{"id":105233,"date":"2025-11-13T17:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=105233"},"modified":"2025-11-13T17:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:11:17","slug":"authors-higher-education-experts-present-ideas-for-hacking-college-at-atl-fall-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2025\/11\/authors-higher-education-experts-present-ideas-for-hacking-college-at-atl-fall-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Authors, higher education experts present ideas for \u2018Hacking College\u2019 at ATL Fall Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2014 Nov. 13, 2025 \u2014 Higher education is facing myriad challenges, and fundamental structural changes to colleges and universities are needed to ensure their future success, according to authors Ned Scott Laff and Scott Carlson, who delivered the keynote address at the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning Fall Symposium<\/a> on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions about the value of education are particularly important for institutions to address. The authors of \u201cHacking College: Why the Major Doesn’t Matter\u2014and What Really Does\u201d say curriculums are too often tied to what\u2019s expected of a particular major as opposed to aligning with students\u2019 professional goals and areas of interest to drive their career within their \u201cfield of study,\u201d Carlson and Laff say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe book is called \u2018Hacking College\u2019 because it\u2019s about how you can train students to take this really cumbersome, bureaucratically complicated thing called college, and help them find their way through it, in ways that are empowering,\u201d Carlson said after he and Laff detailed their vision for the future of higher education during their talk on the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Kingston Campus. \u201cHacking is a way people can bend the system, which changes society, often for the good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laff, who spent 35 years in academic affairs at several institutions, and Carlson, a senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em>, laid out their \u201cField of Study\u201d method before dozens of 溏心vlog免费B站 educators from multiple colleges. The method focuses not on a specific major, but on students\u2019 vocational interests, hidden intellectualism, and \u201ctheir wicked problem\u201d\u2014the personal, complex issue or question that inspires their educational and career ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t pick a major in life; we pick the issues that drive us,\u201d Laff said. \u201cI\u2019ve never met an undecided student\u2014just an undeclared student. But the college system doesn\u2019t lend itself to that hidden intellectualism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a student finds their interests, educators need to leverage those passions to set students on the path of intellectual inquiry, designing an educational plan with courses that complement their interests, said the authors. Students need to explore their varied passions, which can often lead to a different and more fulfilling career than they originally planned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can build what you want to build. You can make room for the diversity of pursuits and disciplines that are at an institution,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cThis is a super important piece of what hacking college is about: We talk about the biodiversity in colleges; whenever you have a situation where the biodiversity is hampered, you threaten the ecology of the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately, what we\u2019re interested is the success of the student,\u201d Carlson continued. That success often hinges on helping students strengthen their social capital, the networks and relationships they build to help them succeed in the job market, Carlson and Laff said. Career advising often focuses on specific industries a degree tends to feed students into, rather than opening those students to the \u201chidden job market,\u201d to which faculty and staff members may have access. Institutions should make students more aware of opportunities to expand their social capital through varied experiences outside the norm of the degree program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about the major, it\u2019s about crafting what you do,\u201d Laff said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors\u2019 inclusion in the symposium was recommended by 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty members who had read\u201d Hacking College\u201d as part of an on-campus book club, according to Sue Adams, vice provost for academic and faculty initiatives. While some of the authors\u2019 recommendations\u2014including a focus on \u201cmajor-less\u201d education\u2014may be difficult to implement, faculty members felt the commitment to improving educational priorities and advising, and strengthening connections among students, faculty and staff made the authors\u2019 presentation a valuable addition to the symposium\u2019s context, Adams said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlson and Laff acknowledge it can sometimes be difficult to implement their system at colleges and universities. However, change at the college level is necessary to meet the changing professional world, where increasingly complex issues require multidisciplinary approaches, they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe realized what we were saying about hacking college was going to be difficult for a lot of institutions to swallow,\u201d Carlson said, noting the book can be a valuable resource for all members of a college community, not just administrators. \u201cWe wrote the book as a populist manifesto that anyone can read to understand how college works, and how to hack it from the bottom up, while still being something that is aimed at a college professional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ATL Fall Symposium celebrated those at 溏心vlog免费B站 who \u201cteach outside the box\u201d\u2014the people who help students \u201cuncover their love for something new; those who mentor students and help them adjust their path; those who recognize that the most efficient path is not necessarily the straight one,\u201d according to the symposium description. The symposium featured panel discussions and break-out workshops focused on connecting students with career goals, highlighting campus resources to foster student success, and building bridges among the many disciplines on campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2014 Nov. 13, 2025 \u2014 Higher education is facing myriad challenges, and fundamental structural changes to colleges and universities are needed to ensure their future success, according to authors Ned Scott Laff and Scott Carlson, who delivered the keynote address at the Office for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning Fall Symposium on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":105234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1908],"class_list":["post-105233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-faculty-excellence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105235,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105233\/revisions\/105235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}