J. Dudley Dawson
Vice President and Dean of Students, Emeritus, Antioch College, National Consultant for Cooperative Education
Why has there been so little progress in the development of cooperative education in the arts and sciences? There has been a dearth of substantial programs developed in recent years, despite recognition of the significance of cooperative education for liberal arts students and the opportunity for Federal funding to assist in its development.
Explanations are advanced about the difficulties encountered in establishing cooperative education in the liberal arts. There are, to be sure, special problems to be resolved-faculty acceptance, student participation, and employer support. I addressed these several problems in the 1975 issue of the Journal of College Placement. There are, however, a few American colleges and universities that have achieved impressive cooperative education programs in the arts and sciences. But it should be noted that these highly successful programs are mandatory for all students-not a likely possibility in new developments.
As a consultant for a number of liberal arts colleges desiring to initiate the cooperative plan or being discouraged with the lack of progress in developing a program, I came to realize the central problem. It is the lack of a viable model to meet the current interests and needs of liberal arts students and faculties, to gain the support of appropriate employers, and to be cost-effective for the college. The conventional models where all students participate are generally not applicable to new optional programs. Through these consulting experiences certain basic controlling conditions became evident to me:
Taking into account these afforested conditions, we undertook the development of a new cooperative education model at Defiance College (Ohio) where I was engaged as a consultant. This plan, now in its fifth year of operation, has proved workable and effective. It meets the standards and guidelines for good cooperative education, having merited Federal funding assistance over a five-year period.
The model provides for three full time work periods, each interspersed between semesters of full-time study. The first two are each three months in length and are arranged for the summers following the first and second academic years. The third is a six-month work experience arranged either during the last half of the third year or the first half of the fourth year. Thus two upper-class students may be paired on a single placement, providing continuous coverage for a calendar year. One student works from February 1 to August 1, while the other works from August 1 to the following February 1 (approximate dates). This periodic work calendar implies that the co-op student foregoes one academic semester in the third or fourth year. Over its four-year course co-ops normally have seven study semesters and a total of twelve months of work experience, spaced over three periods.
In the Defiance plan co-op students are eligible to earn four semester degree credits for each of the first two summer and eight credits for the six-month work period-credits to be awarded on an evaluation of the learning and performance outcomes. The student can, therefore, earn a total of sixteen degree credits through cooperative education, which in terms of credit can substitute for one academic semester.
Credits awarded for cooperative education may replace only general education or field course electives. They may not be used in place of courses required in general education or in the student's major. In the curriculum at Defiance, as usually prevails in liberal arts curricula elsewhere, there are a sufficiency of free electives so that the use of sixteen credits for general and field electives still leaves room for additional course electives. With careful planning, co-op students can complete their graduation by June of the fourth year. They have an enriched education and preparation for going on to graduate or professional school or for entering full-time employment as desired.
The credits for cooperative education are based on positive evidence and evaluation of learning outcomes and work performance. Before each work period co-ops establish with a faculty coordinator learning objectives based on their level of development and the projected experience. Guidelines are also given to the student, designed to stimulate observation and reflection on the job and in the work environment. The faculty coordinator fulfills a teaching and counseling role with the co-op student in a self-directed learning experience. Neither the college nor the coordinator control the , content of the learning environment in the cooperative work experiences. Objectives and guidelines can raise open-ended questions and topics to be explored, expanded and evaluated, but the student has to take charge of his or her own learning and development. It is not surprising to find that some of the most profound learning outcomes of a co-op experience arise accidentally and could not have been anticipated in advance. Students respond to the opportunity and freedom for self-directed education, and it is a stimulating experience for faculty coordinators to relate to students in this educational context. Neither the content nor the style of learning is like that in the college classroom and must be viewed and evaluated as a distinctive kind of education.
What about the credibility of giving sixteen semester degree credits for cooperative education? One reputable liberal arts college has for over fifty years been allocating this proportion (one-eighth) of the total degree requirements to cooperative education with no loss of academic prestige. The educational outcomes of the cooperative work experience in terms of motivation, enrichment of learning, career development and preparation for graduate or professional study have been clearly demonstrated. In fact, the work experience of Antioch students has had a favorable bearing on their admission to graduate schools and their progress in advanced studies.
What kind of elective credit does cooperative education substitute for? Actually it serves for both general and field electives. The work experiences in the first and second college years, though indirectly related to student's major academic interests (if they are clearly determined early), are more likely to be exploratory, relating to general education and development. They can fulfill and supplement the purposes of general/ liberal education. It makes good sense to regard the learning outcomes of these first two co-op experiences as an integral part of general education to be credited as general electives. The upper-class six-month co-op experience will naturally, in most instances, relate directly to the student's academic major, to be regarded as field elective credit.
