The Record Online

Fall 2001

GC & Gallup

Most people know what they want to be when they grow up. Then they get to college, change their majors five or six times, and end up in careers that have little or nothing to do with their degrees. It’s a story that pans out in colleges and universities all across the country, but particularly those with a “liberal arts” emphasis – that focus less on teaching a trade and more on developing well-rounded, complete people. But liberal arts schools still end up with graduates who, despite their critical thinking skills, play games of hit or miss with their careers. Greenville College hopes to change that, for the better. And in the process, the school might just set a new standard in post-secondary education.

The college is working in cooperation with The Gallup Organization, the group responsible for producing arguably the most reliable and accurate surveys and statistics used by the media and the general public. Gallup also delves extensively into helping businesses get more out of their employees, and the organization has developed a tool called a “StrengthsFinder” – a test that identifies those aspects of an individual’s personality that help him or her meet life goals.

GC is the first college or university in the country to transfer the StrengthsFinder comprehensively to an academic setting. Other undergraduate institutions have used the Gallup tool to a limited degree, but never as a key aspect of a student’s entire four (or five or six) year undergraduate education. What is perhaps even bigger news, at least on-campus, is how GC is incorporating the Gallup tool into a major change in the school’s fundamental educational requirements that focus even more on cultivating a young adult’s mind, body and soul. In short, the college will help incoming students early on to discover their own strengths, and to use this knowledge to determine a major and a career, without precluding the benefits of a liberal arts education.

CORE Curriculum
For about seven years, GC administrators and faculty have wanted to change the school’s general education requirements – the basic courses that all students must take, regardless of their majors. At liberal arts schools like GC, the general education courses tend to be more numerous – and critical to the overall aims of the school – and are often referred to an institution’s “core curriculum.” Until this year, the core curriculum had not changed at GC since 1968.

The new curriculum features “a much more structured and purposeful tracking of general education requirements,” said Dr. S. Bradley Shaw, director of general education and English professor at GC. “There is a high degree of excitement among faculty about the new CORE curriculum,” said Shaw. He added that the college faculty, which often represents opinions as diverse as the students who attend the college, voted unanimously in favor of the general education changes.

The most obvious modification is the reorganization of class credits and class schedules. In the past, the college worked on a “four credit” system – most courses, when completed over the span of a semester, would earn a student four credits, or points, toward the graduation requirement of 132 credits. Students would attend class four days a week, with Wednesday as sort of a midweek weekend. Now, the college has gone to a “three-two” system. Major courses are now only worth three credits rather than four, but students only have to go to any particular three-credit class three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Two-credit courses are taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This change, although technically not part of the core curriculum change, works in tandem with the latter. The transition to a three-two system allows more courses to be taught (actually, more courses have to be completed in order to meet the credit amount required for graduation), which means that more general education courses can be added.

The CORE curriculum has also changed in that many general education courses are now more “interdisciplinary” – they incorporate several subjects (such as science and philosophy) into one class. The most critical classes to do this are the four new CORE classes, which a student must take each year for four years. During the fall semester of the freshman year, a new student is to enroll in the Cornerstone Seminar, which reviews the “foundations in the liberal arts tradition.” That is followed by the Introduction to Christian Thought and Life class during the sophomore year, and the Foundations of Science during the junior year. The student’s GC career, assuming it only lasts four years, culminates in the Capstone Seminar, an “integration across the disciplines.”

These CORE courses are where the StrengthsFinder comes into play. The interdisciplinary aspects of the Gallup tool allow test results to be incorporated easily into them. “One goal of the CORE courses is to get students to be self-reflective, to discover who they are,” said Shaw. Students are enabled to discover “their callings, their purposes in life, and how their strengths compliment that.”

StrengthsFinder
The StrengthsFinder test initially appears to be very similar to most other personality tests that people often take in a high school guidance course. The test taker is given two seemingly opposing situations, values or
philosophies, and then asked to rank which one applies more to him or her. This is a common format for such exams.

The difference in the StrengthsFinder from other personality tests, according to Dr. Chip Anderson, a graduate school professor at both the University of California Los Angeles and Azusa Pacific University in California, is what specifically the Gallup tool measures.

Anderson, who helped the Gallup organization to develop the StrengthsFinder, has worked with GC to introduce the exam to the college faculty, staff and students.

Most personality tests are based on theories about personalities. For example, the well-known Meyers-Briggs exam is based on the theories of psychologist Carl Jung. These tests tell you what kind of person you are, what previously identified personality type you fit. But the Gallup test uses a different foundation. The initial designer of the StrengthsFinder, Donald Clifton, president of The Gallup Organization, was being asked by large corporations to use his skills to help select people for top administrative positions in these corporations. So Clifton sought out the “best of the best” already in such positions, asked them what qualities of their personality helped them to achieve their status, and then used this information as a template for his personality test.

Clifton “identified these things that make people successful ... those small, discreet strengths,” said Anderson. “Strengths are collections of personal qualities, abilities and talents that enable a person to do certain things very well.”

