Defining Excellence: Lessons from the 2013 Aspen Prize Finalists

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DEFINING EXCELLENCE:

LESSONS FROM THE 2013

ASPEN PRIZE FINALISTS

COLLEGE EXCELLENCE PROGRAM


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Copyright 2013 by The Aspen Institute, College Excellence Program

The Aspen Institute | One Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036

Published in the United States of America in 2013 by The Aspen Institute

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

The Aspen Institute and Aspen Prize for Community College ExcellenceTe Aspen Institutes College Excellence Program (CEP) works to identiy and replicate college practicesand policies aimed at signicantly improving student outcomes. A central way CEP pursues this goal isthrough the Aspen Prize or Community College Excellence. o administer the Prize each year, CEP gathers

quantitative data about student success at the nations community colleges and qualitative inormation aboutwhat is happening at institutions that are achieving high and/or improving levels o student success in ourareas: learning, completion, labor market, and equitable outcomes. Tis guide is one o a series o publicationsthrough which the College Excellence Program will share what it has learned through the Prizes inormationgathering process.

AcknowledgementsTe College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute would like to thank our unders or their generoussupport. Tis guide would not have been possible without support or the Aspen Prize or CommunityCollege Excellence rom:

America Achieves

Te Bank o America Charitable Foundation

Bloomberg Philanthropies

Te Joyce Foundation

JPMorgan Chase Foundation

Lumina Foundation

Te W. K. Kellogg Foundation


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DEFINING EXCELLENCE:

LESSONS FROM THE 2013

ASPEN PRIZE FINALISTS

COLLEGE EXCELLENCE PROGRAM


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A Guide or Using Labor Market Data to Improve Student Success | 1

In many respects, you couldnt nd a group o 10 schools more diverse than the nalists or the 2013Aspen Prize or Community College Excellence. One community college serves 1,500 students, another56,000. Tere are institutions devoted primarilyeven solelyto technical degrees, and ones devoted

mainly to preparing students or urther academic study. A journey rom college to college would take youto the Big Apple, through an Appalachian holler, into the heart o Americas plains, and nally, up to a bluoverlooking the Pacic Ocean.

Although the Aspen Prize nalist colleges are dierent in many respects, they have one thing in common:Tey achieve impressive outcomes or their students in the our areas that comprise the Aspen Prizesdenition o excellence:

Completion.Do students earn degrees and other meaningul credentials?

Learning. Do colleges set expectations or what students should learn, measure whether they are doingso, and use that inormation to improve?

Labormarketoutcomes.Do graduates get well-paying jobs?

Equity. Do colleges work to ensure equitable outcomes or minority, low-income, and other

underserved students?

Nationally, 23 percent o rst-time ull-time community college students complete a credential within threeyears, a rate that declined by 6.7 percent between 2006 and 2010. At Aspen Prize nalist institutions, thatgraduation rate is, on average, 35 percent, and it has improved by 4.7 percent over the same period. Another16 percent o students at nalist colleges transerred to a our-year college without rst receiving an associatesdegree, bringing student success rates at Prize nalists above 50 percent. In this paper, we identiy andilluminate the qualities we believe contribute to these impressive outcomes at the nalist colleges and at othersuccessul community colleges around the country.

Tese colleges did not achieve better student outcomes because they enrolled students who were easier toreach or better prepared than otherssome nalist schools, in act, serve students ar needier and regions

ar poorer than the national average. It was not solely because they chose the right textbooks, or remedialeducation reorms, or online learning platorms. O course those things matter. But even when colleges choosetheir approaches wisely, excellence requires more: leaders who build an environment where every proessor andsta member is willing to accept tough realities and is committed to improving student success, and whereevery administrator makes sure they have the tools to do so.

DEFINING EXCELLENCELESSONS FROM THE 2013 ASPEN PRIZE FINALISTS


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2 | The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program

It might seem that there is a measure o alchemy as to why one institution succeeds where another doesnt.But in-depth study, including site visits, o the nalist colleges revealed clear patterns among these variedinstitutionsthey are alike, it is clear, in many ways that tie closely to strong results or students.

Finalist collegesand successul community colleges around the countryshare a singular ocus on studentachievement. Likely, the leaders o every college in the country would say they put students rst. But that

rhetoric means nothing unless the notion is put into practice in meaningul and consistent ways. Eectivecolleges have strong leaders so committed to improving outcomes that they are willing to take risks othersmight not, or that at other schools would lead to debilitating dissention. And every administrator, teacher, andsta member is given the message that he or she is personally responsible or taking action to improve studentsuccess.

