Duplex skills for the modern world: a case for integrating the humanities and STEM. From the editorial:

[A]mong computer scientists and engineers who graduated from college, it’s often the case that the requirements for their major leave little room for classes in philosophy or history. At the same time, few liberal arts graduates take STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) that would allow them to compete for jobs in the tech industry. Yet research has shown that the fastest-growing occupations are those requiring both the cognitive skills of STEM and the soft skills of the liberal arts.

Now, the two sides are coming together in a partnership designed to make students more employable. Dominican University of California, a small liberal arts college, and Make School, a San Francisco-based coding boot camp, are partnering to offer computer science courses and a minor at Dominican taught by Make School faculty, while Dominican professors will teach general education classes at Make School and help incubate a new bachelor’s degree there….

The hope of Make School and Dominican is that their partnership spawns a model of college that allows legacy higher education institutions to copy the model nationwide as well as join with new providers in any field, not just technology. Imagine colleges partnering in this way with hospitals, retailers and manufacturers to provide students with a mix of the hands-on skills and the foundational knowledge needed to be a productive citizen.

It’s nearly impossible for most colleges to remake their academic majors to keep up with changes in any field these days. As a result, higher education is often criticized as lacking innovation and being too slow to change with the economy. But colleges shouldn’t be expected to bear the burden of training the next generation of the workforce alone.

“The world of work is changing quickly,” [Dominican President Mary B.] Marcy said. “The basic core skills of the liberal arts — critical analysis, deep and coherent reading, and communication across differences are deeply needed in the tech field and every industry.” STEM fields have enjoyed massive growth at colleges mostly at the expense of the humanities. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. But the liberal arts still play a critical role in educating citizens, and it will take innovative thinking by higher education leaders to build models of college for the future.

h/t Robert B. Townsend (@rbthisted)