Becoming a Student-Ready College

A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success

Tia Brown McNair, Susan Albertine, Michelle Asha Cooper, Nicole McDonald, Thomas Major

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781119119524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Administration de l'éducation

Boost student success by reversing your perspective on college readiness

The national conversation asking "Are students college-ready?" concentrates on numerous factors that are beyond higher education's control. Becoming a Student-Ready College flips the college readiness conversation to provide a new perspective on creating institutional value and facilitating student success. Instead of focusing on student preparedness for college (or lack thereof), this book asks the more pragmatic question of what are colleges and universities doing to prepare for the students who are entering their institutions? What must change in an institution's policies, practices, and culture in order to be student-ready?

Clear and concise, this book is packed with insightful discussion and practical strategies for achieving your ambitious student success goals. These ideas for redesigning practices and policies provide more than food for thought—they offer a real-world framework for real institutional change. You'll learn:

• How educators can acknowledge their own biases and assumptions about underserved students in order to allow for change
• New ways to advance student learning and success
• How to develop and value student assets and social capital
• Strategies and approaches for creating a new student-focused culture of leadership at every level

To truly become student-ready, educators must make difficult decisions, face the pressures of accountability, and address their preconceived notions about student success head-on. Becoming a Student-Ready College provides a reality check based on today's higher education environment.

CHAPTER ONE
In Search of the Student-Ready College

In higher education, college administrators and faculty often talk about their desire to identify better and more college-ready students. They want students who come to college ready to learn and ready for the rigors of postsecondary education. On the surface, having college-ready students is a worthy goal. However, this assumes that most students are not ready to handle the rigors of postsecondary education. In actuality, that's not completely true. Most students aspire to college, and many have taken steps to prepare for college. While it is true that a sizable percentage of today's college students struggle academically, even then, these students should have viable postsecondary options available to them. In this search for the college-ready student, we put the burden of readiness and preparation on the student, when in reality, preparing today's students for the rigors of college should be a shared responsibility. Just imagine if we focused on the other side of that coin, and instead of seeking the ideal student, we became the ideal college. The college that was prepared for today's students, regardless of their backgrounds and academic strengths and challenges. What if we became a student-ready college? Interesting concept, isn't it?

But what does that really mean? What does it mean to be a student-ready college? Being a student-ready college requires more than a mission or diversity statement that touts philosophical ideals of inclusiveness. Being a student-ready college even means more than expressed commitments to inclusion and student-centeredness. A student-ready college is one that strategically and holistically advances student success, and works tirelessly to educate all students for civic and economic participation in a global, interconnected society.

At student-ready colleges, all services and activities—from admissions, to the business office, to the classroom, and even to campus security—are intentionally designed to facilitate students' progressive advancement toward college completion and positive post-college outcomes. Student-ready colleges are committed not only to student achievement, but also to organizational learning and institutional improvement. At student-ready colleges, all principles and values are aligned with the mission of the institution, and those beliefs are shared among members of the broader campus community. Student-ready colleges offer a holistic approach to leadership that empowers all members of the campus community to serve as leaders and educators.

In this book, we will explore the ecosystem of the student-ready college. We intend to think systemically and to offer an organic model based on ideas and practices we have learned from our years of work with campuses. College campuses often function as an ecosystem. Sometimes it is in good health; sometimes it is not so healthy, but in need of nurturing and change. Growth always occurs one way or another. And the campus ecosystem doesn't exist in isolation. Campuses are part of the web or network of life in a community. Surrounded by and interconnected with other organizations and social structures, businesses and civic bodies, the campus participates in the life of the community. At the state and national level, the campus is interconnected systemically in a host of ways. Funding, regulations, laws, business practices, health and wellness functions, and the daily stuff of life—food, water, housing, transportation—all connect the campus to its broader community, its state, and the nation. When we think about the meaning and practice of leadership of the student-ready college, it is this environmental and organic meaning that we emphasize.

This book is written by five deeply committed leaders from the higher education community. Through our collective experience and wisdom, we have served higher education in a variety of leadership positions, within academic institutions and alongside them. We have worked with policy and philanthropic leaders who seek to advance and support efforts aligned with increased college attainment. Our commitment to today's students—and the institutions that serve them well—are reflected in our recommendations.

Through this collaboration, we endeavor to highlight the most promising and innovative practices we have witnessed across the community. Although the strategies outlined in this book can be undertaken by individual leaders alone, we recommend a collective approach—bringing together administrators and faculty across the college community to mobilize these efforts. Additionally, we suggest steps for partnering with those outside the campus community, as sustained progress will require partnerships—both internal and external—that can engage in a concerted, sustained effort.

