Survey Finds Employers and Public Favor Graduates Who Can Communicate
Polls continue to show that employers want universities to produce
people who are able to think. But ‘thinking’
turns out to be an incredibly complex and variegated phenomenon. Being able to
think means a lot of different things. The good news is that most people
understand this complexity already, and so want people coming out of
universities to have a variety of abilities in those ‘different things.’
A recent poll published in the Chronicle
of Higher Education, and reproduced here, indicated that most Americans,
and in particular business leaders, say it is more important that graduates be
well-rounded and possess broader capacities, such as problem solving and communication
skills, than narrowly focused ‘professional’ training.