TCCTA Blog

"What Excellent Community Colleges Do"

A new book is receiving notice from a variety of higher education media outlets.

What Excellent Community Colleges Do is by Joshua S. Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, which "aims to strengthen practice and develop leadership that substantially improve college student success." Here is a list of the institute's board members, which is quite impressive. The publication will be taken more seriously than the average educational treatise.

The book is published by Harvard Education Press. Here's the official promotion, with more details.

What might catch the eye of Texas community college educators is the blurb in praise of the book by Davis Jenkins, senior research associate of the Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Jenkins was a featured speaker during the recent TCCTA annual convention in San Antonio.

Here is what Dr. Jenkins says about What Excellent Community Colleges Do:

Joshua Wyner reminds us that the community college success agenda needs to be about more than increasing the number of credentials awarded. He shows how, with bold leadership—and enough time—a select group of colleges have transformed themselves in ways that not only increase graduation rates, but improve student learning and success in further education and employment, all while keeping an ‘open door’ to every student.

Dr. Jenkins' remarks were well-received during the TCCTA convention by faculty members, so his opinion on the book may resonate out there on two-year college campuses. 

Teachers are invariably on the team for improving student success, but are often concerned about maintaining standards and academic integrity, especially with the advent of outcomes-based funding. What Excellent Community Colleges Do is worth a look, at least for sharing and discussion.

So much can be done to help students succeed before they register.

Report Focuses on Men of Color

The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) has issued a new report focusing on the challenges and opportunities for community colleges in the education of Black and Latino male students.

The report, "Aspirations to Achievement: Men of Color and Community College," is based on responses from more than 145,000 students from 2010 to 2012. The report also drew on more than 30 student focus groups, the national convention of Phi Theta Kappa, and faculty and staff focus groups.

A few facts from the forward:

White students are earning college degrees at substantially higher rates than are both Black students and Latino students. We are also seeing a growing gender gap. Women have been outpacing men in undergraduate degree attainment since the mid-1990s. In 2011, U.S. women surpassed men in the number of advanced degrees earned as well.

Here is the full report, in pdf format. The document is extremely accessible, with plenty of graphic illustrations and recommendations for action. One case study involves an interesting initiative at Austin Community College in developmental math.

Faculty members will likely be impressed that "high expectations" is a key ingredient for success with all students, including the cohort under study.

Some of the report contains information known widely already, but there are a few counter-intuitive findings, for instance:

Some of the findings presented here are unexpected and deserve to be summarized once again: Even though within all student groups, higher levels of engagement are associated with higher outcomes, self-reporting among male students indicates that men of color are more engaged but have lower outcomes. Engagement clearly matters. However, Black males report the highest overall engagement, but also the lowest outcomes. Latinos are in the middle, and White males are the least engaged but report the best outcomes.

Please peruse the report's full contents. The publication is certainly worthy of discussion and sharing on your campus.

Dual Credit Expansion Raises Concerns

Are dual credit students being set up to fail? This is the question posed by a must-read article by Katherine Mangan, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. A subscription may be required, or perhaps the hard copy is in your college library (Feb. 17 issue).

From the article:

The number of dual-enrollment courses taken increased by 67 percent from 2002-3 to 2010-11, according to federal data. At schools with higher shares of minority students, the expansion has been explosive. In that eight-year span, the number of dual-credit courses taken at predominantly minority schools rose by 145 percent.

The piece is comprehensive and should be read in its entirety. However, critics of dual credit looking for statistical ammo will probably be disappointed. As Ms. Mangan points out, studies indicate that dual credit students outperform those who do not participate in the program. For think tanks and foundations (Lumina, Gates, etc.), you've got to have statistical evidence or it's irrelevant. Faculty anecdotes, which are frequent regarding pedagogical problems with dual credit, won't do in today's data-driven environment.

Successful dual credit students, by definition, are already a jump ahead, probably with abundant parental support. Obviously if your gas tank is half full, you will go farther than starting on empty.

One trend worth watching is the success rates of the newest dual credit students. When the programs first got started, they tended to attract the best students, who, statistically speaking, would likely have succeeded anyway. This is classic "cherry-picking." However, dual credit has gone mainstream.

