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. 

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Mark your calendars for the following events and trainings coming Winter 2024!

Upcoming Events

• January Commission Board Meeting – January 30 – February 2, 2024
• Updates on 2025 Carnegie Classifications Webinar – February 9, 2024
• ALO Townhall – February 24, 2024
• Creating Capacity for Digital Learning – On-Going, FREE Professional Development Opportunity!

Updates on the 2025 Carnegie Classifications

Join Executive Director Mushtaq Gunja and Deputy Executive Director Sara Gast on Friday February 9, 2024 from 12:00-1:00 p.m. PST to discuss the changes to the next release of the Carnegie Classifications and provide feedback on key questions. They will also share the context for the updates and provide a look into the work still to come in finalizing the Basic and Social and Economic Mobility Classifications.

Register today.

ALO Townhall

Join your liaisons and Commission staff on Friday, February 23 from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PST to learn about changes to processes, policies, and updates from the January Commission meeting. More information will be sent to ALOs and ALO delegates via email in the coming weeks.

Educational Programming

If you have suggestions for upcoming webinar topics or would like to present at a future webinar, please contact NWCCU’s Director of Educational and Institutional Initiatives, Jordan Kamai, at jkamai@nwccu.org.
 

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Mark your calendars for the following events and trainings coming Fall 2023!

Upcoming Events

• Creating Capacity for Digital Learning – On-Going, FREE Professional Development Opportunity!
• Webinar Sea Change: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education after the Supreme Court Strikes Down Affirmative Action – October 13, 2023
• Mission Fulfillment Fellowship Application Opens – November 1, 2023
• NWCCU Annual Conference – November 8-10, 2023
• January Commission Board Meeting – January 30 – February 2, 2024

October 13 Webinar

Sea Change: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education after the Supreme Court Strikes Down Affirmative Action

Join members of Alston & Bird’s Education Team for a webinar focused on safely navigating the new risks and challenges posed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, et al. The team looks forward to connecting with higher education leaders including presidents and their leadership teams, trustees, and in-house counsel.

Alston & Bird’s subject matter experts will delve deeply into and offer a careful read of Students for Fair Admissions and will discuss:

• How the new legal regime established by Students for Fair Admissions impacts key sectors of higher education such as admissions, financial aid, student services, and faculty and staff
• Best practices and strategic options for traversing the new landscape, while still adhering to your values in diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Developments and expected trends in the aftermath of Students for Fair Admissions

Speakers:

• Terance A. Gonsalves, Partner, Atlanta, Litigation & Trial Practice, Chair of Education Team
• Alexandra Garrison Barnett, Partner, Atlanta, Labor & Employment
• Chaka Patterson, Partner, San Francisco, Litigation & Trial Practice

Register today!

Mission Fulfillment Fellowship

NWCCU’s Mission Fulfillment Fellowship will open up applications for its sixth cohort beginning November 1. NWCCU’s Mission Fulfillment Fellowship prepares higher education leaders to advance institutional mission fulfillment and quality initiatives through assessment, reflection, and planning. The Fellowship is designed to introduce faculty, staff, and administrators from NWCCU institutions to regional and national leaders in assessment, accreditation, data analysis, quality assurance, educational innovation, and educational effectiveness. Fellows are expected to work in pairs of institutional partners to produce a final project advancing their institution’s planning and assessment practices and quality improvement activities with regard to equity, student learning, and/or student achievement. To learn more, please visit NWCCU’s fellowships page.

Educational Programming

If you have suggestions for upcoming webinar topics or would like to present at a future webinar, please contact NWCCU’s Director of Educational and Institutional Initiatives, Jordan Kamai, at jkamai@nwccu.org.
 

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NWCCU is seeking nominations for the Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Achievement and Success. The Beacon Award is an annual award recognizing institutional or programmatic accomplishments in student achievement and success at the NWCCU family of institutions.

Purpose and Description

The Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Achievement and Success is an annual award to recognize institutional or programmatic accomplishments in student achievement and success at the NWCCU family of institutions.

