A Holistic Approach to Student Success

Transcription

1 A Holistic Approach to Student Success

2 A Holistic Approach to Student Success What s historically been missing? 3 A Holistic Model for Student Success 4 Holistic Student Success Dimension #1: Institutional Leadership 5 Holistic Student Success Dimension #2: Institutional Culture 6 Holistic Student Success Dimension #3: Student Learning 7 Holistic Student Success Dimension #4: Student Engagement 8 Summary 9 About the Author 10

3 Across the country, focused programs and efforts aimed at student success are being implemented at colleges and universities. Despite these efforts, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has reported that there is a lack of evidence that schools are seeing a significant increase in student completion rates, if any increase at all, as a result of these programs. What s historically been missing? Many grant programs are aimed at first generation students, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and students needing remedial intervention, but these programs are not impacting overall completion rates in a meaningful way. And here is why: a singular focus on a few groups of students or programs is not taking into account the big picture of student success efforts. In order to widen the scope there needs to be an assessment across A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 3

4 the culture and environment of the institution as a whole. approach to examining student success. This requires taking a holistic A Holistic Model for Student Success There are four primary dimensions of a healthy environment toward student success that will enable a big picture or holistic view: Each of these four dimensions should be included in a holistic environmental assessment of the factors influencing student success at an institution. The remainder of this paper delves deeper into each of these focus areas and how they contribute to a strong student success environment. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 4

5 Holistic Student Success Dimension #1: Institutional Leadership Why is institutional leadership vital to a climate that supports student success at every level of an institution? Institutional leadership begins with the governing board, the CEO position, and the cabinet. The extent to which executive leadership communicates and demonstrates support for student success lays the groundwork for how the entire institution will view their role in this environment. Leadership can demonstrate support through such means as communicating a vision and mission, implementing policies and programs, and clearly defining the meaning of student success. To create and maintain an environment that fosters student success, leadership support from the top executives must permeate throughout the institution. There should be a waterfall of support from the top leadership down to the department heads and ending finally in the faculty and staff that interact with the students and therefore have the closet influence on student success. This creates solidarity of support and commitment to student success throughout the institution. This strong leadership support should also correspond with resources devoted to student success-oriented initiatives in terms of budget, staffing, technology, and access to information. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 5

6 Holistic Student Success Dimension #2: Institutional Culture How can institutional culture create an environment conducive to enhancing the success of students? A student success-oriented culture may often be identified by the attitude and language of faculty and staff and the extent to which the institution maintains student success-oriented development programs for faculty and staff. In a culture focused on student success, the institution facilitates employee development and growth on an ongoing basis. Each employee understands and can articulate how their role is valued in the overall mission of the institution. A student success environment also has formal structures in place with the goal of fostering student success programs, activities, communities, and practices within and outside classes. Examples of this would include initiatives such as at-risk interventions, block (or cohort) scheduling, student engagement strategies, etc. Communication methodologies and means are also meaningful and frequent across the institution (to and between faculty, staff, and students). All of these factors are a major piece of the student success culture related to how the institution engages with students. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 6

7 Another vital piece of the institutional culture is metrics. The institution should implement and track student success-related metrics throughout the career of student(s) at the institution. These metrics provide a vital source of information in maintaining a culture geared to student success. Holistic Student Success Dimension #3: Student Learning Where is the student in student learning? With the rapid innovations and changes in technology, many creative means of instruction and support to students in the learning process have been developed. The evolution of the digital generation of students cannot be understated. Institutional leadership and culture are critical support mechanisms to creating an environment aimed at student success, and understanding and responding to the process of student learning is paramount to student outcomes. This begins with how instructional pedagogies support and enhance active student learning, optimizing the opportunities for student success. Academic programs, creative use of social media and technology applications, such as learning management systems, activities, and resources, should be in place to provide assistance to students in meeting their learning objectives in the classroom. Most schools have some method of orientation to help students transition to the institution and prepare initially for the learning process. As these students progress at the institution and transition to new phases or stages in their career at the school, students benefit from programs and activities in place to provide assistance in optimizing their success at these stages of their learning, e.g. Orientation, Freshman Seminar, Internships, Career Planning, etc. So orientation should be an ongoing process. Readiness is not just an issue as students enter the institution, but something they can benefit from as they encounter the different stages of their higher education experience. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 7

8 Many schools have put methodologies in place to monitor and assess student progress and provide early warning and action steps to students experiencing difficulties for each course attempted. Students should have an active role in this process also. Feedback systems should be in place to help students assess their learning on an ongoing basis and provide intervention when necessary. Holistic Student Success Dimension #4: Student Engagement How can institutions be fully engaged in student engagement? Student engagement has been written about and validated as a leading contributor to ultimate student success by many education experts over the past forty years. In reality, without intentional and proactive engagement, how many students fall through the cracks? Students set their academic goals, which then get captured in the student system and their degree audit. To what extent does the institution then collect, monitor, maintain and act upon the student s A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 8

9 goals and objectives for their learning experience? This should include not only goals for academic degrees, but all goals a student may be pursuing, such as determining career goals and a related major, or getting an internship during their Junior or Senior year. The institution should provide support to students in updating and changing their goals as their circumstances change. In other words, intentional and proactive engagement on an ongoing basis. A major component of student engagement research is the element of feeling that one belongs. What programs and activities exist which foster student connections or relationships with faculty, staff, and peers within the institution s academic and social environments? This is what creates a sense of belonging and community. In today s more digital existence, this can be even more challenging, but there are new and innovative tools, to help faculty and staff facilitate student engagement across the student s career at the institution. Summary The reality is that institutional leadership, institutional culture, student learning and student engagement all impact the success of students at the institution. Evaluating these aspects in a holistic assessment will be exponentially more powerful than addressing individual issues in a vacuum. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 9

10 Among institutions that have shown significant increase in student retention and completion rates, there is a common theme: These institutions tend to take a more holistic approach to student success. This is not to say that current focused initiatives are not needed or not effective. To make impacts in overall success rates, the big picture must be evaluated and improved. By looking at the institution from the four different vantage points related to student success, a broader and more objective strategic plan can be put into place facilitating increased completion and student success measures. About the Author Joe LeCluyse Vice President for Client Success Collegiate Project Services Throughout his career working in and with Higher Education, Joe s driving principle has been that services in Higher Education should not just be record keeping and logistical operations, but should be part of the larger process of helping students complete their goals at the institution to the best of their ability. Assisting schools to enhance their efforts toward student success has been, and continues to be his passion. Joe brings diverse higher education administrative and technology experience, strong interpersonal skills, and a strong student development philosophy in providing strategy and software planning services for higher education clients. This experience is from more than 36 years in the higher education industry in student services administration, consulting services, and software development project management. Prior to consulting, Joe served as Principal Functional Architect at Oracle USA for its student administrative system, leading the functional design efforts for the system, working closely with numerous, diverse higher education institutions in defining functional requirements and design. Joe has also held leadership positions over 16 years in student services administration at the Maricopa Community Colleges, Johnson County Community College, and the University of Kansas. Currently, Joe helps institutions as Vice President for Client Success with Collegiate Project Services. A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 10

11 About Collegiate Project Services Collegiate Project Services is an independent partner to higher education institutions in enterprise systems advisory consulting, project and change management and student success strategies. We exclusively serve higher education and have worked with hundreds of institutions over the past 25 years. For more information visit and A Holistic Approach to Student Success Page 11

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