Topic: Student learning and outcomes
Blog Post
January 5, 2022
Providing Library Services for Higher Education in Prison
An Interview with Jessica Licklider and Jeannie Colson
In a previous blog post I interviewed Jeanie Austin of the San Francisco Public Library about their new book on providing library services to incarcerated people. With the restoration of Pell funding for incarcerated students set to take place in 2023, the field of higher education in prison (HEP) is currently grappling with how to prepare for this long-awaited expansion of funding and opportunity, and academic libraries that wish to serve this student group must likewise prepare to meet…
Blog Post
December 8, 2021
A Sustainable Solution to Settle Students’ Debt and Release Stranded Credits
Ithaka S+R and Eight Ohio Public Institutions Announce Promising New Pilot
Since publishing our first report on the subject in October 2020, Ithaka S+R has been at the forefront of defining the problem of stranded credits. We are now moving ahead with testing a potentially groundbreaking solution. “Stranded credits” are credits that students have earned but can’t access because their former institution is holding their transcript as collateral for an unpaid balance to the institution. Ninety-five percent of…
Blog Post
December 7, 2021
Providing Library Services to the Incarcerated
An Interview with Jeanie Austin on Their New Book
Providing library services to people held in prisons and jails can be a challenging endeavor. Those who take on this work will need to navigate complex, and not always welcoming, corrections’ bureaucracies and face censorship or be themselves co-opted into censoring in ways that are antithetical to the ethical tenets of librarianship. Yet the information needs among incarcerated and detained people are immense given their limited access to the internet or other technologies…
Blog Post
November 11, 2021
Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research
An Interview with the Authors of Two New Books
Creating meaningful learning encounters with primary sources involves dynamic collaboration between instructors and those who work with cultural heritage collections, including librarians, archivists, and museum professionals. Here at Ithaka S+R we have been engaging in a series of studies in collaboration with academic libraries, archives, and museums to understand instructors’ support needs in this area, including how to support their teaching with digital cultural heritage materials as classes went remote during the pandemic. In addition to understanding instructors’ experiences…
Blog Post
September 27, 2021
An Interview with Nyree Gray, Chief Civil Rights Officer at Claremont McKenna
A deep dive on campus climate and how the Campus Climate Survey can help build a more equitable academic and social environment
Nyree Gray is associate vice president and chief civil rights officer at Claremont McKenna College (CMC). She has previously presented on a webinar for the American Talent Initiative (ATI) Academic Equity Community of Practice (CoP) and at the 2021 Academic Equity CoP Summer Institute, focusing on the intersection between campus climate and curriculum. In particular, she’s shared how she evaluates insights gained from…
Blog Post
September 14, 2021
As War Ends, Let’s Ensure Veterans Have Access to Higher Education
The similarities between the helicopters that left Saigon and the scenes last month at the Kabul airport are painful. For whatever reasons, we have not learned to retreat safely for our citizens and allies. We have failed in our obligations and commitments to those Afghans who most importantly assisted and protected our young men and women who we sent in harm’s way. There is another lesson from Vietnam that I hope we have learned, even if…
Blog Post
September 13, 2021
What Does It Mean to Be Successful as a Student During a Pandemic?
Centering Student Experiences
Ithaka S+R has long explored how students define their own success and how academic and student support services can most effectively advance that success—and our work on these issues has only ramped up during the pandemic. When it became clear that the pandemic was here to stay, students had to face dramatic shifts to their learning, a staggering amount of communication and newly-implemented policies from their institutions, and new expectations on what it means to be a…
Blog Post
September 9, 2021
How Can the Library Best Support Student and Institutional Success?
Perspectives from a National Survey of Community College Library Directors
For the past three years, Ithaka S+R has explored how student-facing service departments—including academic libraries—are organized, funded, and staffed at community and technical colleges across the country. As part of this ongoing IMLS-funded Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystem (CCASSE) research initiative, we surveyed community college library directors this past February. Today, I’m pleased to announce the publication of our findings from that national study. In Library Strategy and Collaboration Across the College Ecosystem…
Research Report
September 9, 2021
Library Strategy and Collaboration Across the College Ecosystem
Results from a National Survey of Community College Library Directors
How can the library be best positioned to continue enabling student and institutional success? The Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystem research initiative seeks to examine how student-facing service departments—including academic libraries—are organized, funded, and staffed at community and technical colleges across the country. In February 2021, we surveyed 321 community college library directors to provide the community with a snapshot of current service provision, leadership perspectives on the impact of COVID-19, and challenges faced in making decisions and…
Past Event
September 17, 2021
Rayane Alamuddin and Christy McDaniel at the 2021 First Year Student Success Virtual Institute
On September 17th, Rayane Alamuddin and Christy McDaniel will present during the 2021 First Year Student Success Virtual Institute during a session titled, “The Past and Future of First Year Programming at Two Year Institutions”. For more information on registration, please visit the link here. …
Blog Post
August 30, 2021
Collecting Data on New Debt Relief Programs
What’s the Impact on Stranded Credits and Student Outcomes?