Three separate categories of The Beacon Award will be offered, based on unduplicated student enrollment during the most recent fall student headcounts: institutions with fewer than 2,000 students; between 2,000 and 6,000 students; and more than 6,000 students.

Award winners must demonstrate distinctive, measurable, and replicable innovations that have resulted in student achievement and success at the institutional or programmatic level, including innovations in advising and mentoring, alternative credentialing, experiential learning, learning communities, or other such efforts. Other winning examples may include new curricula, courses, or educational delivery models. The Beacon Award will recognize innovative approaches that have significantly contributed to measurable improvements in completion and/or graduation rates at the institution.

Award winners will receive a trophy and cash award to be used to further the institution’s efforts to implement the initiative. Additionally, the institution’s name will be inscribed on The NWCCU Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Achievement and Success Wall of Fame at the NWCCU office in Redmond, Washington.

Awardee institutions will be recognized during the NWCCU Annual Conference, where an institutional representative will have the opportunity to speak on the topic of their award-winning endeavors that are contributing to the success of their students. The winners will also be expected to submit a short article on their initiative for publication in NWCCU’s The Beacon newsletter.

Eligibility

All NWCCU member institutions are eligible. Only one nomination per institution per year may be submitted. Beacon Award winners are ineligible to be considered again for a period of three years.

Nomination Process

The institution’s leadership must apply for the award along with a short narrative regarding the program and how the award criteria are being demonstrated. The institution must submit a nomination packet of relevant materials, documentation, and evidence that clearly demonstrates the rationale for the nomination. The nomination packet cannot exceed five pages in a portable document file (pdf) format and must be submitted electronically.

Timeline 

Nominations must be received by the NWCCU no later than August 15, 2023. A review panel of NWCCU commissioners, staff, and representatives from institutions not under consideration will select award winners.

Criteria

• Clearly identifiable programmatic efforts that consistently champion student academic success and achievement demonstrated through meaningful student outcome innovation and examples.
• Evidence of a complete assessment process including assessment collection, analysis, and specifics of how the assessment data analysis led to program improvement.
• Evidence that the program directly led to student success and achievement such as student learning outcomes, increased retention rates, and increased completion or graduation rates.
• Evidence that the innovation is replicable.

Submit Nomination Here

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Mindfulness Practices Support Student Wellness in Westminster’s Honors College

Richard Badenhausen

The national mental health crisis among college students has been well-documented. For example, the University of Michigan’s Healthy Minds Network annual survey of student mental health for 2018-19 showed over a third of college students suffer from depression. Westminster Honors College students are no different.

Over the years, Westminster Honors College faculty and staff had been noticing a series of related honors student challenges: problems with perfectionism, tying self-worth to grades, decreasing resilience, and inability to ask for help or seek out resources. In 2018, they decided it was time to act.

At its annual August faculty teaching/learning retreat that year, the honors college faculty dug into the challenges around student wellness, drawing on the expertise of a neuroscience professor who discussed the complexity of the developing adolescent brain and hearing from students themselves about their struggles in a 90-minute “student fishbowl” exercise where student conversation is unmediated.

Around this same time, administrators collected data in an honors college climate survey, a robust instrument which had a return rate of 70%: almost triple the typical rate of such surveys. Clearly students had things on their minds. For example, honors college students were obviously struggling with anxiety and mental health issues, with 35% of respondents indicating they had been diagnosed with some psychological disorder (depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc.), a figure that aligned with national data.

A result of that retreat conversation was a charge to the Assistant Dean of the Honors College who oversees much of the student-facing co-curricular programming, to design a wellness thread across the first-year experience that would help mitigate some of these pressures on students, to respond institutionally to the crisis.

After much planning and conversation, an intentional wellness program was instituted in fall 2019 in the honors college first-year seminar (FYS) experience that equipped students with mindfulness practices they could draw on during times of stress. The hope was that in adding resources to their toolbox, students would be able to face challenges better equipped and empowered to overcome them. The new programming-now in its fourth year-has three primary strands: training with mindfulness practitioners; conversations with peers about personal challenges; and in-class discussions of texts that took up issues related to health and wellness.

