Skidmore College - Scope Magazine Fall 2018

In October 2016, the Pew Research Center reported that employment is rising in occupations requiring more education and training, and that many workers believe they will need to upgrade their skills to remain produc- tively employed. The study found that, as of 2015, 83 million people worked in jobs that required an average or above-average level of preparation, up from 49 million in 1980. That’s a 68 percent increase. In contrast, employ- ment requiring a below-average level of job preparation rose only 31 percent. Pew also found that the average hourly wage for occupations requiring analytical skills rose from $23 to $27 between 1990 and 2015, while wages for jobs based more on physical skills rose from $16 to $18. As artificial intelligence and robotics handle tasks from the surgery suite to the highway, Pew’s 2017 study “The Future of Jobs and Job Training” suggests that the most valuable skills in the future will be those that ma- chines can’t yet easily replicate, like creativity and critical thinking. That was also the crux of a 2017 book by George Anders, a contributing writer at Forbes . His You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a “Useless” Liberal Arts Education argues that the phrase “critical thinking” turns up in thousands of job descriptions because while the Internet can find facts, it takes skilled human minds to analyze, explain and apply those facts. Again Skidmore’s strategic plan codifies these ideas: “It is foundational to liberal learning that an educated person understands not only the complex, nuanced, and multidimensional nature of the issues and problems most worth addressing, but also the various ways they inter- connect.” The plan calls for supporting “our students’ abilities to make connections from the moment they are accepted into Skidmore on into their lives after college,” where a mastery of concepts from diverse disciplines and experiences can help graduates “apply them to unscript- ed, real-world challenges” and act as informed, engaged citizens. Orr notes that, even beyond Skidmore and its peers, “some strong voices are expressing these values of late. State universities, for example, have created ‘honors colleges’ as centers of liberal arts study. And China is just one country that’s interested in importing this sort of education and beginning to create its own liberal arts institutions.” Skidmore’s tagline, Creative Thought Matters, applies to interdisciplinary courses, integrative study, self- determined majors, collaborative research, study abroad, internships, community service, career development and every other aspect of the Skidmore experience. Glotzbach concludes, “Genuine creativity requires rigor of thought and practice that connects knowledge and imagination with discipline. The more we develop our students’ ca- pacity to make that connection, the more they will be able to respond to the world in ways that truly matter.” A 2017 study suggests that the most valuable skills in the future will be those that machines can’t yet easily replicate, like creativity and critical thinking. SCOPE FALL 2018 28