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PLU In A Hig h-Tech Age: Synth esizi ng The Best Of Tec h n o l ogy With The Best Of Li bera l Arts - The Science With The H u m a nity Anyone who reads the daily newspaper or who has elementa ry or high school students i n the home is keenly aware that we are irretrieva bly launched into the fast and dazzling world of com puters and technolo gy. So thorough has been the penetration into our national economy and i nto our personal lives that John Naisbitt in his recently published book, "Megatre n d s ," maintains we have already moved out of the I ndustria l Society and into the Information Society . Indeed, this movement was iden tified as the post-industrial age as early as the late 1950's by Harvard sociology professor Daniel Bel l . When this renowned futurist partici pated in a semi nar on the ca m pus of Pacific Luthera n University in 1978, he ex plored the implications of the cha n g i ng American scene for business a n d for higher education . At that time, few in dustries and virtually no schools were prepared to gear their operations i nto the unknown field of com puter depen dency Since then , the application of media inno vations to educational purposes has expand ed at an exponential rate. Colleges and universities across the country are begi nning to respond in dramatic ways to the vast possibilities of i ntegrati ng hig h technology i nto the teach ing/learning environment. A recent count indicates that over 150 liberal arts institutions are already well along in adapting to this "revolution . " I believe this is not a tra nsient phenomenon, as some vigorously hold, but that it is a perma nent and pervasive fact of l ife. While much that is positive has resulted from this revolution,· special problems and challenges are also emerging. Specifica l ly, i ndustry is finding that as both workers and managers become more technically profi cient, they commonly become more narrow or specialized . They find themselves unable to deal with interpersonal issues so im por tant not only in day-to-day contacts, but in effective person nel ma nagement. With in the past month representatives from one of the nation 's leading manufacturers of technical equipment visited on our ca m pus. They were exploring ways that we might assist their compa ny in train ing managers for tomorrow who will be not only scientifically competent, but also humane, sensitive, and able to commun icate o n a personal level with their colleagues . At Pacific Lutheran U niversity our great strength lies in our com mitment to the goals of a liberal education. We must now build into that com mitment those elements of mod ern technology which ca n help us achieve our goals even more efficiently, effectively a nd com petitively. At the same time, we do not wish to adopt costly fads nor become economic or educational victims of poor
plan ni ng, lack of cooperative effort, and uncoord inated activity. Budgetary realities and a discrimi nating student market make it e s s e n t i a l that we p l a n a n d work to strengthen our efforts to continue to pro vide an outstanding liberal education in a Christian context. With this in mind, early this year a faculty committee which represented both science and technology and the liberal arts was esta blished to study ways in which we might set in motion a coord in ated effort to strengthen and enrich our educati o n a l achievements i n a technolog ical age. The overall objective is to i ntegrate i nstruction i n tech nology with instruction i n the liberal arts . Certainly, the future will include the i n troduction o f com puter assisted in struction in courses throughout the un iversity The much-overused term "computer literacy" is accurate as a desired aim of contemporary education, but for this un iversity, it describes only part of the goal. Students would be ill prepared if they were not wel l trai ned to master a nd use to adva ntage the wide choices of instruments available to them. Video cassette recorders, our Public Broad casting System resources, video discs, li brary com puter resources, word processors, mic rocom puters, m i n icom puters - all are al ready on hand on the cam pus. Their use must now be ta pped to make them essential elements of a pla nned curricular structure throughout all academic areas. Many institutions will work vigorously to help students become com puter literate . One institution will require by this fall that . each Freshman own or buy a personal com puter . Pacific Luthera n Universi ty, be cause of its heritage in liberal arts and its current strength in science and technology must do morethan sim ply provide com puter literacy for its stUdents . The greater part of the challenge is to find a curricular pathway which al lows a synthesis of the best in li beral arts with the best in technology. Such a synthesis would al low the liberal arts to inform the technological train ing so that students will understa nd not only the sci en ce, but also the humanity of the new age. The faculty com mi ttee now at work will have formulated a plan to respond to this greater challenge by this co ming summer. The creation of such an integrated cur riculum is uniquely possible in a school like Pacific Lutheran U n iversity, where an envi ro nment of collegiality has a long tradition . The groundwork for such i nterdiSCiplinary effort to produce a new un dersta nding of the relatedness of various disciplines is firm ly established in our existing successful Inte grated Studies Program . Naisbitt stresses i n his book that whenever new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response or the technology is rejected. He refers to it as high touch. "The more high tech," he maintains, "the more high touch. " Pacific Lutheran University i s i ndeed re sponding in a creative way to that concept as we become a contributing part of the Information Society .
Dr. William 0. Rieke
'A representative of one of the nation's leading firms visited PLU recently to explore ways we might assist them in training managers who will be not only scientifically competent, but humane and sensitive, .. '