The first and most extensive part of the programming involves hiring three mindfulness practitioners to train students during weekly 45-minute sessions over the entire fall semester in the “Tuesday Conversation” evening meeting. This 90-minute weekly “lab” attached to the FYS taken by all honors students brings together the entire entering honors cohort for evening conversation with key faculty and staff members from across campus.

The sessions are broken in half so that students work regularly with a yoga teacher, a meditation instructor, or a graduate student with expertise in mindfulness through reflective writing. Students identify their preferred practice so there is buy-in and they “swap” practices at midterm. Importantly, these are not one-off sessions that introduce students to a new skill; instead, they are repeated weekly sessions where they train in a specific practice.

The second piece of the new program consists of “mentoring moments,” brief accounts that follow the 45-minute practitioner sessions where experienced, more senior honors student peer mentors talk about one of their experiences as a student, often a moment of struggle, failure, asking for help, and so on. The goal here is to normalize struggle, demonstrate what discussing problems looks like, and humanize the student leaders in the eyes of the first-year students so they are more likely to reach out to their peer mentors for help.

A favorite slogan repeated by Honors College Dean Richard Badenhausen is “don’t be a duck” – in other words, don’t walk around with a placid exterior while you are furiously padding underneath the (hidden) water trying to keep up. The “mentor moment” uses displays of student vulnerability to help first-year students better understand the power of sharing your struggles.

At the end of the session, students write down a “wellness reflection” or takeaway from the evening, in effect solidifying the lesson but in a way that gives students ownership over the insight. For example, one student’s takeaway in an end-of-session reflection during COVID was, “we may not be able to go outside, but we can go inside” through reflection. Importantly, while the world seemed overrun with chaos and people felt powerless, this student still felt a sense of agency in their ability to turn inward to reflective practices.

The third piece of the program was developed after Dean Badenhausen attended an AAC&U diversity conference in 2019 where representatives from Georgetown University discussed their Engelhardt program, a donor-inspired initiative in which FYSs explicitly took up issues of health and wellness. The honors college adapted the approach for the FYS by asking faculty to include one reading on their syllabi that fit with the course theme – there is a common theme annually for all sections – while also investigating an issue of health and wellness.

For example, one class took up Plath’s Bell Jar, which contains characters beset by suicidal ideation, while another explored an essay by Rebecca Solnit that examines sexual assault. In conjunction with those discussions led by the honors college faculty, visitors with expertise on the topics join the conversation, for example a member of the college’s counseling office or a member of the Title IX office.

Finally, students perform an anonymous written reflection at the end of these sessions, thus developing their reflective capacities around mental health issues. According to Badenhausen, “the explicit goals of this third piece are to normalize conversations about mental health struggles; to bridge the curriculum and co-curriculum by signaling to students that the classroom is an acceptable place to have such conversations that are typically sloughed off on Student Affairs; to put students in touch with different offices on campus who can help them; and finally, to position faculty members as allies in students’ journey to health and wellness.”

Importantly, this has been a program-wide effort that first started with faculty and staff wanting to help students, but which has expanded to bring in other members of our community. For example, to underwrite ongoing costs for the new program, the honors college identified it as the focal point of its annual Giving Day effort in winter 2021, which allowed students to see how much value was placed on this work. That campaign also raised awareness of mental wellness across campus and folded in alums and other donors into the effort. Fundraising efforts were very successful, resulting in $50,000 specifically for the new wellness initiatives, which has underwritten the cost of mindfulness trainers.

Student wellness is a complicated matter and there is no magic bullet to solving some of these intractable problems. Students bring many histories, experiences, and health challenges into their university communities. Likewise, there is no single measure that captures the effect of broad, multi-pronged programming like this. Having said that, the data are encouraging, as first-year retention improved significantly the year after the program was instituted.

Qualitative data are also encouraging, as captured in the following representative anonymous student comment written at the end of the Tuesday Conversation program: “The meditations helped me feel more present and in-tune with myself and my emotions.” Another student noted, “Feeling at peace can allow other things to fall into place.”

