Academic and Student Affairs in Collaboration

Creating a Culture of Student Success

Mitchell A. Levy, Bernard A. Polnariev, Mitchell A. Levy, Bernard A. Polnariev

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317430490
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Istruzione superiore

Academic and Student Affairs in Collaboration provides a comprehensive and evidenced-based understanding of the partnerships necessary to achieve an institutional culture devoted to student success. Chapter authors explore how to design, implement, and assess collaborative efforts between student and academic affairs in support of increased student success. This book provides best practices for fostering and enhancing campus dialogue, career development pathways, academic support services, and other important initiatives to increase retention and learning outcomes, improve motivation and goal attainment, and enhance institutional accountability. This book is a must-read for scholars, faculty, leaders, and practitioners in Student Affairs and Higher Education interested in achieving student success at their universities and colleges.

1
Promoting Student Success via Collaboration

Bernard A. Polnariev and Mitchell A. Levy

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein (attributed)

Our Philosophy and Approach

The research presented by the contributors throughout this book illustrates the value of intentionally linking Student Affairs success initiatives with the primacy and centrality of the Academic Affairs mission. Fundamentally, we espouse an institutional culture providing a network of holistic support that engages both the “dotted and solid” lines found within organizational charts. As discussed more thoroughly throughout the book, researchers have found the following five major tenets help form the backbone of our values for an improved higher education system:

1. Student success matters! Student success should be the driving force behind practically all of our professional activities. College leaders ought to “share mutual goals that are well defined and place student success at the center of the work” (Kinzie & Kuh, 2004, p. 4). Forming and sustaining the conditions that foster student success in higher education institutions has never been more important (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006). Valencia College’s President Sanford Shugart poignantly said “student success is the most important mission we have” (as cited by Kimmens, 2014, p. 57).
2. Student learning matters! We should conduct outcomes assessment as if learning matters most (Angelo, 1999; see also Gannon-Slater, Ikenberry, Jankowski, & Kuh, 2014). As one of two priorities in need of urgent reform as identified in his revised book on Higher Education in America, Dr. Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, stresses that we must “increase not only the quantity of students graduating from college but the amount they learn while they are there” (2015, p. 409). Collaborative approaches to improving learning outcomes are paramount to transforming higher education.
3. Collaboration across Academic Affairs and Student Affairs boundaries matters! Such partnership has been documented to increase student integration and engagement within the college community (e.g. Love & Love, 1995; Kezar, 2003; Kuh, 1996; Polnariev, McGowan, & Levy, 2010). Collaboration is essential for any significant organizational reform; faculty “must collaborate within and across departments [and divisions] to systematically build those [valued] outcomes across curricula” (Jenkins, 2014, p. 7). Regrettably, collaboration between faculty and Student Affairs staff is relatively rare (Banta & Kuh, 1998).
4. Faculty–student interactions matter! Faculty–student connections are vital for student achievement (Tinto, 2012). Consistent and frequent faculty contact is the most important factor in student involvement and motivation (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). The more time faculty give to their students, the more likely are students to graduate (Tinto, 1982). Kezar and Maxey (2014) emphasize that faculty–student interactions are pivotal in promoting student success. They conclude that “all faculty members can foster their students’ development through substantive faculty student interaction” (p. 38).
5. Curricular infusion and systemic approaches matter! Such an approach is fundamental to efficacious teaching and learning in higher education. Providing students with a “big picture” of the main topics within specific courses and majors, and how they fit together, helps to improve learning outcomes— the aim is for “instructional program coherence” ( Jenkins, 2014).

Collaboration and Student Success

From 2009 to 2012, we trained over 100 diverse faculty members in developmental advisement and goal-clarification activities that have been used to foster student success. We took our show on the road—presenting at various national conferences and a few webinars encouraging others to promote student success by forging relationships and collaborations across academic and Student Affairs. In March 2012, we received the “2011 NASPA Student Affairs Partnering with Academic Affairs (SAPAA) Promising Practices Award” for our Art of Advising faculty professional development seminar series. Shortly after winning the award, we began serving on various NASPA¹ (the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators) groups, including the NASPA–SAPAA Promising Practices Award nomination review committee helping to support other cross-divisional collaborations across the nation. Not only is it exciting to endorse such activities, but also witness first-hand the great collaborative initiatives that continue to gain momentum throughout the country. As proposal reviewers, we provide our colleagues with a clear and transparent rubric to help guide them as to what our team (and field) is looking for. Specifically, we currently rate² submissions based on the following five dimensions: 1) Integration and Innovation, 2) Partnership, 3) Sustainability, 4) Outcomes and 5) Support. We encourage you to view the definitions of each dimension identified on the SAPAA Promising Practices award rubric³ and consider applying for the prestigious award.

Before we proceed to our research findings, two key terms are essential to define and operationalize: “collaboration” and “student success.” Gray (1989) defines collaboration as “a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible” (as cited by Myers, 2014, p. 2). Generally, “student success represents academic achievement, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, satisfaction, acquisition of desired knowledge, skills, and competencies, persistence, and attainment of educational objectives” (Kuh et al., 2006). We of course support both definitions and perspectives but would also endorse an even broader definition as it would bolster an institution’s mission. In moving toward a more systemic approach within higher education, Patrick Terenzini acknowledged that there are multiple forms of college “success” as part of his keynote address at the NACADA⁴ 31st Annual Conference on Academic Advising in 2007. He (2007) identified a handful of student success metrics below:

• knowledge acquisition and cognitive development;
• various forms of psycho-social development;
• enhance moral reasoning skills;
• attitudes and values formation, refinement and application;
• education attainment;
• economic and occupational rewards;
• quality of life.

