Broader Framing
Over the past few weeks, we have discussed the core concepts of story, character, and reflection. Beginning in week 4, we deepen our connection with these concepts even as we move on to explore new concepts that will form the core conceptual engine for the course: values, competencies, evidence, and alignment. As we begin thinking towards the Four-Year Navigator (4-NAV) and, later, the Professional, Academic, and Community Engagement (PACE) Action Plan, I want to introduce the Value Matrix (see image below). This matrix has two dimensions:
- The Extensive Dimension: this temporal dimension captures the evolution of our stories, our character, and of the values that inform that character, over time. It provides a sense of scope. You can chart multiple distinct experiences, whether past and future, along the extensive dimension.
- The Intensive Dimension: this discrete dimension captures individual cross-sections of the extensive dimension. Each vertical line represents a single experience, whether it was very brief (working in a soup kitchen) or more extended (studying abroad). The intensive dimension asks us to focus in individual experiences and drill down to examine how our informing values (who we are, what drives us) are grounded in practical competencies (what we can do, our skills and talents) and backed up by varied evidence (what we’ve actually done).
A a longer intensive line extending deeply into both values and action represents a sustained experience where significant action is grounded in clear values. A shorter line might represent a shallower action not as clearly aligned with a core value. A line extending deep into the “values” section of the graph but barely extending into “action” represents a value for which you have no good evidence.
The Value Matrix is one way to “map” or visualize your story: using it will help you shape your past into a compelling, coherent narrative; and it will also enable strategic choices in you future planning. Though you can use the Value Matrix to map and test a diverse set of values, you will ideally begin to view your years in college in a more streamlined way as your academic, community, and extra-curricular activities become more focused and clearly aligned. The Value Matrix is particularly useful as your “story” comes into focus because it provides a way to help you measure the depth of various actions and engagements in relation to a core, guiding value.
Each assignment in BGS can be viewed alongside this Value Matrix. The Resume and the Professional Narrative, for example, comprises the extensive dimension related to our past; each intensive line in the past might be thought of as a single paragraph in our narratives, or a single experience on our resume. THe 4-NAV and PACE Action Plan occupy the extensive dimension related to our future. Again, each future academic or leadership experience is indicated by a single intensive vertical line. The most successful stories emerge from lines that have both intensive depth and extensive alignment–actions, goals, and experiences, that is, that reflect a consistent set of values that inform what we do, what we study, how we engage our communities, and how we conceive of our future plans.