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This article discusses the importance of embracing change in higher education, particularly at community colleges, in order to meet the evolving needs of students. It highlights the initiatives and plans put in place to ensure student success, such as the Quality Enhancement Plan and the Institutional Master Plan.
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Success Within Reach.Erma Johnson Hadley, ChancellorJanuary 7, 2014
CHANGE • Change is constant for us • Change can be challenging. • Over the past 48 years, TCC has evolved • We strive to meet the needs of all students in our community – • All backgrounds, • All ages, • All educational levels, • All desired career paths – • To be a vibrant engine powering the Tarrant County economy.
EXPECTATIONS • Last August, I listed present and future initiatives • Will challenge us to adapt how we work to meet the changing needs of our students. • Continuous press coverage about the crisis in education – at all levels. • More and more interest groups, • Students and parents, are demanding • Colleges and universities prepare students • to be successful when they graduate. • Businesses are demanding academic and technical preparedness • Want students to hit the ground reading, writing, ciphering, and working in harmony with others. • Community colleges expected to do more to promote workforce and technical training as an alternative to the traditional “academic” path to help ensure the health of tomorrow’s workforce.
CHALLENGES • Higher education has never before been so challenged. • Also never been so poised for such opportunity to excel. • Community colleges are at the fore front of this challenge. • Cannot excel today without embracing change. • Many students today have experienced high levels of interaction with their teachers and fellow students through the use of technology • Several schools in our area have equipped their students with personal digital assistants • and when they enroll at TCC, they expect to continue to have the help of technology as they study with us. We simply cannot ignore change.
CHANGE AGENTS • As comfortable as it may be, we cannot teach or administer like we did 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, and hope that our students will succeed. They won’t. • That’s why we must change. • Thus: • The QEP • Institutional Plan • Diversity and Inclusion Plan • Achieving the Dream • Common course materials • More student coaching.
CLEAR FOCUS • Each with a focus on institutional excellence to benefits students, faculty and staff. • Together, they will amplify our ability to reach the objectives of Vision 2015 • But only if we all are moving in the same direction. Together. • Quality Enhancement Plan introduced in support of our SACSCOC reaccreditation • The “Power On” logo focuses on four student learning objectives: • Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create - in total comprise critical thinking. Totally faculty led • I am proud of your work that caused SACSCOC to give us very positive feedback on our QEP, with no recommendations.
INSTITUTIONAL MASTER PLAN • The Institutional Master plan combines academic, facilities and technology criteria to ensure all College projects support our academic and administrative strategic priorities, while delivering the highest possible return to the community on the dollars we invest in our students. • This efficient, new process, will help us evaluate all ideas for new programs, environmental enhancements, projects, and improvements in a faster, more objective way. • Reportedly, TCC is the first institution of higher education in the U. S. with this type institutional planning tool. • It should entice many employees to put forth ideas that will help drive student success. • Regardless of the sources of the new ideas….those ideas have a mechanism through which they will be evaluated and they will drive budget decisions. • A major component of the Institutional Plan is the Innovation Forum • Will be facilitated at the physical Innovation Forum locations on each campus as well as virtually, through your computer beginning later this semester
GREAT IDEAS NEEDED • Innovation Forum will help determine how best to invest our human and financial resources • Ideas from the Innovation Forum will be evaluated by a Dream score, a formula which rates how the ideas deliver on our commitments to Diversity, Relevance, Engagement, Access and Metrics (DREAM). • Significant change from the past…yet positions us for a stronger and more relevant future • The first metric in the DREAM score is Diversity, which shows just how important diversity is to us at TCC. • College needs a diverse workforce, a diverse student population, and an environment in which individual differences are not just respected, but valued and embraced, • This fosters a culture conducive to the best teaching and learning opportunities possible.