The impacts mentioned above are no small matter, given that the honors college first-year student population has made up 20-25% of Westminster’s incoming class during the past few years. And it is important to note that Westminster’s honors college is made up of many students from underserved populations, which is unusual nationally in honors education. For example, during the 2020-21 academic year, 26.6% of honors college students were students of color compared to 22.4% of the overall Westminster student population. During the 2021-22 year, those figures were separated by less than one percentage point.

According to Provost Debbie Tahmassebi, who nominated the program for the Beacon Award, the honors college’s innovative approach to wellness “is distinctive, has led to measurable success, and is an important part of our approach to supporting student health and wellness at Westminster College.”

Also important is the fact that this programming has demonstrated that Westminster can make a difference in student wellness and this work has also helped give energy to other efforts across campus. The honors college’s success was often mentioned in planning discussions of recent larger wellness efforts at Westminster, which will culminate in a new campus wellness center supported by gifts of $7 million, almost all of which has been raised.

To reiterate the key takeaways from this story: the mental health challenges of college students are real, but they are not insurmountable. Westminster’s honors college adopted a distinctive approach that aligned the curriculum and co-curriculum in ways that resulted in measurable success. Mental health challenges are addressed across the full spectrum of the first-year student experience. The programming described above is targeted, manageable, and replicable in many different settings and could be used with a variety of different cohorts.

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Weber State’s Wildcat Scholars Program

Eric Amsel

Weber State University’s (Ogden, UT) Wildcat Scholars program was named a recipient of the 2022 Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Achievement and Success. The program has been operating since 2016, with support over the past four and a half years from the Department of Education Title 3 Strengthening Institutional Programs grant. We review the program’s origins, design and expansion, assessment, and institutionalization.

Program Origins

In August 2016, 12 high school graduates who had applied to WSU but had yet to enroll were invited to participate in a pilot program. The program offered a small scholarship, required enrollment in a newly designed first-year seminar course titled “Cultivating Your Future,” and bestowed the title of a “Wildcat Scholar.” The program targeted non-traditionally college-bound (low-income, ethnic minority, first-generation) students who had been placed into developmental math. The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) funded the pilot to seed innovative initiatives to improve persistence and retention. It was the first time the university considered offering a coordinated and integrated social, academic and co-curricular credit-bearing program for students who would typically have low persistence and retention rates.

The 12 Wildcat Scholars were compared to a matched group of 16 students, who were invited but declined to participate. The Wildcat Scholars demonstrated higher academic achievements and student success on a variety of measures, including first-semester GPA (2.63 vs. 1.84), fall-to-spring persistence (100% vs. 61%), and fall-to-fall retention rate (67% vs. 44%). The program’s focus on students’ assets instead of their deficits and recognition of their potential proved influential in improving their academic achievement and success. A second year (Fall 2017) of the program was run similarly, but this time with institutional funding for 14 students, with similar outcomes. No additional scholarships beyond Pell could be given, but a parking pass and free textbooks were offered.

Program Design and Expansion

The small pilot program has grown into a significant program that has enrolled 590 students between Fall 2018 and Fall 2022. We refocused the program on enrolling students placed in developmental mathematics and English, as these students were the least likely to succeed academically. As a group, they are disproportionately high in students reporting to be low-income, ethnic-minority, and first-generation and tend to have low first-semester GPAs and poor retention rates.

The grant allowed the hiring of three dedicated staff to provide leadership and management, offer holistic advising, and coordinate student co-curricular and career engagement. Together, the Wildcat Scholars team delivers the critical elements for a comprehensive set of student services to students based on national best practices (Koch & Gardner, 2017). It also enabled an expansion of the program’s curriculum to support student momentum (Jenkins & Bailey, 2016) by requiring full-time student status and minimizing time and money spent enrolling in developmental classes by creating co-requisite classes (Complete College America, 2021). The curriculum was also strengthened to promote students’ academic mindset, a collection of non-cognitive skills, beliefs, and behaviors that underlie students’ identities as engaged, self-regulated learners who can overcome challenges or setbacks (Broda et al., 2018; Han et al., 2017; Yeager et al., 2016). The curriculum was further organized to encourage students’ belonging and engagement by creating cohorts in flexibly scheduled learning communities. Finally, it accommodated student needs by offering a Fall or Spring program beginning.

