Student-Centered, Data-Informed
Sonny Ramaswamy, President, NWCCU
Institutions that have developed innovative and intentional strategies to promote student success and close achievement gaps have discovered that it takes a portfolio of student-centered, comprehensive, adaptable, data- and evidence-informed approaches. In addition, they frame outcomes from the student’s perspective, i.e., focusing on what the student needs and will be able to do. Such approaches require the collaborative commitment and engagement of every member of the institution to identify and solve the challenges facing institutions and accreditation.
In a gist, highly successful institutions undertake their work by being student-centered and data-informed.
Data-informed approaches are where decisions are made after considering data as well as the knowledge, experience, and insights of the relevant stakeholders. Rather than allowing data to control everything, there’s the human element to decision-making.
In contrast, data-driven approaches are where the numbers or metrics are tested and analyzed, and decisions come down to what the cold numbers suggest.
Data-informed approaches are transformational, whereas data-driven approaches tend to be transactional.
Successful institutions have discovered that empowering faculty, staff, students, and other relevant stakeholders to own and be trained to use data, thus, democratizing data, are contributing to significant gains in promoting student success and closing equity gaps. Institutions of higher education, including NWCCU members, have capitalized on disaggregated evidence- and data-informed approaches, predictive analytics, and other digital tools to promote student success and close achievement gaps. Along the lines of the transformative, data-informed, continuous improvement approaches to promote student success, NWCCU is helping its member institutions identify benchmark quantitative and qualitative student achievement indicators in comparison with peer institutions at the regional and national levels.
Similarly, student-centered approaches include high-impact practices, such as intrusive advising, experiential learning opportunities, inculcating a combination of technical, cognitive skills, along with the non-cognitive, core competencies, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills, combined with single-minded use of data-informed predictive analytics and other digital tools, which are key to promoting student success. In addition to academic support, advancing student success requires that students, particularly those from marginalized and underserved communities, are provided help with financial aid, just-in-time grants, supportive social networks, food, housing, child- and health-care support, and mental health counseling.
Student-centered approaches also rely on promotion of community and group interactions. The key to success is that the institutions have created inclusive teaching and learning approaches that incorporate student voices by paying attention to student needs and tailoring courses, course offerings, and programs to the needs of the individual student, each one a unique individual with a unique background and unique learning style.
Aligned with the above, the theme for the recently concluded NWCCU 2024 Annual Conference was Student-Centered, Data-Informed. Although the Bomb Cyclone on Tuesday, November 19, caused significant physical damage to infrastructure in Seattle, King County, and environs and contributed to flight delays into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, almost 550 registrants joined us during the conference.
The conference included a veritable intellectual and gastronomic feast of keynote and plenary speeches, pre-conference workshops, concurrent sessions, and a variety of delicious foods.
Programming on Wednesday, November 20, included a commission meeting and an annual meeting for NWCCU member institutions, along with hands-on learning workshops on peer evaluation, assessment, peer comparators, planning and governance, mission fulfilment, prison education, and use of data to promote student success and close equity and achievement gaps. The luncheon speaker was Tim Renick, Senior Vice President for Student Success and Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia State University, who spoke about Eliminating Achievement Gaps Through Data and Institutional Change. Later in the afternoon, a special Presidential Workshop entitles, Academic Leadership in the Context of Change, hosted for NWCCU member institutional leaders included several sessions. The American Council on Education’s Jonathan Fansmith gave an overview of the outcomes of the General Elections and what to expect from the incoming administration; AGB’s Monica Burton spoke about leadership; and Eastern Washington University Professor and NWCCU Commissioner and Vice Chair Scott Finnie spoke about the compelling rationale for focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Much of the hallway and networking chatter was on the Bomb Cyclone and the weather, but more importantly was on the outcome of the General Elections and the potential impacts on higher education. So, I decided to say something about the latter as I welcomed the almost 550 registrants to the Opening Plenary Session on Thursday, November 21.
I reminded the audience that rather than focusing on what may or may not come to pass in the next few years, higher education and accreditation should focus on its compelling value proposition: Student Success and Closing Achievement Gaps.
Then I read excerpts of a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Brook, which I recalled as being apropos to the times and which I had read as a primary (elementary) school child growing up in India. I particularly reread and emphasized the repetitive ending of several of the verses, including the very last verse “For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever.”