The examples we offer are not exhaustive, but they reflect a range of interventions occurring all across the postsecondary community. But even with these enterprising models and initiatives, there is still a dearth of resources for institutional leaders to draw from. We hope this book adds to the collection of tools and resources that faculty, administrators, policy and philanthropic leaders, and all those who care about today' college students can draw upon for practical solutions.

A New Concept: Student-Ready Colleges

The goal of becoming a student-ready college is not difficult to embrace for most educators. In fact, if this concept were more prevalent, we believe that more people would readily embrace it. After all, supporting students is an aspiration of all campus leaders. Although we suspect that many will resonate with this concept, we also recognize that, for some, enacting our recommendations may pose a challenge. The problem is not really a lack of will; rather, some colleges are simply not structured to support this level of engagement; for others, there is no expectation or requirement to be student-centric; and there are still others who struggle with competing pressures and demands. When faced with these factors, some institutional leaders—even those sensitive to student needs and diversity—may fall back on old subconscious habits, which expect students to conform to traditional norms and standards. This approach often hurts students, as it leads to feelings of isolation and disconnection, the precursors to poor performance and outcomes. Also, this approach perpetuates the status quo—and in the 21st century, the status quo is no longer an option.

The impetus for writing this book is a growing awareness that the realities confronting our higher education system have the potential to narrow and threaten opportunity for millions of today's students. Therefore, we desire to work alongside campus leaders and faculty to minimize these threats. As was the case for previous generations of college-goers, the issues of college accessibility, affordability, and preparation remain, but they are further complicated by demographic, economic, and technological changes that are altering how we think, learn, and work. Beyond these compounding factors, we already know that the current educational system does not support existing students well. If left unchecked, these convergent forces could have catastrophic effects on our 21st-century students. We need these students. We need them to succeed. So it is critical that we transform our institutional culture and practices to be student-ready—responsive to contemporary students' needs and realities.

For many institutional leaders, this change will require more than tweaks or marginal changes; rather, it will require an overhaul of institutional policies and practices, as well as individual and shared attitudes and values. To enable and support institutional leaders committed to being student-ready institutions, we offer this practical, action-oriented book.

The Quest for College-Ready Students: A Historical Perspective

Although our goal should be to create student-ready colleges, sometimes we fail to tackle the institutional bureaucracies and deficits hindering progress toward this goal, but opt for a different strategy. This alternative approach removes the onus for improvement from the institution—or other structural impediments—and places it squarely on the student. In this strategy, we focus our energy on searching for the ideal college student—the “college-ready student.” The vision of this college-ready student can take on a range of forms, with high-achieving, self-directed students on one end and students with high potential on the other. Regardless of where we place our vision of the ideal student along this spectrum, there is a belief among many within the higher education community that there simply are not enough of them. As a result, faculty and administrators sometimes lament the challenges of educating today's students and are nostalgic for a prior era in American higher education when the students were (seemingly) different.

Although admittedly there are differences between the students of today and previous cohorts, their similarities are fundamental. Like prior generations of students, today's students arrive at college with a desire to learn and grow both personally and professionally. Regardless of the decade in which they enter college, students believe that a college degree is a prerequisite for a good life. Students have always believed that participating and succeeding in higher education will allow them to tap into greater levels of self-awareness and capability. They also share in the expectation that college will prepare them to live and make a living. Hence, for generations, students have arrived at the doorsteps of our colleges and universities with high expectations and varying academic and personal needs. And historically, our colleges and universities have responded accordingly, seizing the opportunity to nurture and prepare these students to lead meaningful, productive lives.

Over the years, higher education has always aimed to be responsive to the concerns of its students, but the present day finds too many of us either solemn in our quest to find the ideal college student or too constrained by external forces and demands to think outside of the box. Given this, we long for and reminisce about a golden age in American higher education, when students all came to college well prepared and resources were readily available to support them. But this never was the case; the idea that an ideal student or ideal college existed “once upon a time” is nothing more than a myth. America's colleges and universities have always appealed to students with diverse interests and levels of academic preparation, and resources have always had to be negotiated. The challenge for us today is that our system of higher education has grown exponentially over the last three centuries—and growth continues. As it grows, so do the numbers of students who need additional support and preparation.

Clark Kerr wrote, “an appreciation of the evolution of higher education helps to develop perspective on contemporary issues, since historical context often reveals that our present problems are not all new ones” (as cited in Bullard, 2007, p. 12). In other words, the realities faced by today's college students simply provide a contemporary spin on issues encountered previously. A quick review of the history of higher education reveals that changing student needs have always stretched the system; and the system has, in turn, always adapted to accommodate the realities of the emergent student po...