The article does profile a student in Utah who accumulated an amazing number of credits before transferring to Brigham Young University, where he bombed out. Also mentioned is a professor at Sam Houston State University who complained in another article that one of his pre-calculus students was woefully unprepared. But these are anecdotes.

The pertinent empirical information that must be gathered involves the proportion of recent dual credit students who graduate with a baccalaureate degree, differentiated ideally by major, ethnicity, and other important variables. (One tricky part is separating those completing a dual credit course or two from those like the young man from Utah.) These graduates should be compared to peers in the same cohort who marched through the curriculum in the traditional manner.

Such numbers won't answer all questions, but it's a start.

College Data Breaches On the Rise

Cyber-attacks are continuing at an alarming pace across the country, and a growing number of colleges and universities are becoming victims, according to Mary Scott Nabers, writing in Texas Government Insider.

Texas State Technical College (TSTC), for the second time in less than a month, "sent out notifications of the possibility of personal information being compromised by a data breach," the article states. Generally at risk is students' Social Security numbers and birth dates. But these digits can lead to a lot more.

From the article:

“Our students graduate and accept jobs all over the state of Texas, so our team has worked tirelessly to research current addresses,” said TSTC Waco President Elton E. Stuckly, Jr. He said notifications had been mailed alerting former students to “remain vigilant to signs of possible misuse of their personal identity.”

Community colleges are not immune from the worst attacks. One of the largest data breaches among institutions of higher education was last year, when Maricopa Community College in Arizona notified nearly 2.5 million students, former students, employees, and even vendors, because their personal information had been exposed. "The information included names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and even bank account information," according to the piece.

It stands to reason that larger institutions are more vulnerable than smaller schools, since the prize is potentially more lucrative with a higher critical mass. However, small colleges may have fewer resources to generate an effective defense.

 

To Flip or Not to Flip

It's hard to say whether the "flipped" class is the wave of the future or another flavor of the month. The basic idea of flipping is to use recorded video lectures as homework, then devote classroom time for reinforcement, group assignments, and individualized instruction.

Some teachers like the idea, others not so much. In the latter category are those who think reading assignments are better than watching videos in terms of proper homework, and that in-class instruction, including lectures, is a superior pedagogy. However, those who teach online testify that their digital discussions are as productive—perhaps even more so with introverted students—as anything experienced in the classroom. Learning is both solitary and social.

Videos can include features that aren't found in lectures. On the other hand, you never hear anyone say his or her life was transformed forever by a video.

A recent article in Slate by Rebecca Schuman points out that one's proclivities may depend partly upon the subject being taught. Those disciplines involving quantification, such as math and science, may lend themselves more readily to the flipped approach. Fields in the humanities and liberal arts may be suited better for in-class experiences. The author's personal foray into flipping is well worth reading.

Defining the Online Student

Have you ever been asked how many online students are at your school? This would seem to be an easy one: just count those in online classes verses students enrolled in face-to-face courses. However, as Matt Reed points out, in Inside Higher Ed., it's actually complicated. Please have a look.

This is not just a matter of bean counting. Policy makers want to know which approach works better, and for many, unfortunately, it's a simple matter of how many students pass each course. Faculty members will tell you that online classes are great for mature ("self-directed") students, but this is the case with all kinds of classes, isn't it? If the older adult students shift to online instruction to fit their schedules, obviously you remove them from the statistical pool in face-to-face classes. In years past, this woudn't raise any flags, but the environment grows colder daily for those with bad numbers.

Generally there is no way to prevent an eighteen-year old from signing up for an online introductory English or math class, but many are advised against it, for good reasons. Heroic teaching and learning aside, unprepared students tend to drag down the success rates for all their courses. This raw fact could make face-to-face offerings seem less effective, when the opposite might actually be the case. Those digging for irony can hit pay dirt here.

The IHE author doesn't get into the "success" issue, but here is his tentative conclusion on present trends, which seems sensible:

As the distinction becomes less clear, in my perfect world, we’d get better at harnessing the best of each. The research I’ve seen on learning outcomes, for example, suggests that students learn the most in “hybrid” classes, but those are the ones students avoid the most. We’re experimenting with different variations on that to see where a mix of technology and direct human interaction is better than either alone. It’s still early in the process, but the direction strikes me as right.