This division of the cooperative education credits is in harmony with the aims and practice of higher education in the arts and sciences. Actually, most co-op experiences relate to both the general and specialized education of the student. The divisional plan is suggested largely as a way of reconciling the viability of the crediting process within the faculties involved in general and field studies. Particular problems arise in arranging the faculty coordinator and the process for supervising and evaluating the first and second year co-op experiences of students under this model. It requires faculty coordinators who will function as general educators rather than as representatives of a particular academic department.
Questions are raised about the problems in arranging the two summer coop placements as designed in this model. The Cooperative Education Director at Defiance College found the challenge strenuous in the beginning but becoming easier and manageable as the program progressed. Many employers are accustomed to employing college students only during the summer for seasonal needs and vacation fill-ins. When approached with this particular plan of cooperative education, they endorse the ideas behind it and will participate if possible. In developing the employer relations, the entire four-year plan is presented, and the six-month placement with the potential for pairing over a calendar year is particularly appealing to those employers concerned with long-range personnel needs. Although the first two summer placements allow for discontinuous experiences, they could well be with the same employer. Moreover, some of the placements could lead into the later six-month work period and on into potential full-time employment.
Mythical barriers exist in considering the validity of a variety of underclass co-op jobs-not only in this model but in all co-op programs. Jobs that, on the surface or as typed, do not seem to meet precise academic or technical levels in formal structure are often regarded as unsuitable co-op placements. The important consideration, in judging a co-op placement, is whether a given job and its environment offer to and is utilized as a learning experience by the student at his or her level of education and personal development. How a particular work experience is viewed and utilized by the student, the work supervisor and the faculty coordinator is the guiding principle for its acceptability as cooperative education.
Liberal arts students generally have jobs in the summer, whether or not in a cooperative plan. Many find jobs that are first-rate for educational use, often superior to what the college could arrange. In the application of this model in liberal arts programs, experience indicates that many of these self-arranged jobs, if suitably approved and followed up in the usual way of supervision, visits and evaluation, provide excellent learning and creditable experiences. So, both through college initiated job placements and assisting students in locating their own jobs, a good array of summer co-op experienced can be developed.
The placement interests and needs of arts and science students require the enlistment of a wide variety of employers that include more than the conventional fields of business and industry. Job development has to be diversified among a range of appropriate employers who need and can utilize the talents of the liberal arts student. This in turn calls for coordinators who are sensitive to arts and science education and who can relate effectively to many fields of employment.
The myth that liberal arts students are not fitted for employment has to be changed through better counseling and preparation of students and by better orientation and education of employers. The great emphasis on specialization in education and by many employers has led to the belief that the more broadly educated student is unprepared for employment. Certain occupational areas in the arts and sciences do require a marked degree of specialization, but numbers of jobs in business, industry, government and the professional fields require only a moderate amount of specialization. The six-month co-op work period in this new model, coming near the end of the college course, makes these placements attractive to employers and to students, who are often seeking full-time employment connections.
Jobs of particular interest to arts and science students are often found in non-profit organizations. Some of these agencies are well-funded and can pay for co-op employment. Others may have limited resources but can arrange good work opportunities for co-op students. Federal College Work Study funds can be used with non-profit employers, so that the employer pays only twenty per cent of the wage for a co-op student who qualifies for financial aid.
There are now increased college work-study funds being made available to colleges. Also the criteria for receiving financial aid has been modified to include middle class incomes. Combining the C-W-S and co-op employment is especially useful in liberal arts programs where appropriate placements are not as readily arranged as those in the private sector.
The customary charges are made for the cooperative education credits. So on the basis of the sixteen earned for cooperative education, the student would pay the equivalent of the study semester omitted in the upper-class years. The student, while paying a total amount of tuition equivalent to eight college semesters, would have no tuition or housing costs at the college during the omitted semester. Furthermore, taking into account living costs and other expenses during the alternate work semester, some net savings would be possible. This model is, therefore, economically sound for the college and financially beneficial for the student, to say nothing of the enriched education and career preparation. It should be noted, however, that the economy of this plan for the college depends on the organization of course offerings and scheduling so that the minimum number of courses need to be repeated (at an extra expense) over the two semesters in which pairs of students are employed. At Defiance there has been a problem in making the tuition charge for the two summer work periods following their tuition charges for the full academic year. They have had to make some temporary adjustments in the collection of the tuition for the summer co-op credits.
