Creating An Empowering First-Year Experience: Cultivating Conditions that Matter

1. Creating An Empowering First-Year Experience: Cultivating Conditions that Matter October 24, 2008 Strengthening the First Year of College: Purposeful Strategies for Pedagogy and Practice Charles Schroeder Senior Associate Consultant, Noel-Levitz

2. Presentation Overview • Why increase our focus on the first-year? Why now?... Changes and challenges • Responding to our challenges…“gardening pop quiz” • Becoming good gardeners: nurturing and sustaining powerful transactions • Purposeful and practical strategies for improving student experiences. • Suggestions and recommendations • Conclusion • Helpful resources…five sections

3. The “Why”--Changes and challenges • Declining levels of academic preparation • Dramatic demographic changes • Rapid rise in cost of attendance • Shifting economic agendas • Greater calls for access, affordability, and accountability • Unacceptable retention and graduation rates • High levels of student disengagement • New ways of defining “collegiate quality”

4. One wish to improve…. • Students • Faculty • Administrators

5. Our challenges… “Our challenges are no longer technical issues of how to allocate rising revenues, but difficult adaptive problems of how to lead when conditions are constantly changing, resources are tight, expectations are high and options are limited. We live in an age of transformational, not technical, change. Our leadership, like our institutions, must become transformational as well.” The Kellogg Commission

6. Meeting our challenges: Propositions • Proposition #1: Our mission is to design a first - experience that is really empowering & transformational. • Proposition #2: We must measure our success as educators on the basis of the quality of encounters we arrange. • Proposition #3: If quality lies in the encounters we arrange, then we must ensure that these encounters are powerful, even transformationalones.

7. I INPUT Entering characteristics O OUTCOMES Desired results Astin’s Transaction Model E ENVIRONMENT Full range of experiences

8. Powerful transactions : Becoming good gardeners A farmer was sowing grain in his field. As he scattered the seed across the ground, some fell beside a hardened path and the birds came and ate it. And some fell on rocky soil where there was little depth of earth; the plants sprang up quickly enough in the shallow soil; but the hot sun soon scorched them and they withered and died for they had such little root. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns choked out the tender blades. But some fell on good soil, and produced a crop that was 30, 60 and even 100 times as much as he planted. If you have ears, listen. Matthew 13: 3-9

9. How does your student garden grow? • Does your institution embrace a talent development ethos? • What first-year students are most “at-risk” of not succeeding? • What are major barriers to 1st. Years` learning and success? • Are levels of challenge and support calibrated for success? • Do you have a consensual definition of student success? • How many “high risk” courses do students experience? • How many first years are placed on academic probation? • What mechanisms are in place to support students that are overwhelmed and underperforming?

10. How does your garden grow? • Are there course “bottlenecks” that are inhibiting your students from graduating? • What is the focus of your academic advising…”course matching and registration” or educational planning? • Are transfers treated as “second class citizens”? • What are your retention and graduation rates? • Do your students experience the campus “run-around”? • How do you know if you are making a difference? And, are you making enough of a difference? • To what extent and in what ways are you committed to ongoinginstitutional improvement and student success?

11. Student engagement: the common nutrient in promoting student success …the time and energy students devote to educationally sound activities, inside and outside of the classroom, and the policies and practices that institutions use to induce students to take part in these activities…

12. Two components of student engagement • What students do – time and energy devoted to educationally purposeful activities • What institutions do – using effective educational practices to induce students to do the right things

13. Strategies to enhance engagement, learning and success • Define student success in terms “talent development”. • Develop high expectations for student effort. • Create integrated performance support systems. • Utilize innovative pedagogies to strengthen engagement in and outside the classroom. • Develop a “culture of quality” in every services area.

14. A paradigm shift: Student-centered learning through focused effort • MGT 218 BUSINESS INQUIRY AND RESARCH. (2) Prereq. MCT 100; Integrated Communications Level 2 • The student uses various frameworks, strategies, and inquiry to identify, evaluate, predict, and influence the behavior of people in organizations and markets. She researches a company and industry to evaluate the potential of a new business venture, participates as a decision maker on a team managing a simulated company, and presents andresponds to questions, information, opinions, and recommendations on management topics. Alverno College Bulletin

15. Linked, Aligned and Integrated Themes: Alverno College • Clear and explicitly stated goals • Focus on learning – student-centered • Coherent language and definitions • Campuswide commitment – “partners in learning” • Ubiquitous, unavoidable, and helpful feedback • Faculty-driven – learning circles • Continuous improvement...”positive restlessness”

16. Strategies to enhance engagement, learning and success (Cont.) • Define student success in terms of “talent development”. • Develop high expectations for student effort. • Create integrated performance support systems. • Utilize innovative pedagogies to strengthen engagement in and outside the classroom. • Develop a “culture of quality” in all service areas.

17. Quality Service : Creating a supportive & welcoming climate Service quality can best be described as a measure of how consistently a service is delivered when match with students` expectations What's it like to get your driver's license?

18. Our Aim: Student –Centered Systems “High friendliness” systems never subordinate student convenience and needs in favor of the convenience and needs of the people who work within the system or the institution itself.

