Topic: Student learning and outcomes
Blog Post
March 17, 2022
Evaluating the Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts Initiative
Strengthening transfer pathways between two-year and independent not-for-profit four-year institutions is one under-utilized way to increase transfer and bachelor’s degree completion. Independent colleges offer high graduation rates, flexible degree options, and personalized supports that can assist students looking to complete a four-year degree. Increasing transfer to these institutions at scale can be accomplished through state- or consortium-wide pathways that link all community colleges in a state to a critical number of independent four-year institutions. The…
Research Report
March 17, 2022
Playbook for Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts
How to Design and Implement Statewide Pathways from Community Colleges to Independent Colleges
Bachelor’s degree attainment for community college transfer students is one underutilized but essential pathway for reducing equity gaps in higher education. One way to achieve this at scale is through state-level initiatives dedicated to supporting transfer from community colleges to not-for-profit independent colleges. The Teagle Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Transfer Pathways to the Liberal Arts initiative aims to create such pathways in 20 states in the next five years. This playbook draws on the experience of grantees…
Blog Post
March 16, 2022
What Role(s) Do Stakeholders Play in an Advising Technology Implementation?
A New Report Outlines Nine Personas Taken on by Key Stakeholders in an Advising Technology Implementation
Holistic advising is a resource-intensive yet beneficial practice that prioritizes being student-centered in the institutional process of undergraduate academic advising. This approach has gained prominence within the higher education landscape for its potential to better support student communities that have historically been insufficiently served by more transactional approaches to advising, including students of color, first-generation students, and students experiencing poverty. Given the comprehensive nature of holistic advising, institutions have increasingly turned to technology to support the students, staff,…
Past Event
April 19, 2022
Assessing the Evolution of the Community College Library Mission
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, April 19 , from 2-3:00 PM, for the third webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series. Assessing the evolution of the community college library mission Thursday, April 19, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER The past two decades have seen dramatic changes within the academic library community. Many libraries have expanded partnerships, both within their community college and with the wider community. More recently, upheaval…
Past Event
April 5, 2022
“When in Doubt, Go to the Library”: Navigating the Community College Ecosystem
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, April 5, from 2-3:00 PM, for the second webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series. “When in doubt, go to the library”: Navigating the community college ecosystem Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER Community college libraries are a key part of the academic and student services ecosystem and contribute broadly to student success through their provision of scholarly resources and technologies. A…
Blog Post
March 11, 2022
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Announcing Three Upcoming Virtual Convenings
In 2019, Ithaka S+R began a three-year IMLS-funded research initiative to help community colleges and their academic libraries more effectively support their students. The initiative, known as Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE), involved two surveys, one of academic and student affairs leaders and one of library directors, to identify trends shaping student support and perspectives on the impact of COVID-19, as well as a series…
Past Event
March 22, 2022
Emergency and Emerging Technology Programs at Community College Libraries
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, March 22, from 2-3:00 PM for the first webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series Emergency and emerging technology programs at community college libraries Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many community college libraries stepped up, developing new programs and technology lending services to assist students who would otherwise not have access. These libraries…
Blog Post
March 10, 2022
A Preliminary Analysis of Debt Forgiveness Programs
The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the ever-increasing amount and crushing effects of student debt, including debts owed directly to postsecondary institutions. In an earlier report, Solving Stranded Credits, we estimated that roughly 6.6 million students owe over $15 billion in unpaid balances to colleges and universities in the United States. The weight of institutional debt can leave students feeling defeated, forcing many to avoid pursuing postsecondary education altogether. On a national scale, these debts…
Past Event
April 12, 2022
Catharine Bond Hill at the National Conference on Trusteeship
Govern for Student Success: Leadership Beyond Disruption
On Tuesday, April 12, Catharine Bond Hill is speaking on the opening plenary panel at the National Conference on Trusteeship. The panel will be moderated by Carlton Brown, former president of Clark Atlanta University and Savannah State University, and the other speakers include Bridget Burns, executive director of the University Innovation Alliance; David Huntley, trustee of Southern Methodist University; and Miriam “Mim” Pride, trustee of Berea College and president emeritus of Blackburn College. The conference is being held virtually and…
Blog Post
March 1, 2022
How to Navigate Remote Learning when Teaching with Cultural Heritage Materials
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States, instructors had to adapt quickly to new teaching and learning environments. For those instructors who teach with cultural heritage materials, the shift to remote learning was even more complex. They had to discover new ways to incorporate archives, museum collections, special collections and place based learning within restricted learning environments, and often they had to contend with uneven levels of access to adequate technology while doing so. Through these challenges,…
