The Higher Education Landscape

Programs, Curriculum and Student Learning

The Higher Education Landscape

Mel NetzhammerApril 8, 2023

April 8, 2023

Higher Education Landscape

• Approach and Attitude of Feds • National Movements and Responses• State and USNH Priorities

April 8, 2023

Two Emerging National Themes

• Quality Assurance (The current state of the accountability movement and continuous self improvement)

• Student Portability (The ability of students to move seamlessly from one college to another as they complete their degrees)


April 8, 2023Higher Education Landscape

April 8, 2023

Student Portability

• For the first time, a majority of students complete a degree by attending more than one institution, many by attending more than two (swirl).

• Institutions, governments, parents are looking for assurances that what students learn at one institution provides the foundation at another institution.

• Pressure for consistency across programs

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April 8, 2023

What’s Behind This?

• Trust (The public, our funders, legislators are no longer willing to take our word that students are learning)

• Economy (The funding isn’t there, legislators are looking for efficiencies in higher education)


April 8, 2023

What’s Behind This?

• Expense (When the cost of a college education was close to zero, if a student failed everyone accepted it was the student’s fault. When the cost of a college education is $100,000 at a state school, if a student fails people believe it’s the institution’s fault.)


April 8, 2023

The Federal Government

• Access: Have the highest percentage of college graduates by 2020 (now 12th)

• Workforce Development: Invest specifically in job preparation/applied learning

• Control Costs:• Better financial aid• Textbook regulations


April 8, 2023

The Federal Government

• Pressure accrediting bodies to set uniform, measurable standards for accreditation (or the federal government will)• Example: Regulation of a “credit”

• Central to federal policy is the expectation that colleges will do more to measure learning and demonstrate success.


April 8, 2023

Federal Reg on Credit Hours

Federal regulation defines a credit hour as an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement that is an institutional established equivalence that reasonably approximates not less than (1) One hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours of out of class student work each week…; or (2) At least an equivalent amount of work as required in paragraph (1) of this definition…


April 8, 2023

The National Landscape

• Improving Student Learning• Measuring Student Learning• Collaboration• Openness


April 8, 2023


…beyond what graduates know, what they can do with what they know is the ultimate benchmark of learning.

--Lumina Foundation


April 8, 2023

Academically Adrift• “Large numbers of college students report that

they experience only limited academic demands and invest only limited effort in their academic endeavors.”

• “Over four years of college coursework, 50 percent of students reported that they had taken five or fewer courses that required 20 pages of writing over the course of the semester, and 20 percent of students reported that they had taken five or fewer courses that required 40 pages of reading per week.”


April 8, 2023

Academically Adrift

• 12-14 hours studying• 16% of time doing academic things

(studying or in class)• 45% did not demonstrate any

improvement in learning over 2 years as measured by the CLA; 36% over 4 years.

• CLA results correlate positively to reading and writing expectations in classes.

http://highered.ssrc.org/files/SSRC_Report.pdf


http://highered.ssrc.org/files/SSRC_Report.pdf

April 8, 2023


• Texas, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia all have statewide standards for student learning and some tie higher education funding to performance.

• Measures include national standardized tests, state examinations, specific reporting requirements.

• NGA


April 8, 2023


Governors can help restrain college costs—while extending a quality postsecondary education to a larger segment of the population—by insisting that student learning outcomes become an integral part of state higher education accountability systems.

--National Governors Association


April 8, 2023

Lumina Foundation

• Degree Qualifications Profile• Sets standards for student learning at the

associate, baccalaureate and master levels in five basic areas of learning: Broad, Integrative Knowledge; Specialized Knowledge; Intellectual Skills; Applied Learning, and Civic Learning.


April 8, 2023

Lumina

• “What students should know and be able to do once they earn their degrees.”

• Not intended to make degrees uniform, rather an attempt to describe concretely what each of these degrees means.

• Does not define what should be taught or how instructors should teach it.

http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/The_Degree_Qualifications_Profile.pdf




April 8, 2023

Lumina Examples

• Specialized Knowledge: At the bachelor’s level, the student • defines and explains the boundaries

and major sub-fields, styles, and/or practices of the field.

• demonstrates fluency in the use of tools, technologies and methods common to the field.


April 8, 2023

Lumina Examples• Analytic Inquiry: Differentiates and evaluates

theories and approaches to complex standard and non-standard problems within his or her major field and at least one other academic field.

• Quantitative Fluency: Translates verbal problems into mathematical algorithms and constructs valid mathematical arguments using the accepted symbolic system of mathematical reasoning.


April 8, 2023


What would the curriculum look like if the course weren’t the basis of curriculum design?

--David Carr


April 8, 2023

Red Balloon

• AASCU Initiative subtitled Re-Imagining Undergraduate Education

• Three principles:• We’ll be expected to do more with less.• We will need to collaborate across

institutions.• Technology has fundamentally

changed the way we will educate.


April 8, 2023

Red Balloon Examples• Collaboration: Creating a foundation for a common

algebra course that can be adapted to every institution.

• Openness: Increased use of Open Educational Resources, shared materials, and the development of electronic course materials given to students.

• Technology: greater use of tech in course delivery (blended, online, co-curricular)

http://www.aascu.org/programs/redballoon/index.htm


http://www.aascu.org/programs/redballoon/index.htm

April 8, 2023

The State Landscape

• We face the potential of unprecedented cuts in state funding.

• State interest is not just in our finances but in educational quality.

• We are expected to find ways to keep costs to students down: tuition, fees and other expenses (e.g., textbooks).


April 8, 2023

USNH Interests

• Promoting 4-year graduation rates by, for example, capping degrees at 120 credits, except in rare circumstances.

• Developing metrics for determining program viability.

• More serious and advanced documentation of student learning.

• Textbook costs.


April 8, 2023

USNH Landscape

• New programs• Translocated programs• Increased scrutiny of policies and

procedures• Academic Technology


April 8, 2023

Promoting 4-year Grad Rates

• Assumption: Campuses will take steps to improve 4-year graduation rates.

• Assumption: All degrees will be capped at 120 credits, including 12-16 credits of free electives.

• The college will establish clear criteria for when a degree might exceed 120 credits.

• We have until June to develop this process.


April 8, 2023

Program Viability Metrics

• Components of program viability: number of graduates, number of majors, number of low-enrolled courses.

• We have the opportunity to develop a template for Keene State College.


April 8, 2023

Documenting Student Learning

• NEASC looks at annual reports on assessment.

• The Site Team recognized that we have a firm foundation for assessment, but that we need to be more intentional and serious about that work.

• The USNH Board has been taking greater interest in how we measure student learning.


April 8, 2023

Textbook Costs

• Textbooks can be 20 percent of the cost of tuition.

• Top priority of student trustees.• Interested in greater availability of

electronic textbooks.• Interested in greater availability of open

educational resources and open textbooks.


April 8, 2023

New Programs

• The governor and trustees want more programs that meet state workforce needs, and they want them offered throughout the state.

• Nursing is the first example.


April 8, 2023

Translocated/Articulated Programs• Significant pressure to develop

articulation agreements.• We currently have two articulation

agreements, the fewest of any institution in the state by far.

• Discussions of translocating management, a liberal studies B.A., and master’s education programs.


April 8, 2023

Policies & Procedures

• Student insurance• Travel abroad/faculty led trips• Automobile policies• Travel with students• Collecting money from students


April 8, 2023

Academic Technology

• Major focus of Board of Trustees• Special USNH allocation of $500,000 to

support integration of technology to support student learning.

• 2011 Summer Institute for Faculty