 

Early Voting Begins

Early voting in the primary election will continue until Feb. 28. You do not have to vote in your precinct when you vote early, but you must find out the poll location(s) for your county. The primary is March 4. Here is a helpful link from the Texas Secretary of State.

State law now requires photo identification to vote. Student IDs are not sufficient.

Of paramount importance to community and technical colleges is the Texas Legislature. Keep in mind that primaries are often the "real" election, since districts are carefully drawn to maximize partisan strength. There are many contested races, especially in the Republican primary. Turnout tends to be lower in primaries, however, which means that your vote is more likely to make a difference.

Here is an interesting article in the Texas Tribune by Ross Ramsey on the various races.

Faculty Leaders Object to New Core

The faculty senates at all five Alamo Colleges in San Antonio have united to oppose an institutional core curriculum change, saying the district administration "proposed and pushed it without adequately including faculty and college administrators," according to an article in the San Antonio Express-News by Jennifer R. Lloyd.

(Presently the article is not available on the newspaper's Web site. The information in this post is taken from the print edition on February 18.)

The district wants to drop a humanities class and replace it with an education course, EDUC 1300, a "learning framework course with a heavy focus on leadership strategies—including lessons outlined in Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," the article reports.

Administrators last month asked the Coordinating Board to approve an amendment to the district's course curriculum request for 2014-15. The coordinating board will issue its final decision by March 1, a THECB spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, said, according to the the article.

From the piece:

The Alamo Colleges Super Senate is slated to meet with Leslie on Friday to discuss the matter, said Gregory Hudspeth, an associate government professor and president of St. Philip's College's faculty senate.

"There has been opposition to this change from Day One," he said.

In a letter to faculty, Leslie acknowledged their opposition to including the course in the core but said they have been "intimately involved" in discussions on it.

He said he had to make a decision in the best interest of students before January and that including EDUC 1300 in the core requirements makes the credit transferable to other schools. Because community colleges are "legislatively limited generally to a 60-hour degree, we can't just add it on top of everything else," Leslie wrote.

For background on the new core curriculum, please see this previous post.

The Cost of Free Tuition

The idea of providing free tuition for community college students is catching on in several states, according to a recent article by Mary Scott Nabers, CEO of Strategic Partnerships, Inc., in the Texas Government Insider. For background, see this previous post.

Ms. Nabors reports that, in addition to Tennessee, Oregon and Mississippi are studying similar initiatives. She cites Rey Garcia, president of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, in estimating that such a move here in Texas would cost more than $1 billion. (General Revenue for this year of the biennium is around $25 billion for all levels of education.)

From the article:

The TACC official pointed out that a uniform free tuition would knock out a substantial amount of revenue to community colleges because every college relies on tuition to make up for declining state revenue. It is likely the tuition funding would be less than state funding is today. Garcia said the better way to increase access to community and technical colleges would be to offer additional student financial aid.

Please read the entire piece.

It's an interesting concept to consider from an instructional point of view. Free tuition and fees would undoubtedly increase enrollment. But what would be the effect upon retention? There is something to be said for "skin in the game" in terms of student (and parental) commitment. Potential adverse consequences can focus the mind.

However, most plans under discussion emphasize persistence and good grades as statutory requirements for retaining the benefit. Also, states would typically provide funds only for students who are eligible for federal Pell Grants.

Current financial aid programs are hotly debated in terms of retention. Students who have demonstrated academic ability are more likely to earn a degree or credential, but targeting these individuals tends to leave out the poorest applicants.

Librarians Rock!

If your image of librarians fits a classic stereotype (of, say, Marian the Librarian from "The Music Man" or the character Neil Klugman in Philip Roth's "Goodbye Columbus"), it's time to wake up and smell the decaying cellulose. Mmmmm…books. Change is happening faster than you can say Dewey Decimal System.

Libraries are transforming their mission due largely to digital communication, so it stands to reason that the professionals who work there would change, too. The stereotype was probably always bogus, but new means of communication has helped underscore diversity at all kinds of libraries, including those at colleges and universities.

A recent article in Slate by Jordan G. Teicher featuring photographs by Kyle Cassidy ought to put to rest any lingering images of fussy, nerdy, or frumpy librarians. You gotta love the pink-haired woman at the top of the list saying "Shhhh!!" to talkative kids.

Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury once noted, "Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future." That might be a stretch, but it's easy to see what he meant.