In their first semester, students enroll in a minimum of 12-13 credits in a learning community cohort of about 20 students. Their classes include a General Education first-year seminar course addressing the history and culture of higher education, which has a community-engaged learning component (3 credits). They are also enrolled in a co-requisite English class (6 credits), which combines the credit-bearing first composition course requirement with developmental supports delivered just in time. Some student cohorts enrolled in a college transition First-Year Experience course (3 credits) emphasizing study skills, note taking, time management, interpersonal communication, career exploration, and related topics. Alternatively, other cohorts enrolled in a life design course, Design Your Weber (2 credits), which is based on Stanford University’s life design approach (Burnett & Evans, 2016). Finally, an additional one-credit Math ALEKS prep class was recently added to support student placement in the co-requisite Math class in the spring semester.

Students are no longer placed in learning communities in their second semester but enroll in a core set of common courses of a minimum of 13 credit hours. They enroll in a co-requisite Math class (6 credits) that combines a credit-bearing Quantitative Literacy class with developmental supports delivered just in time. They also enroll in a combined English and Library class (4 credits), allowing students to simultaneously complete the university Composition and Information Literacy requirements. Finally, a Psychology class (3 credits) designed for Wildcat Scholars is an applied emerging adulthood course based on the life-design approach established in the first semester.

Additionally, the grant supported Inclusive Excellence training for all instructors teaching in the Wildcat Scholars program. The training combines self-paced modules and in-person (or virtual) retreats, with keynote presentations from national figures, including Dr. Andrew Koch (John Gardner Institute), Dr. Milagros Castillo-Montoya (UConn), and Dr. Chandani Patel (NYU). The retreats include panels of Wildcat Scholar students and seasoned instructors sharing their experiences and opportunities for faculty in learning communities to collaborate.

Assessment and Innovation

Central to the goals of the Wildcat Scholars program is to promote student success, as demonstrated by students’ first-year fall-to-spring persistence and first-to-second fall retention rates. Since receiving the grant, each of the four fall cohorts of Wildcat Scholars has shown higher persistence and retention rates than developmental math and English students (DD) and all first-year students (Overall). The average difference between the WS and DD groups in persistence (11.0%) and retention (14.8%) was substantial. The WS group also had higher persistence (4.3%) and retention (7.1%) rates than all students, which has been a powerful statement about these students’ success. Narratives from Wildcat Scholars about how the program supported their persistence and retention are available on the program website (http://weber.edu/wildcatscholars).

The Wildcat Scholars’ success comes from a curriculum designed to challenge and support them. First and foremost, the curriculum is designed to challenge students to complete the university composition (COMP), quantitative literacy (QL), and information literacy (IL) requirements in their first year. The requirements were completed by 37% of Wildcat scholars in the first year, with most others completing in year 2. These gateway requirements are a significant hurdle to student success for developmentally placed students, who would otherwise require three or four semesters to complete all developmental pathways. But the Wildcat Scholar program’s collaboration with the various academic departments and programs to create pilot co-requisite and combination classes has fundamentally altered the pathways for all students. The co-requisite Math and English classes have lower overall DFWI rates compared to the sequence of courses they are replacing, particularly for Hispanic students, providing evidence of the importance of the courses in addressing institutional inequity issues. In the five years before the program (Fall 2011 – Spring 2016), developmental math and English students had a persistence rate of 40.68% negatively impacting the overall persistence rate (R2 = .48). In the five subsequent years (Fall 2016 – Spring 2020), the impact was no longer significant, with a 48.1% persistence rate. The data document the Wildcat Scholars program’s impact on a critical student success challenge that may extend beyond those immediately served by the program.

