Alumni & Giving / The Centennial Campaign for GGU / Initiatives / 4. Teaching and Learning  
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TEACHING AND LEARNING

$4 MILLION


At the heart of the GGU mission is our commitment to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to transform their lives and careers. It can be easy for an educational institution to rest on the idea that the mere attainment of a degree provides such a transformation. We believe our responsibility demands more of us. In order for the GGU educational experience to be transformative, our students must graduate from Golden Gate not only with an academic degree, but with a portfolio of measurable skills and abilities, as expected by the business community.

To ensure our students graduate with the set of skills and knowledge required by the industry of their choosing, we have embarked on an ambitious plan of assessment and continuous improvement. The faculty of each of our academic programs is working with our business community to compile a complete inventory of the skills and knowledge each industry expects of a graduate. While most of our professors have practitioner backgrounds, we need further validation from current business leaders. It is this partnership with the business community that forms the backbone of our mission. The university is also reaching out to business leaders through the development of program-specific advisory boards, which will provide the level of input necessary to ensure we are teaching our students the skills expected of them upon graduation.

Coupled with our efforts to ensure there is a match between the expectations of the business community and our students’ educational experience is the recognition that our curricula must be appropriately infused with the technology students find in the professions in which they work or for which they are preparing. Further, it is essential that we provide our faculty with the necessary training and development to ensure the professional success of our students — and our graduates.

Academic technology
The need to make a substantial investment in academic technology is urgent. We cannot produce prepared professionals without training them on the technology they need to succeed in their jobs. And we cannot provide the finest in professional-practice education without the most advanced teaching-and-learning technology.

Faculty development
Ensuring we are providing a transformative education to our students involves continually developing our faculty. Given our mission, we are committed to having a faculty largely composed of practitioners who also love to teach. This commitment carries a responsibility: The university must provide tools and training for them to be the best possible teachers, and we must help maintain and nurture their connections to the business community.

THE COMMITMENT

We at GGU must ensure students are being taught by well-trained practitioners using the most up-to-date business-prescribed technology. To do so, we must rely on the commitment of our alumni and friends to contribute the $4 million needed to provide teaching-and-learning resources to deliver the highest possible level of professional-practice education, as required by the business community.
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