Thomas Carey is co-Principal Catalyst for WINCan and Executive-in-Residence in the British Columbia Association of Institutes and Universities and the Monash University Faculty of Arts
Deanne Gannaway is an Senior Lecturer in the University of Queensland’s Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation and Director of the HASS Futures project
The 'ways of knowing' cultivated in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences provide distinctive lenses for seeing the world and tools for engaging with the world. Students engage with these ways of knowing through the curriculum we design; a curriculum which further shapes these distinctive lenses. Liberal arts curricula provide unique opportunities for boundary learning – and the development of the capabilities valued by the workplace (in both the short and long term).
While study in majors develops disciplinary skills, knowledges and dispositions, the boundary learning that occurs within B.A. curricula develops the capacity to look beyond the rituals, the familiar, the known; developing the kinds of creative, innovative and flexible capabilities desired by prospective employers, hungry for a workforce able to cope with the needs of the Future of Work.
As specialists of humanity, who have learnt to navigate multiple disciplinary cultural boundaries, B.A. graduates are therefore uniquely placed to provide ways of knowing that can translate into distinctive value for the workplace – the short-term impact employers want in the people they hire. For example, we know that Innovation is a team sport and that breakthrough innovations are more likely when multiple ways of knowing are applied.
We argue that as a human, creative and social process, Workplace Innovation- the social process of creating lasting value by mobilizing new ideas in the workplace - finds a natural home in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Workplace Innovation capability is an acknowledged capability gap for workplaces, with high - and growing - demand for qualified graduates from higher education.
Understanding of Workplace Innovation can be of distinctive value in its own right, since most of our workplaces are at the early stages of encouraging workplace innovation and most lack any formal background or knowledge of relevant research.
Workplace Innovation is needed in all sectors (corporate, public, social, NonProfit, SMEs, etc.)
B.A. graduates who understand Workplace Innovation contexts, processes and functions, etc. and have developed the requisite skills, knowledge and mindsets can apply their distinctive ways of knowing.
There are other alternatives for B.A. undergrads to develop and demonstrate capability to contribute distinctive value in the workplace, but all of them seem to take us outside the Liberal Arts tradition in one way or another. For example, adding a Minor from Business doesn't leverage the capability from the students' home disciplines. Developing contextual knowledge of a specific work domain for applying the discipline perspective - e.g., Criminology – can prepare graduates for targeted opportunities in that particular job market but is not likely to be a key asset for alternate career paths.
In contrast, Workplace Innovation holds true to the Liberal Arts tradition of developing transferable capabilities and preparing graduates for multiple future career paths - and their other roles as community members and global citizens - rather than for an entry position in a specific work domain.
Through a range of projects and activities in Australia and Canada, we are creating opportunities for B.A. students to develop and demonstrate the value in these crucial ways of knowing - disciplinary “Special Powers” of B.A. graduates - and their contribution in Workplace Innovation contexts:
Historical Thinking is one such disciplinary way of knowing. Our recent workshop for our partner research universities in Australia was entitled "Why Every Innovative Organization Needs History Grads (and vice versa)”, and we highlighted other disciplines throughout the workshop to address all the Heads of School attending from Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
In Canada, faculty from Literature are articulating The Narrative Perspective for Workplace Innovation and others are exploring Responsible Innovation from an applied ethics perspective.
·We are importing to our Canadian projects a framing for this new area from our Australian partners: Knowledge Integration for Workplace Innovation, the first part emphasizing a traditional goal of Liberal Arts and the second part highlighting the new area of application.
As a light-hearted way to think about these unique capabilities, our in-house graphic artist is putting together a Heroes of the Humanities collectable card deck. Historia and Epistemia are two examples of these unique – yet often undervalued - ‘superpowers” suggested by our Humanities faculty.
Alt text: Hero of Humanities “Historia” with description of Powers and Perspective
by: Joel Dmitruk CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
Alt text: Hero of Humanities “Epistemia” with description of Powers and Perspective
by: Joel Dmitruk CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
These curricular resources and experiential learning opportunities are designed to help B.A. graduates to rearticulate and revalue the vital contribution that they – as Humanities, Arts and Social Science specialists – can make in the workplaces of today and in innovations that will shape the Future of Work.