The Future of our Colleges: Student Success

ASCCC Futures Committee

Defining Student Success

• Who is doing the defining?

• CCLC – “A 2020 Vision for Student Success ”

• California Leadership Alliance for Student Success (CLASS)

• Legislative Analyst’s Office

• Senate Bill 1143

Community College League of California (CCLC)

• Representing local boards and CEOs

• “…charged with studying effective policy and practice changes that will enable the system to increase the number of students who have access to, and are able to complete, high quality degrees, certificates and transfer pathways in our community colleges.”

Community College League of California (CCLC)

• Kay McClenney, California Leadership Alliance for Student Success/CCSSE

• Hans Johnson, Public Policy Institute of California

• Nancy Shulock, Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy

• Patrick Perry, Vice Chancellor of Technology, Research and Information Systems

CLASS

• .. a collective effort of 12 community colleges focusing on leadership strategies for improving student success. Project staff, funded by foundations, bring teams of college leaders together to discuss student success issues. A key component of the work of these college teams is the provision and analysis of data on intermediate measures and academic behaviors. Institutions use a tool to run a set of analyses on data that relate to the topic of discussion.

LAO

• The Master Plan at 50: Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts - Coordinating Higher Education in California

• “Lessons from other states”

• Recommendations?

LAO

• Set a Clear Public Agenda for Higher Ed– Set specific statewide goals – Use goals as framework for an accountability

system

• Strengthen Coordination Mechanisms– Align funding formulas with state goals – Simplify articulation and transfer processes – Improve oversight for major policy decisions – Reform program approval process – Consider regional coordination

Senate Bill 1143, Liu• Community colleges: student success and

completion: taskforce and plan.• …would require the BoG to adopt a plan for

promoting and improving student success…• … would require the taskforce to develop and

present specified recommendations to the BoG…

• … would require the board, prior to implementation of the plan, to report the contents of the plan, and the recommendations of the taskforce, to specified legislative committees by March 1, 2012.

Defining Student Success

• Who should be defining “student success”?

Faculty Authority – Title 5 § 53200

• # 5 of the “10 + 1”• (c) “Academic and professional matters” means the

following policy development and implementation matters: – (1) curriculum, including establishing prerequisites and placing

courses within disciplines; – (2) degree and certificate requirements; – (3) grading policies; – (4) educational program development; – (5) standards or policies regarding student preparation

and success; – (11) other academic and professional matters as are mutually

agreed upon between the governing board and the academic senate.

How do we define student success?

1. Can the myriad student goals be systematized into a system of metrics that can be used to objectively quantify student success?

2. What metrics would you propose for measuring student success?

3. What alternatives to clearly defined metrics might be used to measure student success?

4. What data do we not currently collect that we need in order to accurately track and understand our students?

5. As higher educational professionals, should we have goals for our students that exceed their goals for themselves?