19. High friendliness ??? “What part of NO don't you understand?” Sign posted in a college's financial aid office.

20. Student-Centered??? Financial Aid Office Closed to Students Monday-Wednesday-Friday 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

21. Nurturing transactions??? “To err is human, to forgive is not library policy” Sign in College Library

22. Who really matters??? All faculty and staff may move directly to the front of the line. Sign at a college cafeteria

23. Where's the mercy ??? Sign on the wall of a Baltimore Church: “Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Signed, The Sisters of Mercy”

24. A Sample Service Strategy Service to our students and other customers will be fast, friendly, simple , effective and flexible. If your institution adopted this strategy, how would it affect interactions between staff and students?

25. Suggestions and recommendations • Engage in systematic assessment • Establish clear, coherent and high expectations for everyone. • Create systems that enhance performance • Utilize engaging pedagogies in and outside the classroom. • Create an institutional climate that consistently emphasizes that “students matter”. • Develop shared responsibility for educational quality and student success. • Foster a pervasive sense of “positive restlessness”.

26. Conclusion: Become first year advocates & transformational leaders Creating an empowering undergraduate experience for 1st. year students requires transformational leadership … …. Challenging prevailing assumptions …. Leaving our comfort zones …. Reaching across the aisles …. Engaging in new business …. And, moving first years to the front of the bus! Carpe Diem!!!

27. Overview of Helpful resources • Section One: 12 major findings from “institutions of excellence” in the first-year of college. • Section Two: 20 initiatives that contribute to excellence in the first year • Section Three: Major • Section Four: 12 books, monographs and websites that incorporate promising practices for enhancing engagement, learning and success. • Section Five: Speaker's contact information

28. Resources: 12 Major Findings *** • The first –year experience is a high priority. • Leadership , operating at multiple levels, is essential to achieving excellence. • Excellence flourishes in a culture that encourages idea generation , pilot projects and experimentation. • Excellence in the first year is achieved through efforts designed for all or for a critical mass of first-year students. • Assessment is an essential component of moving toward and sustaining excellence. • Clarity of institutional identity and mission and a concomitant respect for students are essential.

29. 12 Major Findings *** (Cont.) 7. Excellence relies on the direct involvement of an institutions faculty 8. Excellence requires attention to pedagogy in 1st year courses. 9. Creative acquisition and judicious use of financial resources are necessary to achieve excellence. 10. A central component is a steady “outward gaze” – the willingness to learn from and share with others. 11. Excellence rests on an intentional first-year curriculum and on supportive curriculum structures. 12. Excellence thrives in an environment where divisional walls are down.

30. Advising / Advising Centers Common reading Core curriculum / gen. ed. Electronic portfolios Experiential learning Faculty development First-year seminars Learning centers Leadership programs Learning communities Liberal arts Mentoring Orientation Peer leaders / advisors Residence life Service initiatives Supplemental Instruction Summer academic programs Resources: FY Success Initiatives

31. Resources: Project DEEP : Six Conditions that Matter to Student Success • Clearly articulated educational purposes and aspirations. • Unshakeable focus on student learning • Environments adapted for educational enrichment • Clear pathways to student success • An improvement-oriented ethos • Shared responsibility for educational quality and student success

32. Resources • ***Barefoot, B.O., Gardner, J.N., Schroeder, C. (et. al.) Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence in the First Year of College. Jossey -Bass, 2005. • Upcraft, M. L., Gardner, J. N., Barefoot, B.O. & Associates. Challenging and Supporting The First-Year Student: A Handbook for Improving the First Year of College. Jossey-Bass, 2005. • Kuh, G. et. al Student Success in College: Creating Conditions thatMatter. Jossey-Bass, 2005 • Swing, R. L. Proving and Improving: Strategies for Assessing the First College Year. National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience, 2001.

33. Resources Cont.) • National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students. Multiple resources. www.unt.edu/transferinstitute/ • Tagg, J. The Learning Paradigm College. Anker Publishing, 2003 • Schroeder, C. “Collaborative Partnerships Between Academic and Student Affairs”. In Upcraft, L., Gardner, J,. & Barefoot, B. Challenging & Supporting The First-Year Student: A Handbook for Improving the First Year of College. Jossey -Bass, 2005, p. 204-220. • Project DEEP Practice Briefs (Numbers 1-16). http://webdb.iu.edu/Nsse/?view=deep/briefs

34. Resources (Cont.) • Seymour, D. Once Upon a Campus: Lessons for Improving Quality and Productivity in Higher Education. American Council on Education/ORYX Press, 1995 & 2002. • Smith, B.. MacGregor, J., Matthews, R. & Gablenick. Learning Communities: Reforming Undergraduate Education. Jossey -Bass, 2004 • O’Banion, T. ALearning College of the 21st Century. AACC / ORYX Press, 1997. • Kuh, et. al. Assessing Conditions to Enhance Educational Effectiveness: The Inventory of Student Engagement and Success. Jossey-Bass, 2005.

35. Speaker's Contact Information Dr. Charles C. Schroeder charles-schroeder@noellevitz.com 706-216-7457