This Week in Student Success

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It has been a minute. Over the break, I caught up on some student success-related reading. What did I find? Plenty.

For some faculty, community college coursework isn’t prior learning, it’s suspicious luggage that must be unpacked and repacked by the authorities

This one might be filed less under “interesting” and more under “crazy making.” A new faculty-led study from the City University of New York (CUNY) examined faculty attitudes toward vertical transfer, that is, student transfer from community or associate programs into four-year bachelor’s programs.

It’s a critical issue. Many students who start at community colleges hope to transfer and complete a bachelor’s degree, but relatively few ultimately do. As the researchers explain.

Faculty play a vital role in facilitating vertical transfer, including advising students on transfer pathways, evaluating transfer credits, determining whether accepted credits apply to electives or the major, supporting students after transfer, and participating in policy and articulation processes.

Yet few studies have examined how faculty themselves view vertical transfer, or how those attitudes shape credit decisions. To address this gap, the researchers surveyed faculty across 20 institutions in the CUNY system (seven community colleges, three comprehensive associate/bachelor’s colleges, and 10 bachelor’s colleges).

Nearly 4,000 responses reveal a set of stark and, frankly, dispiriting differences between two- and four-year faculty perspectives.

Both groups are skeptical of faculty in the other sector when it comes to transfer readiness and credit decisions and each believes that they should make the decisions about transferability.

But because vertical transfer typically flows from the associate to the bachelor’s level, the most frustrating finding is this: faculty at four-year institutions disproportionately believe that students should retake community-college courses after they transfer.

Additionally the vast majority of four-year institution faculty believe that students should defer taking courses in their major until after they have transferred.

What makes this even more frustrating is that, across the board, faculty report limited understanding of transfer policy and practice at their own institutions, and the knowledge gap is even wider among four-year faculty. In fact, faculty at four-year colleges are the least informed group in the sample. For example.

These results are especially depressing because the study was conducted within the CUNY system, a single public network of institutions with a stated commitment to access and transfer mobility. If this is the state of faculty knowledge here, it is reasonable to assume the picture is even more strained beyond CUNY.

As a solution, the authors propose improving faculty access to information about transfer policy and encouraging better understanding between the associate and bachelor’s sectors. This feels like weak sauce, not because the diagnosis is wrong, but because the prescription collides with their own evidence that faculty lack the time and incentives to master even their own transfer systems, let alone repair inter-sector perceptions.

Instead of trying a slow culture change, I believe that the only real solution to transfer woes are strong processes and articulation agreements.

Bad metaphors, and other tragedies

One of my favorite presentations on student success ever was one done by Patsy Moskal and Chuck Dziuban on metaphors in learning analytics (for example analytics as a GPS, or alternately as an ATM). I cant seem to find it, perhaps one of them can point me at a link.

But given my affection for that presentation, I was delighted to come across a piece by Peter Greene at Curmudgucation (I should sue for that title) on bad education models and the metaphors on which they rest.

Peter lists 8 of these that he finds problematic in education.

• The Empty Vessels - students as inert containers into which educators “pour” knowledge.

• Meat Widget Prep - students as workers to meet the needs of future employers.

• Engineering - students as little machines that will react predictably so long as the right steps are followed.

• The Data Stream - students as producers of data which is the real focus for both instructors and administrators.

• Consumer Good - education is a product sold to customers/students

• Osmotic Freedom - put students in the right environment and they will absorb knowledge by osmosis.

• Training Savages - students are in need of socialization and help in growing up.

• Know Your Place - education is a sorting mechanism to send people to their appropriate station in life.

It’s always worth questioning the models we lean on to explain education. The thing I wrestle with, though, is this: metaphors, like cliches, usually contain a kernel of truth. The challenge isn’t just rejecting bad metaphors, it’s rescuing the tiny insight they captured before the metaphor ran away with the narrative.

A brief history of numbers

We think so much about data in student success, its worth bearing in mind that some particular numbers have often been the source of humor.

Off-ramps

From Wendy Palmer at Lifelong Learning Edge, I learned about the new “No longer a failure if you drop out” campaign at Adelaide University (formed from the merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia). The initiative provides students with a credential whenever they choose to exit the institution. Learners who are unable or unwilling to complete a full degree can still receive a certificate or other credential recognizing the work they’ve completed.

This makes so much sense. I spend a lot of time thinking about university on-ramps, especially for online programs, but we should be thinking just as seriously about off-ramps. Too often, our mental model is all-or-nothing. Recognizing learning and progress, even when it falls short of a full degree, can help ease two thorny student success challenges

• The large population of students who earn credit but not a credential, and, closely related,

• Students who borrow for university, leave before finishing their degree, and are left holding the debt without the income lift they expected from participating in higher education.

This is a hair-on-fire emergency

Some more depressing news, this time from the Pell Institute. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Secondary Longitudinal Studies Program, the authors examined high school students’ expectations for completing at least a bachelor’s degree over a 20-year span (2002–2022). The share of students who expect to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher has dropped sharply over the past two decades.

Looking at the data in terms of the students parents level of education, it becomes much more clear that the big drop off occurs from 2009-2022.

We really need to start addressing this.

Eat your heart out libraries

This has little to do with student success, okay, nothing to do with student success. But it reminded me of automated retrieval systems in libraries, and libraries themselves are a crucial part of the student success stack. The connection is tangential, but it amused me, and frankly, we all need some cheering up.

Semi-automated retrieval at ThredUp.

Musical coda

A long time ago I used to date someone who sang in a madrigal group. Madrigals are a form of vocal music typical of the Renaissance. One of the members of the group, somewhat understandably, now teaches Classics at Standford.

But here is a rendition of the Bee Gees Staying Alive sung as a madrigal. Also are there really two guys in the video or just one, cloned?

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