Alone, that commitment to students is not enough; it must be translated into deliberate actions that leadto measurable improvements. Eective colleges continually examine where they need to improve studentoutcomes, acilitate the risk-taking that will get them there, and measure whether their eorts are working.Tey pay attention to what students areand arentlearning in class or online, and understand thatteaching and learning can always be improved. Tey oster an environment o collaboration, where peoplereach across levels and departments to work together to improve graduation rates. Tey ensure their programs

will lead directly to the next step, be it a desirable job or transer to (and graduation rom) a our-year school,and make that clear to students. Tey understand that community college students need a lot o guidance andsupport, and they are always thinking about how to reach the most vulnerable students.

EXCELLENTCOLLEGESFOCUSONTEACHINGANDLEARNING.

It seems obvious to say: Nothing matters more than what happens in the classroom. Yet ew communitycolleges pay enough attention to what students are learning, and how. Te best schools do, in structured,actionable ways. Tey believe that there are certain things students should learn in a given course, no matter

their instructor, no matter their campus, no matter whether thecourse is taught ace-to-ace or online. Tey aim to provide

the rigor that will help students in their next steps,whether that means in the next course in a sequence, at

a university, or on the job.

While the development o student learning outcomesis still nascent at many community colleges,some are already using them in powerul ways.Departments are coming together to determine

what students should know and be able to do,gure out how to measure that, ando utmost

importanceadjust instruction based on the results.

When proessors have only their own students resultsto look at, they are limited in the conclusions they candraw. When aculty members collaborate, however, common

challenges emerge and can be addressed together.

West Kentucky Community and echnical College, in Paducah, is one o the national leaders in using studentlearning outcomes and common assessments to improve instruction, and thus results. One o many examples:With nearly 400 West Kentucky students taking Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) I each all, rom as manyas 10 instructors, aculty and administrators realized that they had to do more to ensure that every student


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was ready or nursing or whatever else came next. So they developed a common nal exam. When they wererst able to look at aggregate results, they saw signicant weaknesses. Our student learning outcomes werentnearly as high as wed hoped that theyd be, particularly in the nervous system, says Karen Hlinka, dean oscience and math. It was like, Oh, wow.

Te dean and aculty got to work: Tey changed the textbook, introduced peer tutoring, began to use more

microscope slides in class, and replaced cat dissection with expensive physical models and computer dissectionsotware. For students who ound themselves in way over their heads, the department created a rereshercourse they could enroll in mid-term and return to A&P better prepared the ollowing term. Te moves butyielded results: improved course completion and retention rates.

Its important to note that when dening and working to meet student learning goals, eective colleges do notwater down the material. I anything, they make it more rigorous. When West Kentucky instructors oundthat expectations diverged in remedial and college-level writing courses, they worked together to create ascoring rubric that raised expectations, and in turn increased rates o prociency. Santa Barbara City Collegedesigned its writing center to tutor students toward the expectations o the University o Caliornia system,where many students aim to transer, rather than just their next community college courses.

Developmental education

An even greater challenge comes in the area o developmental, or remedial, education. Nationwide, threein ve students arrive at community colleges in need o remedial courses, and most o those students ailto complete college, or even the college-level courses that ollow their remedial ones. Tis is the case evenat successul colleges. But what sets them apart is the tremendous energy they are putting into solving thisproblem.

Tere is no one program, no one approach, that has been proven to be a magic bullet. Trough constant andconsidered innovation, community colleges across the country are aiming or dramatic improvements, not justincremental ones. Gone are the days at most nalist community colleges where students assigned to remedial

education sit in a semester-long class with a proessor who teaches math or reading or writing the same way itis taught in high school.

Because remedial classes, which typically cost students money but garner them no credit, can eel like a grind,some colleges are attempting to make them more engaging and relevant. Brazosport College in southeast exashas introduced three dierent remedial math pathwaysindustrial math, statistics, or math or academictranserso students can choose the one that best suits them. And instructors at a ew colleges are ippingthe classroom: providing videos that deliver the material outside o class, then using class time to answerquestions and acilitate students as they solve problems in groups.

More oten, interventions are designed to speed things up, to help students complete remedial educationsooner so they can progress toward their degrees, saving money and time. Most nalist colleges areexperimenting with the delivery o remedial coursework online in computer labs, where students work at theirown pace and turn to proessors or assistants or help. Some have even done away with some reestandingdevelopmental education courses altogether, instead embedding remedial help into college-level courses.Remedial instructors co-teach the introductory classes in the water management, certied nursing assistant,and early childhood education programs at Walla Walla Community College in western Washington State;Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn allows students who just missed the cuto or college-levelwork to take English 101 classes with the help o remedial tutors. Kingsborough also oers compressedcourses, which teach a semesters worth o remedial math in as little as a week.


