The Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA) charged an IGHE Working Group with exploring the possibilities for establishing a common set of signature habits and skills necessary for a 21st century education – appropriate to DKU’s setting and aspirations as outlined in our Animating Principles – that all DKU students should obtain, regardless of their major. This charge was motivated by a recognition that skills can serve as a common language to facilitate internal and external conversations about the purposes and outcomes of a DKU education. They can also complement other curriculum measures that aim to address key challenges faced by DKU’s unconventional interdisciplinary programs.

By design, DKU’s academic programs intentionally build structures to enable scaffolding and interdisciplinary teaching and learning. These structures include a vertical common core and overlapping tracks and courses across majors. However, the absence of a common language to articulate the common goals and purposes of the sequences and overlaps has made it difficult to create cohesive connections across the curriculum. The lack of connections also hampers the development of a meaningful and systematic integration between academic and co-curricular activities, which is essential for fostering a holistic educational experience for students.

The innovative and interdisciplinary nature of DKU’s programs can also be difficult to explain to various stakeholders, including students, faculty, parents, employers, and graduate schools. Establishing a common language for articulating the value and distinctiveness of a DKU education will enhance the legibility and appreciation of our interdisciplinary approach, ultimately benefiting our students in their academic and professional pursuits.

To better understand how skills can serve as a common language for an interdisciplinary community, the Working Group explored a wide range of literature on various types of skills, including hard skills, soft skills, durable skills, and 21st century skills. It also reviewed several examples of new universities that have incorporated more attention to skills in their curriculum. After examining several institutions that have successfully integrated skills into their curricula, the Working Group conducted a brief critical analysis of the DKU curriculum regarding its strengths, gaps, and opportunities. Through group exercises aimed at defining complex skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and communication in the DKU context, the Working Group identified key questions and concerns that will help guide future efforts. It highlighted the importance of giving careful attention to managing faculty and student workload and to providing continuous faculty support and resources.

The Working Group’s discussions and analyses culminated in a set of recommendations for DKU to initiate an incremental process of defining and integrating essential durable skills into the curriculum. This process will help build out a scaffolding of distinctive DKU habits and skills that undergird these courses and majors and that offer recognizable hallmarks of a DKU education. Ultimately, it will add more specificity to our Animating Principles and major-level outcomes, improve curriculum coherence, structural clarity, interdisciplinary connections, major legibility, and have a long-term positive impact on students’ intellectual development and career versatility.