PEER REVIEW devoted its Winter 2002 issue to this project including commentary from leading researchers from around the nation, and the November 2005 issue of THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY features an article by Dr. Hersh, “What Do Colleges Teach?” about measuring student learning.
He has written much about the importance of a liberal arts education in the 21st century with his 1999 DAEDALUS article “Generating Ideals and Transforming Lives” and his book PROMOTING MORAL GROWTH in use on many campuses. Dr. Hersh appeared in the recent two-hour PBS documentary “Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk.”
Dr. Hersh is an avid rowing fan and was the coxswain of the U.S. 8-oared boat at the 1966 World Championships, Bled, Yugoslavia and coach of two boats that represented the U.S. in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Posted 1/05/07
> Read About More Skeptics Speakers
|
News Headlines