There is, of course, additional cost for the college under this plan but considerably less than under the more conventional ones. In addition to the cost of the central administration of the cooperative plan, there is the cost of engaging faculty coordinators to supervise the education of the co-op students during their work periods. Some faculty coordinators may have released time in their teaching load or in their non-teaching responsibilities to fulfill the coordinating function without budget additions except for travel. The cost of compensating faculty coordinators directly as a personnel budget addition is at least partially offset by the reduction of teaching costs over the two semesters in which co-ops are away from the college. To be sure, there is some added cost for this plan of cooperative education, but its effect in the quality of education for the students and faculty and other side effects in terms of admissions and attrition may well justify and compensate for the additional cost.
The Admissions Director at Defiance reports that the establishment of cooperative education has had a very noticeable effect on the applications and enrollment of new students. The provision for an active planning and advising relationship with first-year students concerned with their educational and career goals is attracting marked interest among enrollment prospects.
A distinctive feature of this model is the active enrollment and involvement of interested students as they enter the college. It provides opportunity for the exploration of interests and competencies during the most formative period of development for many students. The prevailing thought and practice is that cooperative education must be totally connected with the students' major field. While this is highly desirable and feasible for upper-class students, it is often not appropriate or possible in the underclass years. Many students in the arts and sciences do not decide and career interests that can be explored and tested through work experiences. Moreover, the knowledge and understanding gained through their underclass work experience can become a vital part of their liberal education and can provide motivation and direction for their academic studies.
At the time students at Defiance are accepted for admission, they receive a full description of the plan, its purposes and operation. The plan for utilizing the summer periods for purposes of learning, as well as earning, has particular appeal to students and their parents. The provision in the first year for realistic educational and career planning strikes a high note with the many who look to their early college years for direction and guidance.
The early communication and explanation of the co-op plan with newly accepted students appears to reduce attrition before entrance. A sizable look forward to enrolling in it during their first semester. Postponing until the second year the co-op enrollment of liberal arts students generally limits the number who will enter an optional program.
Having first and second year students actively engaged in cooperative education should not only increase college admissions and co-op enrollment buy also reduce student attrition - most of which occurs during the underclass years. These projected and favorable outcomes, should they be supported by cumulative data yet to be assembled, would have a significant impact on the financing and survival of a cooperative program.
This cooperative plan, as begun at Defiance College, has been adopted at other colleges and universities where it has been introduced. The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Denver, for example, has established the model under the quarter calendar. They allow sixteen quarter credits for cooperative education which count toward the degree. Compared with the operation on the semester calendar, there are some curricular complications in arranging the two six-month work periods where two upper-class students are paired on a single job. Frequently pairing is not necessary on these advanced jobs so that a co-op student can work the spring and summer quarters or the summer and fall quarters in the upper-class years. In certain of the science programs at the University of Denver where sequential course scheduling is necessary, the parallel co-op plan is used in the upper-class years - a manageable option in the area where jobs are available locally.
With adaptation, this model can be readily applied to other than liberal arts areas of the curriculum. Also it can be effectively used, scaled down proportionally, in two-year colleges for students in general studies or college transfer programs. Many states, in their regulation of community college, allow a specified number of college degree credits for cooperative education. In Ohio it is thirteen quarter credits. Cooperative students in college transfer programs are usually able to complete all of the academic course requirements for admission to a four-year college with additional free electives out of which the cooperative education credits can be applied. Many four-year colleges will accept a limited number of cooperative education credits for transfer provided the applicant has met the basic course requirements. In some cases students can complete the degree during five study quarters and two work quarters. Many students, however, would need to have eight quarters (including the second summer) to complete the program. The parallel plan can be applied during the regular academic year-combined with full-time work experience during the summer quarter.
It has been demonstrated that this model can be applied successfully in liberal arts and science programs. It meets the particular needs of arts and science students to have an enriched education and preparation for continuing further studies or for entering full-time employment and is designed for completion over a four-year course. It involves the use of co-op experience in the first two years as a means of invigorating educational and career planning and exploration, and as an integral part of the students' general education. As a new dimensional option in the curriculum, this plan enriches and extends the aims of liberal education in both the general and specialized areas of learning. In addition to fulfilling the qualities of a good cooperative education program and meeting the guidelines of Federal funding assistance, this model can be developed at minimal costs to students, employers and the college.