Reminded of the trustee role in driving the success agenda, Symposium participants spent much of the two days brainstorming potential strategies.
Attendees heard presentations from an array of partners focused on student success issues, including representatives from the National School Boards Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and others.
by Design has also led to a change in mindset among its four managing partners. “What intrigued us was the capability to be transformational,” said Dr. Richard Carpenter, chancellor of Lone Star College, whose Completion by Design efforts will reach one-third of all community college students in Texas. Dr. Linda Baer, former senior program officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, stressed that trustee leadership is critical in sparking similar momentum shifts at all institutions. “We can’t invest in anything more important than the leadership of the trustees for the important work to be done — building and sustaining community colleges to optimize student success,” she said. Completion remains a key priority for the Gates Foundation because of its potential to break the cycle of poverty, Baer told attendees. However, “time is the enemy,” she said. “You have to keep insisting that you review [your colleges’] timely completion processes — not just entering and exiting, but what you do in between.” Baer also stressed the importance of community colleges working closely with workforce boards to address skill gaps that have already left jobs unfilled at a time of high unemployment. Along with Gates, Lumina Foundation for Education, and other organizations that first joined the fight to improve student success, new partners are arriving on the scene. Excelencia in Education, for example, addresses the persistent achievement gaps for Latino college students, in part by identifying programs that work through its Examples in Excelencia program. The common threads shared by successful programs include the following: alignment with institutional priorities, a focus on ongoing support that goes beyond merely improving access for minority students, outreach to students, and monitoring to ensure that programs are effective, Santiago told attendees. The Kresge Foundation, a private national philanthropy that once focused on building facilities on college campuses, now works to improve low-income minority student access
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and success, said program officer Caroline Altman Smith. “We determined that if you care about boosting college attainment and opportunity, your institutions are where the action is these days,” she said, noting that the foundation is focusing on community college completion in several key states, including Texas, Michigan, and California. “Students are taking a leap of faith when they come to your institutions,” she said. “They’re counting on you to make sure they are equitable, fair, and well-run.”
The Role of the Trustee Symposium speakers related proven practices that have emerged from the growing body of research on student completion issues, including simplifying choices for students, providing clearer pathways, engaging students through programs such as orientations, advisories, cohorts, and supplemental instruction, and tracking student progress from their first days on campus. But they also urged trustees to focus on the big picture — namely, using their governance role to ensure that their colleges weave completion into their overall mission and strategic goals. “Most colleges do not have a plan for student success,” said Dr. John Gardner, president of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. “What they have is a plethora of programs but no plan… If you owned your power with respect to the issue of student success, the conversation on the campuses you govern could be very different.” “The hardest work is not changing practice, but changing cultures,” added Dr. Kay McClenney, director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. “The board plays an extremely important role in...shifting to an understanding that access without success in 21st century America is an empty promise... and [that] we’re not talking about itty-bitty changes around the edges.” McClenney told trustees it is critical to “frame the way you