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At Kinsgborough Community College, promising outcomes have resulted rom the CUNY Start program,which provides intensive remediation to students25 hours per week or 12 to 18 weeksso students cancomplete their developmental coursework in a raction o the time it had previously taken. At Santa BarbaraCity College, students in the Express to Success program, mostly low-income minorities, take two remedialmath or English courses at a time, our days a week or a semester, in learning communities o their peers.Accelerating coursework or the neediest students sounds counterintuitive, but data show that students in

Express to Success are two-thirds more likely to pass two English classes in one semester than other studentswere to pass those classes over two semesters. Proessors eliminate material that overlaps in the two courses andgive computerized drills or homework; with the saved course time, aculty members are able to help studentswith conceptual understanding. When they told me about the learning community, I was really scareditstoo much math! says Cindy Gonzalez, 29. Te program turned out to be layered with so much support, shesays, that success was almost a given. Now Im done. Im a tutor, and Im on my wayto UCLA.

Professional development

Eective community colleges strive to build aculties capable o executing the reorms they count on to makea dierence or students, through deliberate hiring and training processes. Tey make an explicit eort to

hire aculty members who are committed to growing as teachers, and give them the resources they need to doso. Some nalist colleges hire experienced proessors rom nearby high schools and our-year colleges, someright rom the workorce even i they have never taught. All, though, use the hiring process to make sure newaculty members share the values o the college, will contribute to the community, prioritize teaching, and areeager to grow or the sake o their students.

When Brazosport College began a college-wide eort to ocus closely on student outcomes, administratorsin many departments changed the scoring rubric used to rate teaching applicants. Te emphasis now is notas much on their academic credentials, but on whether they have improved in the art o teaching, says JeDetrick, chair o math and lie sciences. A hiring committee o Detricks recently chose a candidate with veyears o experience who sought out every training opportunity over one with 20 years o experience but noevidence he had done anything dierently over those 20 years. Te new hire, he says, has proven to be exactly

what the college now prizes: active, vibrant, committed to growth and to students.

Many nalist colleges have ormal programs to link new aculty members, or any instructor who wantshelp, to experienced mentors. At Lake Area echnical Institute, in Watertown, South Dakota, and at WestKentucky, new proessors meet monthly or classes that address lesson design, assessment, and how toincorporate hands-on activities into instruction. Given the growth o distance learning, and the act thatstudents typically do not complete online classes at the same rate they do ace-to-ace ones, Broward Collegetrained 19 e-learning associates, instructors with good technology skills who help their peers understandwhat constitutes excellent virtual teaching.

Interventions to improve teaching can be most successul when they are accompanied by in-depth training.When research showed that reading skills were holding West Kentucky students back, the college began a

ve-year eort to train teachers to teach students through common, eective reading strategies. Te collegedidnt rely on occasional, optional workshops. Administrators built a system in which instructors rom acrossthe college were grouped into cohorts that met monthly, or a year, to learn how to instill in students theimportance o careul reading, help them understand the purpose o assignments, and teach note-taking andother skills. In those meetings, instructorsin both academic and technical eldsshared what worked andwhat didnt.


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o make sure his studio art students were truly comprehending and responding to their reading assignmentsand not just parroting them back to him, West Kentucky proessor Paul Aho taught them the 3-2-1 strategy,which he had learned in his training: Tey write about three surprising things they learned rom the reading,two things they ound interesting, and one question they have. All o my students thought those exerciseswere very, very productive, Aho says.

Over ve years, hal o West Kentuckys ull-time aculty members took part in the training. By everymeasurethe number o students who use the new reading strategies, how prepared they eel or class, and,most important, how they score on reading prociency teststhe eort has worked remarkably.

EXCELLENTCOLLEGESARESYSTEMATICANDINNOVATIVEINTHEIRQUESTTOIMPROVE.

It used to be easy to remain in the dark about what wasnt working at Broward College. Beore the collegejoined Achieving the Dream, a national program that helps community colleges use evidence to improvestudent outcomes, aculty members were not aware that hal o students who started a remedial course

sequence didnt complete it. Tey didnt believe it, says Patti Barney, vice president o inormationtechnology. Tere was this year or more o disbelie and usparading around saying, Believe it. Only with thatunderstanding was the college able to move to the nextstep: What are we going to do about it?

You cant create urgency or improvement unlessaculty and sta understand how serious problemsare and agree that its their job to help solvethem. Successul schools build the research andinormation systems necessary to analyze andsynthesize data about student outcomes and needs,

and their leaders are skilled at making everyoneaware oand invested in usingthat inormation.Participating in Achieving the Dream helped not justBroward but also College o the Ouachitas in centralArkansas and Brazosport College become schools thatsystematically use research to drive improvement.

Kingsborough Community College, which recently joined Achieving the Dream, has or a decade beenworking to build a culture o evidence. Data were always there, says Richard Fox, Kingsboroughs dean oinstitutional eectiveness and strategic planning. Now theyre actually getting used. Routine reports oncourse completion and success at Kingsborough have long showed a consistent pattern: Students who tookEnglish in their rst semester were more likely to reenroll the next term than students who didnt; that gap

grew even greater ater two terms. Under the leadership o administrators ocused on student success data, theschool nally did something about it: require English or all students in their rst semester. Regina Peruggi,the president, makes very clear her ocus on student outcomes; every year she attends a aculty meeting ineach department, where she hands out and discusses a booklet enumerating how the department is doing onmetrics like course completion and retention.


