Completion Agendas Require Transition Cultures
A look at systemic issues hindering the race to attainment
By Robin Colson, Ph.D., Director of Innovation, Florida Virtual Campus and Leigh Anne Cappello, Chief Experience Officer, Kinetic Seeds
In a prior Project Apply post, we talked about the state of Florida’s effort to reimagine a 21st century transfer experience for students and the emotional impact system-level challenges have on students — challenges such as disjointed processes, outdated technologies and inflexible support structures. Fueling the insight was the simple fact that the transfer students who were part of the study viewed their educational journey as one that begins with inquiry while at high school, community college or on-the-job, continues through to acceptance and enrollment at a 4-year university, and lasts through graduation from that university. This is in stark contrast with the higher ed stakeholders from the same study who defined the journey as more of a transaction that ends upon a college students’ acceptance into the university.
Why is this significant relative to the national conversation we are trying to have about credit portability and applicability? Because the college student experience is not a transaction; it is a process that twists and turns and reveals itself differently to each student. And as long as higher education continues to conduct its business as a series of cookie-cutter transactions, the less likely we will be able to give due credit for qualified learning to students who are navigating their own unique and complex experiences.
Transition culture v. transaction culture.
The facts speak for themselves. According to The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, across all sectors of higher ed, 37 percent of students transferred at least once in a six-year period between 2008 and 2014 and among those students who transferred, 45 percent transferred more than once. Even beyond the formal transfer experience, all college students are moving through a series of transitions that are unique to each student. They increasingly have life and educational experiences that the “traditional” higher education transaction culture simply cannot recognize. They are adult learners with responsibilities that demand flexibility; they are savvy virtual learners who access information just-in-time and in small bites; they have alternative learning opportunities like on-the-job training courses, certificate programs, and dual enrollment classes in high school with less need for a physical campus presence or a formal, static college curriculum. In short, today’s students are in a fluid state of transition versus a finite state of transaction. So, if higher ed wants to bolster completion in a fair, reasonable, and affordable fashion, it must look to build a transition culture.
Transition culture acknowledges that the on-campus four-year experience is increasingly a relic of the past and is being replaced with an omni-campus, multimedia, lifelong experience that is unique to each student. Transition culture expects that students will change programs and institutions, will sometimes fail to complete or pass a course, and will need the ability to stop and start throughout their journey; and it recognizes that knowledge and competence are acquired beyond the college classroom by giving credit for the varied learning experiences of today’s students. In turn, transition culture builds policies, processes, and practices to support the dynamic, and sometimes erratic, student experience of today and offers a supportive and connected community — across providers and institutions — to help students fulfill their personal and career potential.
Imagine this: A student enrolls in an institution but enters a connected postsecondary system during a transition moment — be it from high school, community college, home or career. On the front end, a pan-system mental model shift takes us from viewing our roles as providers of information, processors of applications, and managers of a bureaucratic system to a support culture where we are defined as coaches, navigators and stewards of student success. Before they enter the next phase to advance their learning and career, be it to earn an associate’s degree, a new credential to supplement their degree, or an advanced degree, they are supported through a transition, connected to the people and resources they need to thrive, and then guided through the assimilation where they connect, way-find around the new environment, customize their learning and either move onto their career or redirect to their next transition.
In the back end, the system relies on a high-tech approach. Institutional leadership champions integration at the system level to smooth the process and align programs and practices, information technology teams develop online toolkits to connect students to the necessary resources and information to make timely and effective decisions, and the state acts as a bridge-builder, putting policies in place to support the system integration.
In this simple illustration of the transition culture in action above, rather than viewing each step as a finite transaction, the focal point for the system is on shepherding the important transitions, guiding students through not only the necessary education, but the connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting that is so critical to ensuring success. Also embedded within the transition culture, of course, is a logical and fair accounting of all prior learning, reconciling the complex web of credit portability and applicability.
What would it truly take to make this a reality? It’s not just about a new policy or a new program or a new partnership. It’s about adopting new core principles to support systemic change. Core principles like: System-level thinking, Change Leadership, and Empathic Understanding. The good news is, there are examples of leaders, institutions and states who put these core principles into play today.
More thinking and doing at the system-level.
Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD)
Taking a “collective impact” approach to the ecosystem, DCCCD Chancellor Joe May brought community players from across the Dallas area together to engage in reform efforts that would address both the city’s equity and poverty challenge as well as its talent shortfall. According to May, every dotted line between institution, community organization, and employer, represents a handoff and a point of failure for most of the city’s vulnerable students. Consequently, system-level, institutionally-agnostic, navigator positions were created to guide students wherever they are on their journey. With regard to technology integration, DCCCD relied heavily on tech giant Salesforce to manage data across multiple institutions, as well as other third-parties such as GreenLight and EAB for collaborative software support. The result of all of this system level-thinking and doing? Dramatically improved pan-system communication, deeper insights related to degree attainment, and the tackling of issues as intractable as transportation and food insecurity.
More change leadership.
Georgia State University: Tim Renick, senior vice president for student success at Georgia State explained in an Inside Higher Ed article that it took the university addressing problems that the university itself was creating to show the faculty they were committed to making change. “We wanted to ask how we were the problem.” After improving academic advising, changing the distribution of financial aid and launching a chat bot to help students more immediately with problems, faculty started initiating their own projects to reimagine how they might educate and support students. The actions by upper management showed ownership, did not pass blame, and ultimately motivated others to do the same. Another great example of inspiring a culture of change from the top.
More empathy.
State of Florida: In response to a nationwide challenge of relatively low completion rates for transfer students, Florida’s State University System initiated a program improvement process within its 2+2 Transfer Program. Research conducted by the project workgroup, including the authors of this blog, revealed significant challenges with the program including lack of coordination between institutions that reduces credit transfer and increases time and expense. Importantly, by embracing a participatory design model which involved both synchronous and asynchronous in-depth questioning, experience mapping and visioning, key stakeholders from Florida institutions were able to learn first-hand not only the functional challenges involved in their transfer experience, but also the social-emotional ones. By taking this approach, stakeholders gained deeper insight into issues that go beyond the day-to-day transaction, including: the disconnectedness and anxiety they feel when separating from one school and joining another; the lack of confidence they have in the disjointed processes and communication between institutions; and the overwhelm they experience while having to manage siloed infrastructure which creates a cycle of needless redundancies. Armed with this newfound empathic understanding of the lived experience from the student journey, stakeholders have begun the process of system-level change.
The time is now for higher education to reconsider the business models and beliefs that shape its processes, its resource allocations, and the roles faculty and staff play in the lives of students. We must build a new higher education culture that reflects the diversity, variability and transitional nature of the modern student experience and create policies, processes, and practices that anticipate and embrace its inherent complexity. Systems thinking, leading by example, and empathic understanding of students is a good place to start.
This blog is part of Project APPLY — A series by HCM Strategists and Kinetic Seeds to enliven a national conversation about how today’s students and workers experience learning after high school.