Additionally, the curriculum supports students by enhancing their academic mindset. All Wildcat scholars complete coursework designed to promote an academic mindset, and the outcomes are carefully reviewed each year based on end-of-year student self-assessments. In the last set of assessments, students rated their growth as 7.48 out of 10, with a majority reporting feeling greatly supported by their professors, advisors, and peers and that the learning community increased their sense of belonging at the university. Additionally, a mindset survey delivered each fall to a sample of first-year students since 2019 found that significantly more Wildcat Scholars scored above the mean than developmental English and math-placed students (Huntington et al. 2021).

Program Institutionalization

The Wildcat Scholars program Dept. of Ed SIP funding ends October 2023. The grant is not renewable by design, so solutions motivating the grant would be institutionalized by implementing the critical features of the grant. Plans have been laid for the program’s legacy, which was to create a more “student-ready” institution by “meeting students where they are.” These outcomes are part of the institutional strategic vision and plan for improving retention and completion. The institutional vision and plans align well with many features of the Wildcat Scholars program that are being institutionalized, which we outline below.

• Institutionalizing Learning Communities: The institution is expanding Learning Communities (LCs) modeled after Wildcat Scholars. Branded as FAST Start, these learning communities are based on student major or meta-major interests and supported by college advisors. The Wildcat Scholars team is being given the additional responsibility of managing the FAST Start and Wildcat Scholars LCs beginning in January 2023.
• Institutionalizing Co-requisite and Combined Classes: These courses (MATH 1035, ENGL 1005, and ENGL 2015) were fully approved by the Faculty Senate, funded through the relevant departments, offered to all students, and have quickly become popular. As noted, the courses demonstrate a lower DFWI rate for all students, particularly for Hispanic students, compared to the courses they replace and are becoming increasingly popular curse options.
• Institutionalizing First-Year Classes: Courses designed exclusively for Wildcat Scholars have been approved by the Faculty Senate for all students. However, the SIP grant has funded instructors teaching life design courses and first-year seminars. The provost has added these costs to the ongoing budget allocations based on state appropriation. We don’t know the final disposition of these funds yet to support teaching these courses after the grant ends, but we are optimistic about institutional support.
• Institutionalizing Peer Support: Modeled after the Wildcat Scholar program’s comprehensive and coordinated support for students, a Learning Assistant program was created to offer embedded peer support and faculty course redesign for all students taking select gateway courses. The pilot of this program also proved successful, but it was recommended that the impact could improve if the FAST Start classes were embedded in a learning community where students can better connect with others in a connected curriculum (Amsel et al., 2022).
• Institutionalizing Inclusive Excellence Training: The Inclusive Excellence training, a cornerstone of the Wildcat Scholars program, has proven so impactful that the university has institutionalized the program. The Weber State University Teaching and Learning Forum will manage the training by partnering with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) to offer inclusive teaching training. The program will be funded centrally through the provost’s office.
• Institutionalizing First-Year Co-curricular Activities: Wildcat Scholars’ creation of opportunities for students to engage in high-impact co-curricular activities, from community engagement to career experiences, is also being institutionalized as part of the Learning Communities initiative. For example, as part of their learning community experiences, students will be able to engage in Life Design seminars offered by the Career Services office and community engagement as part of the Center for Community Engaged Learning.

References

Amsel, E., Burr, J., Fox, K., & Sands, S. (2022, February 12). FAST Start: A pilot program promoting success for first-year students. Paper presented at the 41st Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience.

Broda, J., Yun, J., Schneider, B., & Yeager, D., Walton, G. M., & Diemer, M. (2018). Reducing inequality in academic success for incoming college students: A randomized trial of growth mindset and belonging interventions. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 11, 317-338. DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2018.1429037

Burnett, B., & Evans, D. (2016). Designing your life: How to build a well-lived, joyful life. New York; Knopf.