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O course, its not enough to use data to identiy problems. Eective colleges intentionally respond withinterventions, closely monitor their eectiveness, and make midcourse corrections when needed. We lookat that data assiduously, we report on it, and we act on whats not working, says Alice Scharper, a dean oeducation programs at Santa Barbara City College. For instance, Santa Barbara has embedded peer tutors inhundreds o classes, but an annual program evaluation showed that students were not visiting those tutorsas oten as hoped. So aculty were asked to develop ways to increase tutor visits and came up with several,

including giving students grades or seeing tutors and assigning homework that explicitly requires visiting thetutor. As it does with all its reorms, the college will look closely at whether the changes make a dierence.

Innovation cultures

Most o Santa Barbaras innovative initiatives were developed with the active involvement o proessors.Even when hiring, administrators are looking or people who have a track record o taking innovative ideasand trying to make them successul, says executive vice president Jack Friedlander. At orientation, acultymembers continue to get the message: Tey are expected not just to contribute but to be ready to lead by theend o their rst year.

Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, also relies on proessors to drive change. Te aculty senate, as wellas councils representing sta and students, must sign o on any new policy, whether its a smoking ban or aninstructional redesign. Whats more, says Jackson Sasser, the Santa Fe president, the people responsible orexecuting reorms must play the primary role in designing them, especially those related to student learning.

Certainly putting control in the hands o aculty, rather than simply mandating reorms rom the top, canextend the time it takes or things to get done. It can be a challenge or administrators used to a more top-down governance structure. And at institutions with poor student outcomes and atmospheres o mistrust,such an approach might not do much good. But at healthy colleges like Santa Barbara and Santa Fe, leadersinsist the approach results in strong buy-in. I ask both aculty and departmental administrations to try to bevisionary, says Santa Fe provost Ed Bonahue. What challenges do students continually ace . . . and whatcan you do in your department to help students cross that barrier? And aculty rise to the occasion.

EXCELLENTCOLLEGESBUILDBRIDGES.

At Aspen Prize nalist colleges, there are ew islands. Administrators, aculty, and sta reach acrossdepartments and divisions and even outside the collegewhatever direction they canto pave new roads

to student success. Collaboration is certainlyevident among top administrators (and at

some nalist colleges, achieving this wasa new development). But it is even

more impressive to see widespreadand consistent collaboration amongaculty members rom dierentdepartments. Students need tolearn the right things in biologyin order to complete the nursingprogram. Tey need to succeed in

English composition i they are to


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get a psychology degree. Proessors at eective colleges think nothing o picking up the phone, or visiting eachothers ofces, to discuss whether their courses are sufciently aligned and rigorous.

Across the country, it is common or college-level instructors to complain about the skills students lack aterthey complete remedial courses. At successul colleges, proessors are no longer working alone behind closeddoorsthey are working together to improve the situation. For six years, the developmental and college-level

math aculty members at Santa Fe have been meeting weekly. By collaborating, they were able to removeoverlap between their courses and, ultimately, completely redesign the remedial sequence. Working togetherreally opened up a lot o conversations, says instructor Maria Rinehart. It has been the greatest thing weever did.

Most successul colleges have many channels through which student services and instructional stas worktogether. At Santa Barbara and at West Kentucky, each counselor links with specic academic departmentsand attends those aculty meetings regularly, to talk about student needs and to make sure proessorscommunicate to their classes what support services are available. In learning communities at several colleges,students take academic classes alongside courses in learning and lie skills oten taught by student servicessta. Te teachers work together to create joint assignments and discuss and meet students needs.

At Walla Walla Community College, some o the most innovative tools to improve student success havebeen the product o longstanding collaboration between the inormation technology and student servicesdepartments, which meet weekly. ogether, they conceived and developed an online portal that enablesstudents and sta to always know where a student stands in his or her path to completion.

Connections with K-12

At nalist community colleges, leaders understand that collaboration must reach beyond the schoolsthemselves, because that is what students need. With college readiness a national problem, eective schoolsdont wait until students enroll; they begin to get them ready and motivated or college while they are still inhigh school. Nearly every community college oers some way or high school students to take college classes,

and some have ormalized this through dual enrollment and early college high schools on campus. But itrequires special eort to ensure that the high school students succeed, and ollow through by enrolling incollege.

Nowhere is that more evident than at Santa Barbara City College. Santa Barbaras president meets twice amonth with the superintendent o the largest local school district. High school principals meet quarterly withthe college deans, high school counselors meet twice yearly with admissions sta and deans, and high schooland college English and math teachers meet regularly as well.

