Spanning the Chasm: A Blueprint for Action. Academic & Corporate Collaboration: Key to Preparing Tomorrow's High-Performance Workforce.

This report presents ideas on the campus to workplace transition gathered from five regional workshops conducted in 1998-99. It notes that although business and higher education agree on the importance of changes in this transition, major differences exist between how these two sectors propose to accomplish such improvements. The workshops suggest that while the latter differences can be spanned, a greater chasm exists between the challenges of a changing global environment and the strategies necessary to arm graduates with needed skills in today's ambiguous work world. Recommendations focus on translating principles into local action and address: (1) the need for students to develop flexible and cross-functional skill sets, such as leadership, teamwork, problem solving, time management, communication and analytical thinking; (2) the need for students to develop such personal traits as ethics, adaptability, self-management, and global consciousness; (3) the need for a business-higher education collaborative process for restructuring curricula and teaching methods; (4) the need to provide more opportunities for college students to apply theoretical concepts; (5) the need for university career service advisors to build linkages to corporate recruiters; and (6) the need to include faculty in the academic-corporate dialogue and to focus on practical action-oriented items. Nine case studies illustrate effective business-school collaborations. (DB)