Stranded credits, or academic credits previously earned but inaccessible due to an outstanding debt to an institution, impact an estimated 6.6 million students across the country. Students affected by stranded credits represent nearly one-sixth of the estimated 36 million students who left college with some credit, but no degree, and are more likely to be students of color and from lower-income backgrounds. Recently, the issue of stranded credits…
Blog Post
August 30, 2021
Higher Ed Consolidation and Equity
Across American higher education, institutional consolidations are on the rise. In particular, multiple state systems have proposed or completed mergers of regional universities and/or community colleges with the stated goal of increasing efficiency. The conditions prompting these consolidations have been mounting for years—among them a long-term downward trend in state support for higher education and demographic shifts away from traditional-aged college students, especially in rural areas where numerous public institutions are located. With the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to…
Research Report
August 30, 2021
Public College and University Consolidations and the Implications for Equity
Across American higher education, institutional consolidations are on the rise. In particular, multiple state systems have proposed or completed mergers of regional universities and/or community colleges with the stated goal of increasing efficiency. The conditions prompting these consolidations have been mounting for years—among them a long-term downward trend in state support for higher education and demographic shifts away from traditional-aged college students, especially in rural areas where numerous public institutions are located. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recession…
Case Study
August 30, 2021
A Georgia Case Study
A Look at the University System Consolidations with an Eye Towards Race, Ethnicity, and Equity
While it is clear that not all mergers and consolidations are a success story, and some collapse under backlash from students, faculty, and other community members, the University System of Georgia (USG) has completed an astounding number of successful mergers between its institutions. In fact, USG has “what is likely the nation’s most aggressive and high-profile campus consolidation program.”In 2010, when discussions regarding consolidations began, the university system had a total of 35 institutions “including roughly 10 in parts of…
Case Study
August 30, 2021
Consolidating the University of Wisconsin Colleges
The Reorganization of the University of Wisconsin System
In 2017 to 2018, the University of Wisconsin (UW) System undertook a major consolidation, removing its two-year college campuses from a standalone sub-system known as the UW Colleges and merging them with nearby four-year UW institutions. The system-level motivation for doing so, in a state undergoing a demographic shift with an aging population, was ultimately budgetary, even if specific savings were not promised. The receiving universities followed several different models for their mergers, some of which appear to have been…
Case Study
August 30, 2021
A Texas Merger
The Creation of University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
In December of 2012 administrators for the University of Texas (UT) System announced a proposed merger of University of Texas-Brownsville and the University of Texas-Pan American “with an eye toward securing increased state funds and potentially building a medical school.” Both increased funding and the medical school were seen as important equity issues, given South Texas’s low per capita incomes and predominantly Hispanic population. The status of University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and University of Texas Pan American (UTPA)…
Blog Post
August 26, 2021
Staying Connected Through the Power of Technology
Centering Student Experiences
At the onset of the pandemic, higher education institutions across the country rushed to bolster digital infrastructure, to maintain both instructional continuity as well as academic and financial advising, so that students could stay enrolled and graduate. Many institutions also rapidly developed new services to accommodate student technology needs through device loaning programs and Wi-Fi partnerships, typically led by the library as gleaned through a series of roundtables conducted with library directors earlier this spring. While the initial investments…
Blog Post
August 19, 2021
Questions for Ithaka S+R’s Summer 2021 Fellow Cohort
This summer, we welcomed four fellows to our team. In this interview, they reflect on what brought them to Ithaka S+R, what they accomplished, and their experiences this summer. From left to right: Raul Armenta, Yuzhou Bai, Tangier Davis, and Jeremiah Perez-Torres What attracted you to Ithaka S+R? What current projects are you working on? Jeremiah Perez-Torres (PhD Candidate, CUNY) Ithaka S+R works towards improving higher education in a variety of ways and ensures that all…
Blog Post
August 17, 2021
“It pushes you down even further”
Documenting the Burden of Stranded Credits Through the Voices of Those Affected
In October 2020, Ithaka S+R estimated that 6.6 million people in the US owe a debt to a college or university they previously attended, and because of that, cannot access their transcripts or credentials. This insidious and understudied form of student debt not only saddles individuals with collections, credit rating issues, and other typical consequences of debt, but also prevents them from using credits and credentials they’ve earned to continue their education or…
Research Report
August 17, 2021
Stranded Credits: A Matter of Equity
Usually when student debt is discussed and examined, the focus is on federal and private loans; however there are other more insidious forms of student debt that affect thousands of students each year and impact their ability to matriculate, transfer, qualify for scholarships and even qualify for job opportunities. Stranded credits is a phenomenon where students earn academic credits but cannot access them due to an unpaid balance with a previously attended institution that is holding their transcript as collateral.