Among the ruits o their collaboration: Curriculum in key courses has been aligned over the years so that inhigh school, students learn precisely what they need to in order to succeed in college. Students take the mathand English placement tests in high school, early enough so that i they have trouble, they can receive help toavoid remedial coursework. And through a new program, called Get Focused Stay Focused!, students musttake courses throughout high school where they learn how to navigate college and create and update a 10-yearplan or their education and career.

Ive been a superintendent in three other communities with city colleges, and theres nothing like therelationship here, says David Cash, who runs the Santa Barbara Unied School District.


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EXCELLENTCOLLEGESSHOWSTUDENTSHOWTHEIREDUCATIONWILLLEADDIRECTLYTOTHENEXTSTEP.

Among the most innovative leaders in driving economic growth is Walla Walla Community College presidentSteven VanAusdle. VanAusdle believes that the success o the local economy and the success o his studentsare inextricably linkedso he ocuses on the ormer just as much as the latter. Under his leadership, thecollege has ueled a tenold increase in the local winemaking industry, through the creation o its enology andviticulture degree. It has opened a water and environmental center, which acilitates community partnerships

to restore a watershed and, thereore, treasured sh runs to theareato the benet o local armers, Native Americans, and,

o course, graduates, who can look orward to a varietyo good jobs in the area. Now, it is investing heavily in

programs to service wind turbines and uel the growtho other, emerging renewable energy programs.While small towns elsewhere in rural Americastruggle, VanAusdles college has helped create abright uture or residents in its local community.

In economies that are already strong, communitycolleges respond to employer needs by making sure

they deliver job-ready graduates. Every week, BrianOlson, an agriculture instructor at Lake Area echnical

Institute, gets a visit rom a local employer. Always,Olson asks, What we can we do dierently, what do we

need to improve? Sometimes the answers are technical, aboutwhich technologies are coming down the pike or how the school arm can be managed. Sometimes they reectworkplace habits, like punctuality or interview attire. Always, they shape what Olson expects o his students,whom he sees rst and oremost as uture employees.

As at Lake Area, eective community colleges technical programs treat every course as practice or theworkplace. Area businesses are considered vital partners, providing crucial inormation about how graduatesare doing and prompting the appropriate adjustments. Advisory boards, committees o local proessionalsexperienced in a given eld, are commonplace at community colleges, serving as modest supporters o existingprograms but rarely helping to reshape what is taught. Successul colleges, though, make the most o thoseboards, constantly seeking eedback and changing curricula based on what they learn. Programs add newtechnologies on the advice o industry experts: exible bronchoscopy or respiratory care programs, alternativeuels or auto mechanic programs, electronic health records or nursing programs. Frequently, eedback aboutgraduates has prompted programs that are heavy on technical skills to add interpersonal training as well: howto interview, take doctors orders, work well with colleagues.

At times, programs are reworked, or eliminated. Te maritime program at Kingsborough Community College

was not getting enough students or placing graduates in good jobs. So program director Anthony DiLernia wentto local employers to nd out why. ell me the skill set you want employees to have, he said. He had beenrunning a traditional program, in which students choose an area o specialization, but employers made clear thator the smaller ships in New York Harbor, crew members need both engineering and on-deck skills. Walla Wallagot rid o its carpentry program because the construction industry was altering in the recession and graduateswere not getting high-paying jobs. It closed and then a ew years later reopened its culinary program, reormingit rom one that data showed resulted in low-paying kitchen work into one designed to prepare graduates orhigher-paying jobs in the growing tourist economy, such as catering and running a ood truck.


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At Brazosport, the petrochemical companies are so eager to hire graduates that they helped design and undstate-o-the-art technical acilities on campus. Because they send their own employees there or training,theyre in regularsometimes dailycontact with instructors and have been able to design a learningenvironment that is almost the same as a plant environment, says Gary Hicks, chair o the process technologydivision.

Certainly the act that area petrochemical companies enthusiastically hire Brazosport College graduates intojobs with high salaries contributes to the colleges improving completion rates. When students see otherslike them experience success in real lie, it is powerulthey want to ollow suit, and can see exactly how.Likewise, Lake Area echnical Institute, located in a region with a strong economy, has numerous programswhose job placement rate is more than 90 percent, and its overall completion rate is among the nationshighest. When youre pretty much assured a job upon graduation, youve got great incentive to ollow through.

But the economic landscape can only ever tell part o the story. No company would be happy to rely on acolleges graduates i the college wasnt turning out skilled, motivated employees. Tey truly need a state-o-the art education to provide excellence or our business. Tats the only way we get better, says Ed Mallett, aregional vice president or the energy and grains rm CHS Inc. Mallett and others in South Dakota know thatwhen they hire a Lake Area graduate, theyre getting someone who has spent two years ully committed to a

path, was inspired and educated by talented and dedicated instructors, and trained on top-notch equipment.