Once specific strengths were pinpointed, it was fairly easy to compose an exam to locate them in various individuals. The StrengthsFinder test features 180 questions, asking the participant if he or she “is more like this or more like this,” and the test taker can rank himself or herself on a five-point scale. Said Anderson, “In order to understand fully the concept of strengths, one must move beyond limited ideas about strengths, talents and abilities. The concept of strengths begins with the realization that many specific strengths may be needed to do something very well. It isn’t as if one strength produces excellence. Many strengths, all working together, are needed to produce an outstanding performance.”

Strengths and talents are placed into various categories or “themes,” which include Relating Themes, Impacting Themes, Striving Themes, and Thinking Themes.

The added advantage of the Gallup tool is that it can be taken over the Internet, so those being examined receive immediate results and feedback. The test taker is presented his or her five most dominant strengths, and then how to best utilize these qualities in everyday life and career planning.

An example of one of the strengths, the Theme of Adaptability, is detailed by the Gallup website as follows: “You live in the moment. You don’t see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. You therefore discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have plans. You probably do. But this Theme of Adaptability enables you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment, even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are inevitable. Indeed, on some level, you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can remain productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.”

Blending Strengths & Studies
Previously, the StrengthsFinder was used primarily by businesses and corporations, as per its original design. Academia utilized the Gallup tool on a limited basis. But GC will be the first academic institution to make the StrengthsFinder results an intricate part of all four years (or more) that a student spends in college. “We’re the guinea pigs for Gallup,” said Dr. Karen Longman, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at GC, who headed up the project to bring the Gallup tool to the college. (GC applied for – and received – a federal Department of Education grant to fund the inclusion of the StrengthsFinder into the college’s CORE curriculum.)

A common occurrence at colleges and universities is what’s known as the “sophomore slump.” “At the very time when the ‘glow’ of entering the world of college has subsided (after the freshman year experience) and students often begin to question whether the benefits of a college education are worth the effort and cost, sophomores receive limited attention because both programmatic and personnel support tend to shift back to the next group of incoming students,” states Longman in the grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Education.

The introduction of the StrengthsFinder to the college’s general education courses aims to curb the sophomore slump by providing students with guidance throughout their college experience, not just their freshman year. During the first year, a student takes the Gallup test, and strengths and talents are identified. The sophomore year is then targeted for career planning, based on the results of the StrengthsFinder. This also aids students who have yet to choose a major to do so. The junior year will feature “practical application” of students’ strengths through “service learning and/or cross-cultural settings specific to the student’s major,” according to Longman. In the senior year, a student is permitted experiences such as internships “that build upon strengths students have been developing.”

GC’s Program Coordinator and Counselor Nancy Gaines is one of the many Strengths advisors on campus. She, along with Director of Career Services Dawn Mulholland, will be making presentations throughout the year in chapel, and will hold workshops in campus dormitories. “The StrengthsFinder will be used to weave strengths into the fabric of Greenville College, making the college a strengths-based institution,” said Gaines. “We will focus on celebrating the strengths God has given us and spend less effort trying to correct the weaknesses.” identified.

The sophomore year is then targeted for career planning, based on the results of the StrengthsFinder. This also aids students who have yet to choose a major to do so. The junior year will feature “practical application” of students’ strengths through “service learning and/or cross-cultural settings specific to the student’s major,” according to Longman. In the senior year, a student is permitted experiences such as internships “that build upon strengths students have been developing.”

GC’s Program Coordinator and Counselor Nancy Gaines is one of the many Strengths advisors on campus. She, along with Director of Career Services Dawn Mulholland, will be making presentations throughout the year in chapel, and will hold workshops in campus dormitories. “The StrengthsFinder will be used to weave strengths into the fabric of Greenville College, making the college a strengths-based institution,” said Gaines. “We will focus on celebrating the strengths God has given us and spend less effort trying to correct the weaknesses.”

The college began the StrengthsFinder program with last year’s freshman class and enters its second year with additional programming and services. Throughout the 2001-2002 school year, GC will host numerous special events on campus promoting the StrengthsFinder inventory including presentations, special guest speakers and workshops. All incoming freshmen have received the book Now Discover Your Strengths and taken the profile before arriving on campus and beginning their CORE 101 class, the first in the series of CORE education classes. Sophomores, who took the profile last year, were welcomed back to campus at a picnic at Jaycee Park in Greenville. There, GC President V. James Mannoia addressed them on their strengths, and how active strengths development can lead to a positive career decision and ultimately job satisfaction. Sophomores will also be invited to attend a sophomore summit once a semester, focusing on choosing a strengths-based career. The program is building and in 2002-2003, it will include juniors and eventually seniors.

And after that, life. The real world. But if GC and The Gallup Organization properly ferreted out a particular student’s gifts and abilities, and helped that student put those strengths to practical use, then perhaps the now-college-graduate won’t need to change careers five or six times. The goals of GC and The Gallup Organization are perhaps best summed up by Donald Clifton himself, in a letter he wrote to Dr. Laurie Schreiner, professor and Department of Psychology chair at Eastern College in Pennsylvania. Eastern has also been granted a federal grant to apply a similar strengths-finding approach to its general educational requirements. Clifton writes, “From the data I have seen, I believe people are more ready to assume a positive approach (to education) than ever before. Through the last century people increasingly took control of their lives as they demanded more democratic societies. Now is the time to bring out the best in each human being by focusing individuals on their strengths.”

Last updated: November 1, 2001