The AAC&U logo. Graphic from the AAC&U website.
Leeva Chung, Ph.D., of the University of San Diego made a trip up to UAA to give a lecture on March 28 and a workshop on March 29 focused on her approach to connecting students’ classroom experiences to careers.
The Northern Light spoke with Chung to better understand who she is and why she made this trip to Alaska.
“I’ve been teaching, officially, since 1991. But at the university level for 26 years. My areas of specialty are interpersonal and intercultural communication,” said Chung. She said that she is an AAC&U mentor.
“... have you heard of AAC&U?” Chung asked as she explained the reason for her trip.
According to its website, The American Association of Colleges and Universities is “dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education.”
Chung has worked with the organization for about 10 years and was asked to be a mentor.
“A mentor — meaning there was 12 of us who were going to mentor universities with what they called ‘curriculum to career.’ So for example … pick any class that you’re taking right now and the way that your class is structured. Could you take what you’re learning to the real world in a career?” Chung asked.
“For some students and some classes the answer is no,” Chung said. This is the crux of the reason for her visit to UAA and her involvement with the AAC&U. She said that she intends to help schools create more pathways toward careers for students.
“I think the University of Alaska Anchorage did it [the curriculum to careers program] for two years. So, this last year … Liz went to one of my sessions … and then asked me if I wanted to be a ‘sidekick mentor’ because I was not assigned to the school, but I loved what they were doing with internships, I loved some of the things that they were talking about,” said Chung.
“Liz” is UAA Associate Dean of the Humanities Elizabeth Dennison, who invited Chung to UAA to help inspire students and give the university an opportunity to learn from an AAC&U mentor.
“So, this is all part of ‘how does my experience as mentor for AAC&U help [UAA] and get [the university] more onboard to designing your infrastructure in terms of your curriculum and pedagogy, to bring it forward?’” said Chung. “I’m actually kind of impressed by your catalog … I really am — more so than mine.”
Chung said that she was happy to find that UAA has a significant number of classes that are career-oriented as well as many internship opportunities for students. Chung said that these sorts of programs enhance “the value of a college degree.”
Along with her AAC&U experience, Chung is also known for a theory of teaching that she coined “organized chaos.”
Chung said that “Organized chaos means taking what seems to be just completely chaotic logistic, ‘everything,’ and put it into a structure that makes sense for me in my classroom. So, that means a lot of the projects that I do with alumni, with community partners, and then with course content, with my students, mentoring — are all very challenging to come up with a very clear pattern and plan. Because you never know what’s going to happen.”
At its core, Chung said organized chaos is simply finding a “method in the madness” that allows for flexibility when life takes its unexpected turns. No class or project is without its hiccups, so having a way to be flexible is important, Chung said.
For some classes, rather than sticking with a nonflexible syllabus, Chung said, “What I do is I read the room and see what’s important. … It’s not something I would encourage everybody to do. … But I think my way is, if you want to design learning, then learning should unfold as the class unfolds with you.”
Chung said that this approach has made learning more accessible for many of her students — especially post-pandemic.
Chung explained that changing up the game might help some people get through college or take life’s challenges with greater success — or at least with greater acceptance of and learning from failure.
Chung said, “Failing in college doesn’t mean an F in life — it means looking at what you can do better moving forward. So, we need to let go of failure as a negative and failure as an F. Because somebody who got a B says, ‘I failed.’ And so, this pressure not to fail is really damaging your need to learn and take risks.”
Chung said that letting go of the fear of failure and taking steps to “really relish this college experience” is to be successful after graduating. “You know, you’ll never have this time again. You’re gonna be working in a cubby hole. You’re gonna be working, you know, from home. You know this is the time when you’re supposed to network, make friends, build communities.”
“Take risks and understand that border line of yours. Expand your border line,” Chung said.
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