Topic: Student learning and outcomes
Issue Brief
May 26, 2021
Different Approaches to Piloting Advising Technology
Comparing Webster University and West Virginia State University
Advising undergraduate students on how to succeed in their academics, careers, and life is one of the most common practices in higher education. Advising is also something that many institutions struggle to resource or coordinate sufficiently, due to hurdles such as overwhelming caseloads and limited interdepartmental communication, potentially leaving students without needed support on their paths to successful program completion. The barriers to a successful college experience are not borne equally across higher education. In fact, the institutions that serve…
Blog Post
May 25, 2021
Using Data to Advance Equity in the Academic Experience
A New American Talent Initiative Case Study Series
We’re excited to announce the first publication in a new case study series from the American Talent Initiative’s Academic Equity Community of Practice, highlighting the ways in which colleges and universities have leveraged data and evidence-based research to enhance equity-related projects on their respective campuses. In Fall 2020, 37 members of the American Talent Initiative (ATI), an alliance of high-graduation-rate colleges and universities committed to expanding…
Issue Brief
May 25, 2021
Using Data to Fuel Inclusive Excellence at Virginia Tech
In Fall 2020, the American Talent Initiative (ATI), an alliance of high-graduation-rate colleges and universities committed to expanding access and opportunity for low- and middle-income students, established its newest community of practice (CoP) focused on academic equity. Together, the 37 CoP members explore topics related to creating equitable academic communities. One such area of focus is how institutions can more effectively utilize data to enhance equity-related projects. In January 2021, members participated in a webinar discussion on this topic, during…
Blog Post
May 19, 2021
Examining the Relationship between NC-SARA and Online Enrollments
Implications for Policy and Research
In order to be eligible to access federal student aid programs, colleges and universities are required to receive authorization from the state or states within which they operate. The rise in online postsecondary programs over the last decade created increasingly complicated administrative challenges to state authorization: institutions that sought to enroll “out-of-state” students in their online programs needed to seek authorization from every state in which those students resided. To streamline this process, in 2014 higher education leaders formed the…
Blog Post
May 4, 2021
A State-by-State Snapshot of Stranded Credits Data and Policy
As the higher education sector begins to address the adverse effects of the pandemic on enrollment, institutions and policymakers alike have begun to turn their attention to a pernicious form of debt that could be preventing over six million students, especially low-income students and students of color, from re-enrolling and earning their degrees. This form of debt prevents students from accessing their transcripts at institutions they attended in the past, leading those previously earned credits to become “stranded” at…
Blog Post
April 28, 2021
What Will it Take to Move the Needle on Student Basic Needs?
Last year, we released a landscape review delving into how different metrics of student success are currently prioritized, defined, quantified, and used within the community college sector—examining how traditional metrics of success, like those aligning with typical college objectives like graduation, retention, enrollment, and course completion, are more often prioritized and required for funding, accountability, and accreditation purposes. Subsequent interviews with institutional research and effectiveness officers provided even…
Research Report
April 28, 2021
Moving the Needle on College Student Basic Needs
National Community College Provost Perspectives
For many years, higher education data collection and funding efforts have focused on student success metrics like enrollment, graduation, retention, and course completion rates. At the same time, higher education leaders have become increasingly aware—in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic—of the vast array of challenges that college students face outside of the classroom that prevent them from fully succeeding. To shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with the collection and prioritization of a broader set of student…
Issue Brief
March 26, 2021
The Many Facets of Faculty Involvement in the Implementation Process
A Case Study of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
Advising undergraduate students on how to succeed in their academics, careers, and life is one of the most common practices in higher education. Advising is also something that many institutions struggle to resource or coordinate sufficiently, potentially leaving students without needed support on their paths to successful program completion. The barriers to a successful college experience are not borne equally across higher education. In fact, the institutions that serve the highest proportions of students from historically minoritized backgrounds (including low-income,…
Blog Post
March 23, 2021
Teaching with Primary Sources: Pre-Pandemic Lessons for Post-COVID Futures
The second iteration in Ithaka S+R’s Teaching Support Services project investigates the teaching practices and support needs of instructors who work with primary source materials. Today we are excited to publish the project’s capstone report. Still in the pandemic but beginning to glimpse life on the other side, now is an opportune time to begin to envision not just the future, but the many potential futures…
Blog Post
March 23, 2021
Relationships Matter
How participation in the Teaching with Primary Sources Study Helped Strengthen and Develop Cross-Campus Relationships
Ithaka S+R’s capstone report on teaching with primary sources was published today. To coincide with its release, we invited one of the project’s local research teams to reflect on their experience participating in the project and how they are building on the project’s findings. Why did we want to participate in Ithaka S+R’s Teaching with Primary Sources Project? In 2019, Ithaka S+R invited Washington & Lee University (W&L) Library to participate…
Research Report
March 23, 2021
Teaching with Primary Sources
Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors
Encounters with primary sources—historical or contemporary artifacts that bear direct witness to a specific period or event—are central to the pedagogy of many disciplines, especially in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Their use in undergraduate instruction aligns with universities’ commitments to experiential and inquiry-based learning and library initiatives focused on media and information literacy. Reflecting the importance of the topic within higher education, “Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources” attracted the largest cohort of any Ithaka S+R program to date.