Complete College America. No Room for Doubt: Moving Corequisite Support from Idea to Imperative (2021). Http://completecollege.org/noroomfordoubt

Han, C., Farruggia, S.P., Moss, TP. (2017). effects of academic mindsets on college students’ achievement and retention. Journal of College Student Development, 58, 1119-1134. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2017.0089

Huntington, A., Amsel, E., Santana, I., & Tello K. (2021. February 15). Disruptive Innovation:  The Institutional Impact of a Targeted First-Year Program. Virtual paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience.

Jenkins, D., & Bailey, T. (2017). Early momentum metrics: Why they matter for college improvement (CCRC Brief No. 65). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/early-momentum-metrics-college-improvement.pdf

Koch, A., & Gardner, J. (2017). Transforming the “real first-year experience”: The case for and approaches to improving gateway courses. In R. Feldman (Ed.), The first year of college: Research, theory, and practice on improving the student experience and increasing retention. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Yeager, D. S., Walton, G. M., Brady, S. T., Akcinar, E. N., Paunesku, D., Keane, L. … & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, E3341-E3348. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1524360113

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Western Oregon University Curriculum Review and Revision Results in Higher Graduation Rates and Fewer Excess Credits at Completion

Brittany Kima and Sue Monahan

In 2016, Western Oregon University’s (WOU) graduation rates fell behind its peers. The typical transfer student graduated with almost a year’s worth of excess credits. Students and faculty were often confused by the university’s degree requirements. Getting a transfer course approved for general education required walking around campus seeking signatures from individual faculty.

These problems did not seem to be caused by WOU students, though students were certainly affected by them. They were about the university and how it did things. To address these problems, WOU created a faculty task force to investigate alternatives for general education and university degree requirements. In 2018, faculty adopted a new general education program and streamlined degree requirements to better serve the needs of today’s students. This work has resulted in higher graduation rates across diverse groups of students and a reduction in excess credits among transfer students.

The process started by looking at data.

The Problem

WOU’s four- and six-year graduation rates were lower than they should have been, given the institution’s student-centered values. For cohorts that started in 2004-2006, an average of 17.6% of students graduated within four years. About 42% graduated in six years. It took WOU students too long to graduate, and they finished college with “excess credits” (credits over the 180 needed to earn a WOU undergraduate degree). In 2016, transfer students finished with an average of 40.5 excess credits, nearly a year’s worth of credits. First-time students graduated with an average of 17.7 excess credits.

Time to graduation and excess credits matter to WOU students: extra time in college has opportunity costs because students are not able to get their post-college lives started, and extra credits carry a financial cost.

WOU had established academic support programs, and these programs improved outcomes for students who were eligible and participated. But not enough students benefited from those targeted supports. Looking to improve, WOU realized that it was time to look at what the university required of students. Was it possible that students’ paths to graduation were hindered by the curriculum that had evolved over the last forty years?

Examination of the curriculum revealed:

• Requirements had changed over forty years, mostly by growing.
• Students had to meet requirements in 12 “buckets’, each with its own distinct rules (see Figure 1).
• The requirements were owned by departments that offered the courses rather than the university.
• Degree programs were highly prescribed, and almost 50% of undergraduate programs allowed for 15 or fewer free elective credits that students could use for false starts and exploration.
• There was not a coherent, student-centered explanation for why all of these requirements existed.

Figure 1: Twelve Buckets of Requirements

This work benefits first-time students, who experience a more coherent and streamlined path to graduation. Because the new general education requirements aligned with the Associate of Arts – Oregon Transfer Degree (AAOT), it also benefited transfer students. AAOT degree holders have completed all general education requirements; they are no longer surprised by additional requirements not covered by their AAOT course work.

“We were hoping to improve student outcomes and experiences with the general education reform. Part of this was done through revising the curriculum but we also made great strides in developing more streamlined processes to help students maximize the number of transfer credits that satisfied graduation requirements.” says Rob Winningham, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs.

In 2018, WOU addressed other buckets that complicated a student’s path to degree completion.