Purpose and Need

One of the greatest imperatives faced by colleges and universities is the need to increase student success while confronting diminishing resources and a continually evolving complexity of student needs. In the preface of their new book addressing college student success, Castleman and his colleagues (2015) argue that “diminishing financial barriers and improving academic preparation require both systemic change and significant ongoing investment” (Castleman, Schwartz, & Baum, 2015, p. vii). In Dr. Thomas Bailey’s new book on Redesigning America’s Community Colleges he and his co-authors similarly stress that “Colleges face a difficult situation: They are being asked to improve their performance without being able to count on additional revenue. And they are doing this in an environment of greater public scrutiny, skepticism, and criticism of college per formance” (Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015, p. 2). Furthermore, institutions face rapid technological change, and increased demands for accountability that require college leaders to examine their institutions more deeply, and, possibly, from differ ent perspectives in order to thrive (Garza Mitchell & Maldanado, 2015). Recent legislation disseminated via federal policymakers has called for increased account ability regarding the missions espoused by our institutions of higher education. For purposes of clarity, “accountability,” as defined by Dr. Peter Ewell, Vice President at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems,⁵ refers “to the constellation of mechanisms that colleges and universities employ to demonstrate to their external publics that they are responsible stewards of the resources invested in them, that they are soundly managed, and that they produce the kinds of results that they are expected to produce” (Ewell 2005, p. 104).

With an immensely powerful accountability spotlight on American higher education systems, leaders are largely absorbed with enrollment targets, student retention and graduation outcomes. College retention, or as Dr. John M. Braxton and his colleagues (2014) have referred to it, “student departure” represents an enduring problem for higher education at-large, as well as for public policymakers at all levels (Braxton, Doyle, Hartley III, Hirschy, Jones, & McLendon, 2014). The significance of student persistence to the achievement of several markers of college student success, coupled with the adverse impact of attrition on the stability of institutional enrollments, budgets and public perceptions of educational quality, starkly supports the need for strategic actions by college and university constituents in order to increase student retention rates (Braxton et al., 2014). A cursory review of the disturbingly low graduation and retention rates of low socio-economic status and underrepresented student cohorts, among others, indicates many of the traditional models of student success have not worked. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues have confirmed our own observations regarding current practices: utilization of the same traditional approaches, in the same manner, again and again. Based on our research and collective expertise garnered across 45-plus years in higher education, it is evident that college administrators must do more than merely “think outside the box”: they need to assume there is no box. Consequently, to foster greater student success, we propose a paradigm shift from traditional approaches to a more holistic and systemic perspective. Specifically, we recommend the infusion of student success initiatives (e.g. addressing increased retention, increased motivation and increased persistence rates) throughout institutional culture.

Why is Collaboration Necessary?

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education emphasized that “student success can only be attained through integrated and sustained strategies and programs that are part of an institutional culture” (2012, p. 25). Throughout our careers in higher education, we have also observed that regardless of how well-intentioned a particular student success initiative, if it operates in isolation (in a “silo”), the likelihood of that program having significant and sustained positive outcomes is greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Too often, we have observed singular student support programs (such as workshops, activities, student success seminars, etc.) designed and implemented without any meaningful link to the vast array of other academic and co-curricular programs on campus. In fact, we regard the belief that a series of disconnected, one-shot programs developed without student input or a link to other programs will have a meaningful impact on student success as a symptom (delusion) of “institutional schizophrenia” (see Levy, Polnariev, & McGowan, 2011). Unfortunately, this has frequently been the “tried and true” approach to promoting student development and success, with less than stellar results.

Undoubtedly, continuing to follow the same path of marginal success or ineffectiveness can be demoralizing for students, staff and faculty alike. In addition, we fervently believe that the students we purport to serve deserve better. Moreover, we contend that our students have the right to expect the best we can offer. It is our contention that a menu of workshops that are sparsely (if at all) attended, based on the long-standing assumptions of educators without student input, with no valid assessment of impact on student learning or perception, is ultimately disrespectful to the students we are obligated to serve. We however applaud those who have moved the dialogue regarding student success outcomes forward so “the past fifteen years have seen accountability become a more important mandate in higher education” (Berger & Lyon, 2005, p. 26). Dr. George Kuh and his colleagues’ (2010) book on Student Success in College powerfully describes programs, policies and practices that colleges should consider.

Where Does Assessment Fit In?

Assessment of program and institutional goals are of paramount value if done correctly, and for the right reasons. Accreditation notwithstanding, the impetus for assessment should be driven by internal institutional needs, including the use of assessment evidence to support academic program reviews, update curricula, revise learning goals and advance educational effectiveness (Gannon-Slater et al., 2014); the assessment process must align and validate the college’s defined mission. As one of several recommendations made by Kuh and his colleagues, they maintain that higher education institutions “must cultivate an institutional culture that values gathering and using student learning outcomes data as integral to fostering student success and increasing institutional effectiveness” (Kuh, Jankowski, Ikenberry, & Kinzie, 2014, p. 35). They further posit that the use of assessment to inform institutional actions in order to continually improve student outcomes—essentially, the “closing of the loop”—remains minimally used across the nation (p. 35). Peter Ewell (1997) boldly notes that assessment “for the most part been attempted piecemeal within and across institutions” (as cited by Angelo, 1999, p. 3). For most institutions, assessment has largely been patchwork across and within divisions for the sake of accreditation instead of a systemic and systematic approach, infused across the curriculum, and for the sake of increased learning and student success.

In one of the formative articles on outcomes assessment, Dr. Thomas Angelo (1999) encourages leaders in academia to more seriously “plan and conduct our assessment proj...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Tables
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Promoting Student Success via Collaboration
• SECTION I Curricular Infusion
• SECTION II Faculty Engagement and Targeted Student Programs
• SECTION III Creating Collaborative Synergy
• Index