Tufts Study Recommends Williamson As National Model — Williamson College of the Trades, which could be considered Delaware County’s secret jewel, is becoming a little less secret.
Researchers from Tufts University compared students at the school in Middletown Township to those at Delaware County Community College, Pennsylvania State University at Brandywine, and Johnson College of Technology in an assessment of character from August 2012 to May 2015.
The conclusion can bed summed up as if you want your roof fixed, look for a Williamson guy.
The study — Act: Assessment of Character in The Trades — was designed to test the Williamson College “theory of change,” which posits that if healthy, able-bodied young men, who are intellectually and emotionally prepared, honest, frugal, entrepreneurial, temperate, and industrious, are given a curriculum that educates them with the knowledge and skills needed to pursue a good mechanical trade in the context of a school setting that provides Judeo-Christian ethics and values, then they will succeed in life.
The study found that students at all schools started with the same average score on the Five Cs Model of Positive Development: Competence, Confidence, Connection, Caring, and Character but the Williamson students had not dropped by studies end while the other student scores did.
Especially noteworthy was that in the “Faith” score — which includes hopeful future expectations and purpose — was higher for Williamson students at the end of the study and lower for those at the other schools.
The report concludes with a recommendation for the Williamson model to go national.
“(The study is a) story of obvious success in imbuing in them the skills necessary for a successful career in the trades but, more than that, it is a story about how character develops through the model of education provided by Williamson and how these young men are becoming pillars of contribution and caring to their communities and to their families. It is a story about providing a model of how, through trade education and character development, seamlessly integrated, we can transform the lives of millions of American young people.”
Note the part about transforming the lives of millions of American young people.
The study was funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation of West Conshohocken.
I guess so obvious that even a university can see it (but credit to Tufts that it put the study out in the higher-education environment we live in). Kudos to Williamson for what it does for our society and for these young people. Let’s hope that this takes off and we do see a transformation in the lives of our young people.