Research Report
March 1, 2022
Teaching with Cultural Heritage Materials During the Pandemic
Cultural heritage materials can offer rewarding learning opportunities and impactful experiences for students across a variety of disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences. These learning opportunities create important historical and/or cultural context within a discipline, allowing students to deepen their engagement with a discipline, or see themselves, perhaps for the first time, as a scholar. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the attendant move to online instruction at many colleges and universities, disrupted pedagogical practices and the ways that…
Past Event
March 8, 2022
The Chronicle’s Shark Tank: Edu Edition
Catharine Bond Hill at SXSW EDU
On March 8, Catharine Bond Hill will join fellow “sharks” Goldie Blumenstyk and Paul Freedman at SXSW EDU in Austin, Texas. To learn more, please visit the SXSW EDU website. About the session: The seventh annual pitch-a-thon pays homage to the TV show, but with a twist. Our panel of experts brings a mix of viewpoints—from a journalist, a college-president-turned-equity expert, and an entrepreneur—weighing in on transformative ideas from new companies, nonprofits, and big dreamers for improving the college…
Blog Post
February 16, 2022
Understanding Educational Space Needs in Prisons
New Project Announcement
Across higher education, classrooms and study commons have been reimagined to foster student engagement and learning. But for higher education in prison programs, it can prove challenging to find spaces optimized for education, much less space designed to support their educational needs. Access—or the lack of access—to classrooms, libraries, and scientific and computer labs, can play determining roles in the quality of higher education programming. With many competing demands for space, Departments of Corrections (DOC) may be inclined to look…
Blog Post
February 3, 2022
An Interview with Dr. Jay Darr, Director of University Counseling Center at the University of Pittsburgh
A Deep Dive on the Importance of Mental Health and Its Shared Responsibility Across Campus
Dr. Jay Darr is the Director of the University Counseling Center (UCC) at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), a member of the American Talent Initiative’s (ATI) Academic Equity Community of Practice (CoP). As part of our Academic Equity Interview Blog series (for our first post we interviewed Claremont McKenna’s Nyree Gray on campus climate), we asked Dr. Darr to help…
Blog Post
February 2, 2022
Bringing Credit Transfer into Focus
New Report on the Articulation of Transfer Credit at CUNY Project
When a student transfers from one college to another, the receiving college has to decide how to treat the credits that the student earned at prior institutions. While the specific process varies from place to place, in general, the institution has to make two interrelated decisions: (1) the course equivalency—how each course the student completed at another institution translates into courses in the catalog at the new institution, and (2) how the translated courses…
Research Report
February 2, 2022
Archiving Degree Audit Data to Measure and Reduce Lost Transfer Credit
Since June 2019, the Articulation of Credit Transfer project (ACT) has focused on streamlining the information, advising, and administrative processes concerning how credits from one City University of New York (CUNY) institution transfer to another CUNY institution. This work addresses a critical challenge at CUNY, and indeed, across American higher education. When students transfer from one college to another, they frequently are unable to count their previously earned credits toward degree requirements at their new institution, jeopardizing their ability to…
Blog Post
January 18, 2022
Turning on the TAP
Restoring Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated Students in New York
In her first State of the State address since taking office, New York Governor Kathy Hochul outlined an agenda that included repealing the 27-year ban on college tuition assistance, also known as TAP, for incarcerated students. In 1995, when the ban was first instituted, incarcerated students accounted for less than 1 percent of TAP funding state-wide. The ban dovetailed with the 1994 Crime Bill’s elimination of federal Pell grants for incarcerated students and…
Past Event
February 17, 2022
Melissa Blankstein at the DREAM 2022 conference
On Thursday, February 17, from 3:00-3:30 pm EST, Melissa Blankstein will present on “Leveraging the 21st Century Academic Library: Opportunities for Collaboration for Student Success” at the DREAM 2022 conference. Abstract How can your library best position itself to support students holistically? Current library programs often straddle both missions of academic and student affairs–how can this unique role be maximized to enhance both institutional and student success? Join representatives from Bunker Hill Community College and the Community College of Rhode…
Past Event
January 25, 2022
Melissa Blankstein Presents on Collaborating to Support Student Success
ACRL Choice Webinar
On, Tuesday, January 25th at 2:00 pm EST, Melissa is speaking at an ACRL Choice Webinar, “Leveraging the 21st Century Library: Opportunities for Collaboration to Support Student Success.” To register for this free webinar, please visit the ACRL Choice website. About the webinar The library is well positioned to play a key role in supporting student success—helping to increase student learning, develop a sense of community, provide technological resources, and act as a hub for many other services. How…
Blog Post
January 13, 2022
15 Best Practices for Basic Needs Data Collection and Management in Higher Education
Over the past two years, we have been examining how community colleges define and measure student success. Through an extensive landscape review, interviews with institutional research and effectiveness officers, and a national survey of community college provosts, it has become clear that student success is often tied to whether students’ basic needs are being met sufficiently. But collecting data on basic needs—such as…