College and university leaders chatter about their commitment to “inclusion” all the time, but the inclusion they have in mind is pretty much limited to supposedly “marginalized” racial groups. But how about those who have gone into the workforce and later think it might be valuable to be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills to other employers? There are many of them. For the most part, schools have ignored them.
In today’s Martin Center article, Walt Gardner writes in praise of a program at the University of Pennsylvania that aims at those students. It is the Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS), intended to allow them to get a potentially valuable credential by presenting a portfolio of their accomplishments.
Does this program uphold academic standards? Gardner writes that it does: “In fact, the program’s senior portfolio, containing eight artifacts that are required for the degree, demands a level of rigor on par with any master’s thesis. Among these artifacts are videos linking student work to real issues in the workplace.”
It sounds useful. That’s more than can be said for many other degree programs at Penn and elsewhere.
Gardner concludes that it’s “time to recognize the value of non-theoretical knowledge in a changing world.” Correct.