Employer enthusiasm or a college is oten also linked to relationships with its leaders. Almost uniormly,colleges that have strong relationships with local industry are led by presidents who energetically seek outthose connections and even act to drive economic growth. When Brazosport leaders learned that $4 billionin investments were headed to the area petrochemical industry, they outlined a program to deliver thetechnicians that would be needed, rather than waiting to be asked. Te strategic vision here is unlike whatweve seen elsewhere, says Chris Witte, site manager o the local BASF plant.

When Citrix Systems, a multinational sotware company, was considering moving its operational headquartersrom Fort Lauderdale to Caliornia, Broward College president David Armstrong was at the table withthe county development ofce and Citrix leadership. Bob Swindell, executive director o the Greater Fort

Lauderdale Alliance, says, David could have walked away rom those meetings, and nobody would havethought twice i nothing materialized rom Broward College, but he maintained the conversation and said,How can we be a part o solving this problem? Citrix decided to stay in Ft. Lauderdale, in part because oBrowards relationship with the rm. Likewise, executives o a call center that opened in Malvern, Arkansas,said they came largely because o the enthusiasm and exibility they ound in the leaders o College o theOuachitas. Other business leaders agree that theyve had ar better luck partnering with the college than withschools in the many other areas they have plants in.

Paths to transfer

Students who intend to go rom community college straight to our-year college need the benet o clear

pathways. Its not enough or a community college or its state to set up articulation agreements, whereour-year schools agree to accept certain courses or transer but may not actually accept many students.Community colleges must set up systems so students know exactly what options are open to them beyondcommunity college and what steps are required to get there, certainly. But where colleges really benetstudents is by helping them make the jump rom community college to a our-year school eel really like noleap at all.


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For 1,000 students each year, attending Santa Fe College is like driving on an express thruway to theUniversity o Florida (UF). Te Santa Fe campus has dedicated UF advisers and a UF student center oncampus, and its required online personalized learning plan sotware is coded with the prerequisites romdozens o our-year schools, UF included, so that students know at all times exactly how their course selectionlines up with their intent to transer. Qualied Santa Fe students can move straight rom their associatedegrees into online University o Florida bachelor o science programs created exclusively or Santa Fe

graduates, in elds including business management and health education.

We are very closely knit, says UF provost Joe Glover. Students who come to Santa Fe intending to go to theUniversity o Florida can identiy rom day one with the University o Florida and can really establish theirgoal and their vision. Tats a very powerul motivating orce or the students to do well in their studies.

Even when students dont have a specic our-year college in mind right away, eective community collegeshelp them ensure a smooth and quick progression. Caliornia policy prioritizes community college studentsin university admissions, but thats not the only reason so many Santa Barbara students transer and completetheir bachelors degrees. When it comes to ensuring the necessary credentials or our-year schools, they canturn to a set o advisers specically dedicated to transer. When it comes to acquiring the necessary skills andknowledge, they are surrounded by proessors who understand what it takes to be genuinely prepared or the

junior year, provided a rst-rate writing center, and in other ways held to academic standards tuned to theeventual university-level diploma.

EXCELLENTCOLLEGESUNDERSTANDTHATCOMMUNITYCOLLEGESTUDENTSNEEDSUPPORT.

For many students at our-year schools, college has been a lielong destiny, an experience mapped out bytheir parents background and their schools expectations since kindergarten. For many community collegestudents, thats hardly the case. One-quarter o community college students have children. Te vast majorityhold jobs outside o school. Many have not been in school or years. Nearly hal have parents who did not

attend college. Te best community colleges understand all o theserisk actors, so they build support systems so strong thatstudents say it would be hard or them to ail.

Because even the process o entering college can beintimidating, many nalist colleges have thoughtullyredesigned their registration processes. WhenAmberlee Douglas, 29, rst enrolled at WestKentucky Community and echnical College adecade ago, registration took students to so manydierent locations around campus that it resembleda scavenger hunt. It elt like nobody was going to

miss you i you wanted to back out the door. Sincethen the college has built a one-stop center wherestudents can register, get advised right away, apply or

nancial aid, and receive other services, in a comortablesetting with plenty o assistance. When youre greeted, you eel

obligated to do something, Douglas says. Te building is so much more welcoming. It eels like acollege. Iteels positive. Brian Levine, 35, registered or West Kentucky without even entering the buildinga veteran,he enrolled by Skype rom Baghdad. Te veterans aairs coordinator got all the inormation or me to get inline beore I even got home. I had almost everything done beore I even walked on campus.


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Likewise, several nalist colleges have revamped their enrollment and orientation processes in recent years, inways that have reduced lines and increased engagement and success. Kingsborough switched rom a stressul,chaotic registration process that was held in an arena two weeks beore classes began to a system that providesincentives to register in the spring or the all term, unnels students into new academic preparation programs,and has improved the rate o students showing up or class. Brazosport College doubled orientation to twodaysone or the typical activities and the other or math tutoring and assessmentand reduced remedial

placements or students who attended the tutoring.

