Institutional values and graduate attributes?
Maybe not. But try this
Stephen Bostock
There seems to be a hierarchy of academic intentions, from the broadest to the most precise:
- institutional vision - short, very broad statements e.g. 'open integrated, intellectual community'
- institutional values - eg education and research of equal value
- attributes - there are published wish lists of what we would like
out graduates to be like, we could include 'employability' skills in
this category e.g. Aims for UG Courses' but as they feel improverished
partly by their title and partly by being value-free
- programme and module intended learning outcomes- assessable through derived assessment criteria.
The relationships between top and bottom are, at least:
- the top levels are the foundations of the lower ones
- the lower ILOs are derivable in part from the top (plus discipline knowledge, skills and values)
- by achieving the ILOs we contribute to achieving the top
statements but the top ones are not assessable, they are the spirit
rather than the letter.
Top level statements can be so short as to be vacuous, with no impact
further down, thus losing any driving power, or use as 'the sprit' in
which 'the letter' of ILOs can be written and achieved. On the other
havd, trying to agree statements of values that all academics and
students actually buy into would be very difficult.
So instead of attributes how about aspirational action statements in a
middle level? Let's call them principled capabilities. They should be:
Not assessable like ILOs but feel more practically useful than visions and values.
They are not, grammatically, attributes but values and attributes are be built in.
They should be written in a language an undergraduate will understand.
They deliberately avoid the usual token words like critical, reflect, research, as being too loaded (and often vague).
Their use would be to be able to point to them and ask of anyone at
Keele, Is this programme/module/management process furthering or
hindering (any of) our principled capabilities?
A first try:
"In our academic community we...
1. think deeply about important problems with the courage to challenge conventional views
2. work across boundaries, comparing knowledge and experiences to better appreciate differences and similarities
3. make considered, well-founded judgements on complex issues
4. discover new knowledge and skills and share them widely and openly
5. work constructively with peers, leaders and followers in trusting relationships
6. act ethically and sustainably to accomplish positive outcomes in complex, uncertain situations
7. appreciate aesthetically the natural and human world
8. manage our personal development goals, activities and assessments to develop our capabilities.
Our students learn these personal and professional capabilities from us
and each other, to work successfully in our community and to be
equipped for citizenship and professional employment."