The Brook
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
The repetitive ending to several verses, “For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever,” was an excellent reminder that administrations may come and go and regulations may come and go, but the business of higher education and accreditation goes on forever, because our Nation needs a well-educated, informed, and contributing citizenry to ensure our democracy thrives. And, members of the higher education community, including accreditors, must focus on the destination, i.e., student success and closing achievement gaps, as I stated in an essay in a recent issue of The Beacon on the landscape of higher education and accreditation. My reminder of the raison d’etre of higher education with the metaphorical line from The Brook was well received and, indeed, several asked me for a link to the poem.
The topical plenaries and keynotes on Thursday, November 21, and Friday, November 22, engendered significant discussion, reflection, and discussions. The speakers included Toby Jenkins, Associate Provost for Faculty Development, University of South Carolina (Mining Culture for New Perspectives on Leadership); Hether Danforth, Vice President, US Academics, Microsoft (Building the Future: Student Empowerment and Success through AI-Driven Education); Jeff Strohl, Director, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (Thoughts on a New Education Model to Navigate Future Challenges Facing Post-Secondary Education); Michael Itzkowitz, President and Founder, The HEA Group (Postgraduation Socioeconomic Outcomes: Has American Higher Education Delivered on the Promise); Torrey Trust, Professor of Learning Technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (AI and the Future of Higher Education); and Doug Lederman, Cofounder and Editor, Inside Higher Ed (Making the Case for Higher Education and Acknowledging Its Shortcomings).
The Awards Luncheon on Thursday, November 21, included recognition of the winners of the Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Success and Achievement. Three institutions were recognized, including the University of Puget Sound (Freedom Education Project Puget Sound), Nightingale College (MyNightingale), and Western Washington University (Western Success Scholars Program). The 2024 Beacon Award winners will be spotlighted in the March 2025 issue of The Beacon.
During the Awards Luncheon, we also recognized and extended our sincere gratitude to our peer evaluators for their invaluable work. As was noted in the recognition, their dedication and expertise are critical to promoting excellence in higher education and accreditation. In addition, graduates of the Mission Fulfillment Fellowship and Data Equity Fellowship were recognized for their accomplishments.
The conference included a number of concurrent sessions on extant topics apropos to the conference theme, Student-Centered, Data-Informed, on Thursday, November 21, and Friday, November 22, proposed by our member institutions and included, for example: Empowering Real-Time Data-Driven Decision-Making in Higher Education; Continuous Innovation for Continuous Improvement: Weaving a Data Web to Inform Student Success Initiatives; Updating Institutional Student Learning Outcomes: A College-Wide Effort to Measure Student Success; Qualitative Assessment for Inquiry; Shaping Program Learning Assessment; Strategic Use of Data to Support Institutional Change; Igniting Change Through Statewide Generative AI Collaborations; Leveraging Learning Analytics; and Data Informed Educational Programming.
Apropos to the extant, fraught conversations on academic freedom and other topics in America, the closing plenary was provided by Eduardo M. Peñalver, President of Seattle University, on the topic of Viewpoint Diversity for Higher Education Institutions.
Preliminary analysis of feedback from the attendees suggests that the workshops, concurrent sessions, and plenary speeches were highly regarded as being topical and of relevance. In addition, the topics related to the theme of the conference—Student-Centered, Data-Informed—and quality of speakers were viewed as offering grist to be addressed back on the campuses of member institutions for work related to promoting student success and closing achievement gaps. The location, organization, networking breaks, food and beverages, and reception, including the musical entertainment, were viewed as being very good to excellent.
As we wrapped up the conference, I thanked the excellent speakers, our outstanding staff, the extremely helpful hotel staff, and last, but not least, the sponsors, including the Craft Education System, The Registry, AGB Search, BibliU, Populi, SPOL, Gardner Institute, Territorium, Nuventive, and Watermark.
I invoked the repetitive verse, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever, from The Brook and reminded the attendees to focus on the raison d’etre of higher education, i.e., student success and achievement, and wished them safe travels.
Reminded of Winston Churchill’s admonition, “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure,” I stated that we need to reimagine and reengineer higher education, and I looked forward to welcoming them back for the 2025 Annual Conference with the theme: Reimagine Education.