At some community colleges, orientation may be the only time a student is required to see an adviser. Others,though, understand the importance o one-on-one guidance and require it more requently. Students atWalla Walla must see an adviser each quarter beore registering until they have proven themselves successul.Teyve got to have a clear pathway and understand where they are on that pathway and what does it take toget to the goal line, says Wendy Samitore, vice president o student services. And I think that the advisingthat weve put into place has really been helpul. As well, two completion coaches on campus connect withstudents who are agged by proessors as struggling or at risk o dropping out.

One o the most common ways nalist colleges provide guidance is through student success courses, wherestudents learn study skills, such as note-taking and reading strategies; lie skills, such as stress relie and

time management; and nancial planning. Tey learn to navigate the college and are helped to create careerand academic plans. Brazosport works particularly hard at ensuring its student success courses are eective,assigning most sections to ull-time proessors who teach only student success. Several colleges also organizestudents into small learning communities, where they take two to our courses together over a semesterorexample, remedial writing, college psychology, and student success. Te proessors work together to createcross-disciplinary, engaging assignments and try to identiy and address individual students needs, and thestudents encourage each other to succeed. Kingsborough oers learning communities rom remediationall the way through upper-level courses. About two-ths o Kingsborough reshmen belong to learningcommunities, which independent research ound increases their chances or success at the school.

At eective colleges, students need not go ar to nd academic help, whenever they need it. Santa BarbaraCity College is dotted generously with tutoring centers, including a writing center staed rom 9 a.m. to 7

p.m. by proessionals who are trained to help students not just improve specic pieces o writing, but becomebetter equipped or the next assignment. All Santa Barbara remedial courses, and many college-level ones too,have trained student tutors, who were successul in the class and now sit through it again, helping studentsinside and outside the classroom. Having a peer as a teacher o sorts, says remedial math teacher BronwenMoore, is living proo to my students that there is a uture.

Facultys role in retention

Successul community colleges know that or the populations they serve, student motivation and engagementare never guaranteed. While many community colleges might think such things are beyond their control,exceptional colleges know otherwise. West Kentucky instructors are taught at convocation how to include

interactive activities in their lessons. At Lake Area, where all students are in technical programs, instructors aretold to get students doing hands-on work the rst week or two o classes, and general education instructorscreate classes geared toward students true interests: An agriculture student might not be thrilled about takingmath, but i all the homework problems deal with eed ratios, the medicine may go down easier.

One thing that is maniest: Students at successul schools eel that aculty and sta are personally investedin their success. Joseph Howard, a 44-year-old student at Southeast Kentucky Community and echnicalCollege, was recently so perplexed by a unit in his remedial math class that he had to retake the quiz several


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times. I was just ready to throw in the towel, he says. His proessor, though, was not. She kept staying withme, and working with me, and she just wouldnt let go, Howard says. Ater a while the og went away, and ithit mewhich is what she said was going to happen. I she hadnt done that, I believe I would have been outo here.

On small campuses like Southeast Kentuckys, this culture comes somewhat naturally; proessors who know

all students names and see them in town and teach them in class more than once tend to noticeand reachoutwhen students are struggling. But even the biggest schools can make an eort to hire people who arewilling to make personal connections with students, and who believe all students are capable o great things.Even the biggest schools can make clear to their employees that must do all they can to help each studentsucceed.

Again and again, students at nalist colleges said that i they did not show up or class, their teachers wouldnotice. When they needed help, they knew where to get it. Tey knew there were nets to catch them i theyell. Tey elt cared or. Mary Lou Gutierrez, 20, a student at Brazosport College in southeast exas, summedit up well: Te aculty members, they all have their dierent teaching styles; they all teach dierent topics.But it seems like theyre all unied in one common goal, and thats helping students succeed. Ive seen that inevery single class that Ive taken.

Says Bronwen Moore, a remedial math teacher at Santa Barbara, Were the rst people to get our hands onthem in college. Were acutely aware o that. Te student has to master the materialbarely passing is notgoodbut they also need to eel like teachers are on their side. And they need to have a vision, a goal. Teyneed to leave our class saying, Im in college because o and you help them ll in the blank.

EXCELLENTCOLLEGESALWAYSTHINKABOUTHOWTOREACHANDSERVETHENEEDIESTSTUDENTS.

Moreso than at any other higher education institutions in America, community colleges serve as the gatewayto higher education or minority and low-income students. Tere are colleges that passively accept that reality,admitting whoever shows up. Others are passionate and deliberate about nding and serving the students whoneed them most.

Tat starts with recruitment. Santa Fe College visits the local high schools with the lowest graduation ratesor Arican Americans and signs students up or a program that teaches them lie skills, orients them tothe college, and pairs them with college student mentors. When ofcials at Walla Walla noticed that localstudents in poverty were not participating in the states dual-credit program, the college waived ees or thosestudentswhich doubled the percentage o low-income students in the program.