OFFICE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION • District Steering Committee • Campus Committees on each campuses • Campus Committees hosted information sessions to introduce the plan’s content, campus data and district-wide data gleaned from a diversity and inclusion survey (upon which the plan is based) • Work is critically important • You are invited to work on or with a committee and take advantage of the great training modules these committees have created • Future phases of this plan call for a pull-through of diversity and inclusion concepts in our curricula • Many of you, as expert instructors, already enhance the science and art of what you do in the classroom with additional enrichment that makes a significant difference for our diverse student population • Please join your colleagues in this great work
ACHIEVING THE DREAM • “Student Success” is more than a catch phrase • More than a “feel good” • Bigger than two words can convey. • Not a single destination, but an ongoing journey for us. • No end state. • Part and parcel of the work we do, with every student, each and every day. • Have made tremendous progress, as evidenced by being names one of only 72 Achieving the Dream Leader Colleges in the nation • Announcement of TCC’s Leader College status in August received lukewarm reception • Initially everyone did not embrace the program • Some thought the main purpose of ATD was to lower our standards • Others thought that we just didn’t have time for still yet, another program. • ATD coaches, took note of • The College’s efforts to involve faculty members in improving the classroom experience • Faculty review and refinement of curricula and syllabi and served on planning councils and teams focusing on student success • Implementation of a number of efforts, including new student orientation, a student success course, mandatory advising and case management for FTIC students, a Math Emporium for the developmental math sequence, which is a faculty-led, computer-assisted learning environment that accelerates course completion time. • The College is seeing tangible results through its efforts, most notably:
AtD RESULTS & EXPECTATIONS • Hispanic students increased their successful completion of developmental math from 25.49% in 2008-09 to 30.98% in 2011-12, and • Hispanic students increased their successful completion of developmental reading from 47% in 2008-09 to 53% in 2011-12 • You deserve enormous credit for helping TCC achieve this extraordinary honor. What does it mean for us to be a Leader College? • Other colleges will look to TCC to share our valuable experience drive student success on their campuses. • Serve as an advocate for the AtD principles and practices • Share lessons based from our experiences • Support efforts to introduce state and national policies that promote student success. • Continue to pursue the Achieving the Dream’s Student-Centered Model of Institutional Improvement and strive for even higher levels of student success. • Must reapply every three years to retain Leader College status • Show commitment to putting student success at the center of everything we do • Make changes necessary to respond to the current realities of higher education today
COMMON COURSE MATERIALS • Philosophically differences • Some say I am being arbitrary and capricious • An infringement on your academic freedom by imposing standards that aren’t really necessary • Claim that I have somehow tied your hands from teaching the way you know how to teach. • I’ve said repeatedly • you are free to teach your courses as you choose. • Course materials that are chosen by fellow faculty members should not interfere with how you teach.
POINTS TO CONSIDER • Points to consider • Accommodation of the very real needs of our students… • Create consistency across all our courses and all of our campuses • Make course materials more affordable for our students • Many opportunities for open source course materials that are no cost to students • When students cannot afford to buy their course materials, their chances of being successful are seriously hampered. • First phase of the selection process was clunky, to say the least • Certainly didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped it would • Second phase is better, I think, • Many of you have responded to the creation of Academic Curriculum Teams, by discipline • Faculty across the District meet and evaluate not just course materials, but other curricular issues that will increase student success.
A SIGN OF HOPE • Academic Curriculum Teams have made great recommendations about the use of open source materials • They are guiding the College to a place of hope… • All are on the same page, I think • All efforts to increase students through access to learning materials is a win for them, and a win for us as educators. • This change hasn’t been comfortable for any of us . . but with time and teamwork, good things are happening.
TIME AND TEAMWORK • Can’t move mountains in a day • Together, sharing the same commitment to STUDENT success, we can make deliberate progress…together…one step at a time. • I’m counting on each of you to continue giving our students the best of your expertise…your passion…your wisdom…and your love of learning and teaching. • There will always be challenges • There will always be rewards when you hear the many voices of your students sing your praises as they proclaim that they could not have “done it” without your help. • They tell your presidents, deans, others and me , …that your work with and support of them, every day, makes all the difference in their success. And their success makes all the difference to them, their families and our community.
THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO • Tarrant County College is in a very good place today. • We have made excellent progress in moving us to a better place for our students. • I ask for your help and your leadership in continuing our forward movement. • I salute you for all you do for our students and for Tarrant County College every day! • I appreciate you!
A Path to Opportunity THE STATE OF TARRANT COUNTY COLLEGE IS EXCELLENT!
