Readers Respond on “Noncredit”

A couple of weeks ago, I shared thoughts on the term “noncredit” and asked if folks had any better terms. I’m happy to report that some wise and worldly readers stepped up.

Northwestern Michigan College uses the umbrella term “extended education and training.” It isn’t bad, though I admit that if I were a prospective student happening upon the name for the first time, I’m not sure I would know what it meant. Someone might take “extended” to mean “longer,” which is the opposite of what many students want. I’ll give this one a maybe.

Someone from Villanova University wrote to say that the catalog refers to “noncredit,” but internally it’s known as either professional education or personal enrichment. Both of those would be abbreviated PE, which adds to the confusion a bit.

I had to smile at the mention of unofficial names. On my own campus, we have a group that combines academic affairs and student affairs and that meets monthly. Its official name is the Institutional Coordination Committee, which gives a pretty good sense of its purpose but doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Informally, it’s known as the Legion of Doom (or “LOD” for short). We don’t put that name on the schedules, for fear of raising eyebrows among people with no sense of humor, but it’s much more fun to say.

Another reader contested the premise:

“I share your opinion on categorization, but I’m not sure the term itself is doing as much harm as our conversations in the higher education echo chamber sometimes assume. We all navigate terms like ‘nonfat,’ ‘nonprofit’ and ‘nonrefundable’ without confusion. I see the problem with noncredit programs not necessarily being the prefix. It’s that those outside higher ed don’t fully understand what the credential at the end of the program actually means or is worth. So, what do we call the thing people earn when they complete these programs? ‘Certificate’ is muddled, as you note. ‘Credential’ is where I’d focus. It’s broadly understood outside of academe, it’s already in wide use across workforce development, and it doesn’t presuppose a credit/noncredit divide.”

There may be some truth to that. Nonfat milk has been around for a while, and people seem to grasp the concept. (The Girl didn’t grasp the concept of 2 percent milk when she first saw it. Her reaction: “Two percent milk? What’s the rest of it?”) I’ve heard the term “industry-recognized credential” quite a bit in reference to something like ServSafe or a Microsoft certification. In those contexts, I like it. Even better, many colleges have built stackable models in which someone who has an industry-recognized credential can get a certain number of course credits for it. The idea is that the credential reliably indicates certain knowledge or abilities that would otherwise get taught in a regular class, so giving credit avoids wasting time and money.

Still, I’m not sure that “credential” quite works for the personal enrichment courses. If I take a four-week class on Chinese cooking, I don’t need or expect a credential at the end. The journey is the destination. And summer camps for kids probably shouldn’t end with participation trophies, if every stand-up comedian over 50 is to be believed.

The mystery continues.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in! As always, if you have questions, ideas, or ideological objections, I can be reached at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com.

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