Most community colleges oer workorce training and adult education; excellent colleges see the peopleenrolled in those courses as potential college graduates. Where it can, Kingsborough builds its workorcetraining programs out o existing college-level courses, with the same teachers and standards, so that

participants may bank training credits to apply to college degrees down the road. Walla Walla oers adulteducation programs at local workplaces, such as a meatpacking plant, then works to move those studentsinto college. And at two local corrections acilities, Walla Walla oers not just vocational programs, like dieselmechanics and graphic design, but also associate degree programs, which is atypical in prison education.


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Several eorts give minority and low-income students the support and encouragement they need to succeed.Southeast Kentucky Community and echnical College, which is located in an isolated, mountainous regiono Appalachia, recruits single mothers on welare into college through a program that provides them a richarray o nancial and academic supports. We work with people who have no idea that college is or them,says program coordinator Roland Cornett. Summer bridgeprograms at several schools oer several weeks o college

preparation to at-risk students beore classes start. TeScholar House at West Kentucky provides 48 apartmentsand ull-time day care or single mothers with childrenwho are enrolled ull-time in college. At SantaBarbara, a new program recruits minority studentsinto science, technology, and math majors, providesan introductory class that gives them a taste o thecontent and rigor, and then supports them throughtheir studies.

Mentoring and tutoring programs specically orblack male students have yielded measurable success atCollege o the Ouachitas and Santa Fe. Broward College,where one-third o students are oreign-born, oers a robustprogram in English or non-native speakers; learning communitieswith courses themed to particular interests, such as Hispanic American literature, or taught exclusively byminorities rom the groups they are targeting; and personal outreach to ensure that disadvantaged studentsenroll in special programs. Eorts have resulted in an unusually small achievement gap or minority students.

Financial aid and beyond

Although community college tuition is relatively low, so too are the means o most community collegestudents. Successul community colleges ensure that nancial issues dont stand in the way o completion,

and dont unduly burden students ater graduation. Many community colleges try to maximize the amount ostudent nancial aid their students receive; exceptional colleges go urther. Kingsborough Community Collegehas or 17 years run Single Stop, a center on campus that helps students receive the services they need. Collegeemployees connect students (including international and undocumented students without access to publicbenets) with transportation aid, legal assistance, and community resources; process ood stamp and welareapplications; and help students ll out tax and nancial aid orms at the same time. Jeremiah Lindgren, 28,attributes his success to Single Stop. Ive been able to do work hours on campus, Ive been able keep mybenets, and still maintain a 3.6 average, he says. Tey work with you to get the best out o the system.

Broward College has reormed its approach to vastly expand access to nancial aid. Financial aid ofcialsreached out to aculty to get their help in processing withdrawals, attendance, and other actors that aect aid.Tey evened out the allocation o aid so that it didnt just go to students with no nancial contribution; needystudents who were working could receive unds as well. Tey contacted students one by one to see i they werestill workingbeore, students might have lost their jobs and not notied the college, thereby orgoing theextra aid they could be receiving. A consultant was brought in to make the nancial aid process more efcient,which greatly reduced wait time or aid packages, as well as appeals.


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And they began to require two hours o counseling beore doling out loans. Several colleges are doing thiswork: attempting to minimize debt load by changing the dialogue rom what students want to borrow towhat they truly need, and by no longer automatically oering loans. Broward considered it a great successthat this past year, two in ve students decided not to take the loans they qualied or. Says Rana Hutson, aninormation analyst in nancial aid, We tell them, Maybe we can nd you a scholarship, put you in workstudynd something else besides putting yoursel in debt.

At every Aspen Prize nalist college, we ound students who said that other institutions had given up onthem, but that this one would not. At every nalist college, students said it was hard to ail at their school.Whether nancial, academic, or motivational, the lielines were there, they saidyou just had to make sure tograb them.

Tere is no doubt that students oten come to community colleges with proound academic deciencies andpersonal challenges. oo oten, colleges interpret those challenges as a pass to settle or mediocre outcomes.Te Aspen Prize colleges prove that excellence is not a unction o the demographics o their student bodies.Schools accomplish great things or students by working constantly and mindully to improve teaching andlearning. Tey lay out clear pathways that lead to graduation, to urther education, to good jobs. And theywork hard both inside and outside the institution to make sure those roads are well-traveled by students and

graduates. Tey believe they have the obligation to help all students meet their goals. Above all, they set highexpectations, or their students and or themselvesand they always know exactly how ar they still have to goand what they must do next to meet those expectations.


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Te Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is tooster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue or dealing with critical issues. TeInstitute has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River on Marylands Eastern Shore. It also maintains

ofces in New York City and has an international network o partners.

Documents

Defining Excellence: Lessons from the 2013 Aspen Prize Finalists