• The required minor was eliminated. Data revealed that fewer than 40% of WOU students were completing minors outside their primary areas of study, and WOU realized that the minor did not serve its intended purpose of broadening students’ educations.
• The number of upper division credits required was reduced from 62 to 60. No one knew why 62 credits were required, and in a university with primarily 3 and 4 credit courses, 60 credits made more sense.
• The BA or BS degree designation was changed from being a choice that students made, one that often tripped them up, to a choice made by programs and built into program requirements.

“It is hard to look at what you do every day and ask if there is a way to do it better,” says Dr. Sue Monahan, then Associate Provost and one of the leaders of this work. “Our students have changed, and we realized that to serve them best, we needed to change too.  The work of curricular review and revision was what we could do. We can’t always help students with their work schedules or family responsibilities. But we can make sure that what we require of them, taken all together, makes sense for students.”

Results

As a result of this work, graduation rates have risen and excess credits at graduation have decreased, especially for transfer students. In the five years since WOU began implementing changes, four-year graduation rates have increased by 50%, or ten percentage points. Six-year graduation rates have also increased. WOU’s transfer students now graduate with just over 200 total credits; excess credits beyond 180 have been reduced by nearly 50%, the equivalent of more than one term’s worth of credits.

Moreover, the benefits of the curriculum change have benefited all groups of students at WOU. Irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or familial college experience, all groups of students have seen increases in their graduation rates.

A Foundation for the Future

Beyond smoothing the path to graduation, the review and revision of general education aimed to improve student learning. “We wanted to build a program from the ground up based on learning outcomes for what we wanted all students to gain from a college education,” says Dr. Breeann Flesch, an applied mathematician who co-chaired the task force. “We wanted to ensure that WOU students were getting a transformative education, so we built in high-impact practices, like the first-year seminars.”

Curricular review and revision is paying dividends for WOU students. It has also resulted in a firmer foundation for the university going forward. The new general education program has jumpstarted cross-disciplinary collaborations in its first-year seminars and the potential for learning communities. High impact learning practices are embedded in each student’s general education experience. A now established General Education Committee is responsible for these university requirements and assessment of the program, ensuring greater cohesion and program quality going forward.

And in an era where it is hard to find resources for new initiatives, WOU has embedded improvement in the curriculum itself, creating durable and sustainable gains in student success.

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Mark your calendars for the following events and trainings coming Winter 2023!

ALO Winter Townhall

Join your liaisons and Commission staff on Friday, February 10 from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PST to learn about changes to processes, policies, and updates from the January Commission meeting. More information will be sent to ALOs via email in the coming weeks.

AGB Webinar

Save the date for Friday, February 17, as we learn from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. More information (including registration links) will be sent via email in the coming weeks.

Reminder: The recordings for the NWCCU free webinars, along with links to slide decks and presentation materials, can be found on our website under the Programs and Events page, under the sub-section Educational Programming, Educational Resources (linked here).

Spring 2023 Trainings

The following trainings will be offered to help evaluation teams prepare for the Spring 2023 visit season. More information will be sent to evaluation team members via email in the coming weeks.

• Tuesday, February 21 (9:00-10:00 a.m. PST) – New PRFR Training
• Tuesday, February 21 (10:00-11:30 a.m. PST) – PRFR Refresher
• Tuesday, February 28 (9:00-10:30 a.m. PST) – Chair Refresher (Mid-Cycle)
• Wednesday, March 1 (9:00-10:30 a.m. PST) – Evaluator Refresher (Mid-Cycle)
• Tuesday, March 7 (9:00-10:30 a.m. PST) – Evaluator Refresher (EIE/Candidacy/Ad Hoc)
• Wednesday, March 8 (9:00-10:30 a.m. PST) – Chair Refresher (EIE/Candidacy/Ad Hoc)

Upcoming Events

• Commission Board Meeting – January 24-27, 2023
• Commission Board Meeting – June 21-23, 2023

Educational Programming

If you have suggestions for upcoming webinar topics or would like to present at a future webinar, please contact NWCCU’s Director of Educational and Institutional Initiatives, Jordan Kamai, at jkamai@nwccu.org.

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