Issue Brief
March 15, 2021
Federal Policies for Increasing Socioeconomic Diversity at Selective Colleges and Universities
Earning a bachelor’s degree is increasingly important to an individual’s longer-term economic prospects. Communities, at all levels, also benefit when their members earn postsecondary credentials, through improved economic, social, and health outcomes. Yet, despite an increase in college participation over the last two decades, severe inequities in bachelor’s degree attainment remain; inequities that often leave lower-income and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) students with debt and no or low-value credentials. With Democrats coalescing around a number of federal…
Past Event
April 28, 2021
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg and Melissa Blankstein at NISOD 2021
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg and Melissa Blankstein will unveil brand new national survey findings of community college provosts on efforts to measure and address student basic needs. Join them to discuss the current landscape of metrics for determining student success and opportunities for including new holistic student metrics going forward. For more information, please visit this site. …
Issue Brief
March 11, 2021
Homeless and Foster Youth, Racial Inequity, and Policy Shifts for Systemic Change
Each year, roughly 4.2 million young people experience homelessness, and more than 600,000 children interact with the foster care system nationwide.[1] Although youth homelessness and foster care are distinct experiences, many youth will crossover between these two groups. Both groups also face similar challenges, including highly unstable living environments, food insecurity, and often gaps in educational achievement and attainment. While the legal definition of youth homelessness varies across states and targeted policies, the Department of Education defines homeless…
Blog Post
March 3, 2021
How Can Community College Services Be Organized to Best Meet Student Needs?
Over the course of their attendance, community college students must navigate through an array of services—delivered through student affairs departments, academic affairs departments, libraries, and their instructors—to find the support they need. Whether they find that support depends in part on whether their institutions have developed effective service models and organizational strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the attendant necessity for increased remoting learning amidst enrollment declines and budgetary strains, also creates new challenges for students as well as…
Research Report
March 3, 2021
Student Focused
Fostering Cross-Unit Collaboration to Meet the Changing Needs of Community College Students
Ensuring that community college students have access to academic and student support services requires more than simply understanding students’ needs—it also requires relating those needs to actionable service models and organizational strategies. Community college students navigate ecosystems of services provided and supported by academic affairs departments, student affairs departments, libraries, and faculty. How can these ecosystems best be organized and developed to adapt to changing student needs—particularly amidst the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic?…
Past Event
February 18, 2021
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg at Achieving the Dream Convening
On February 18th, 2021, Christine Wolff-Eisenberg will discuss with fellow panelists what we knew about student needs going into the pandemic, what we learned from novel data collection during the pandemic, and how institutions are using these data to shape practices going forward. Panelists will share key research findings, especially those related to sustained and deepened equity gaps during the pandemic, and new strategies for gathering student perspectives. For more information on this session, please visit this link. …
Blog Post
January 19, 2021
A New Report Examining the Relationship between Postsecondary Attainment and State Finances
Over the past two years, Ithaka S+R, in partnership with the Joyce Foundation, has examined the role of state policy in ensuring postsecondary access and opportunity for all students. In a newly released research paper, we build on our previous work and make the economic case for states to increase their attainment rates. To reap the benefits of their investments in increased attainment, we recommend that state leaders increase investment into historically underserved students, adopt progressive tax…
Issue Brief
January 19, 2021
It’s Complicated
The Relationship between Postsecondary Attainment and State Finances
Increased college-going and attainment comes with a host of benefits for individuals and society. A college credential is associated with increased civic engagement, volunteering, happiness, life satisfaction, and better health and wellness, as well as lower incarceration rates and reliance on social services. In addition to the host of nonpecuniary benefits of higher education, there is a direct link between both college access and attainment and students’ future economic outcomes. For example, students with test scores just above the eligibility…
Blog Post
January 14, 2021
Maximizing and Assessing Engagement with Virtual Library Space
While states across the US have begun vaccine distribution and plan for further tiered rollout over the course of the year, COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalizations continue to be at all-time highs across most of the country. Campuses continue to push back the start date of the spring term, and the CDC has just released new data tying county-level, off-campus infections to on-campus residency. It is all but certain that higher education institutions will continue looking to…