Running Head: FINAL

CSP 560: Take Home Final Katie Mey Western Illinois University

FINAL Conditions that Matter and Academic Advising

The Office of Academic Advising within the division of student affairs can play a crucial role in creating conditions that matter by supporting all students but, perhaps particularly the increasing number of academically and otherwise at risk students arriving on campuses of institutions of higher education. They may also be especially key in meeting the needs of the influx of Millennial students on our campuses who, according to Keeling (2003), lack academic planning skills necessary for success and, as we know, may be highly dependent on the involvement of their parents in decision making. The same is also true of the potential importance of academic advisers in supporting the growing population of first generation students arriving on our campuses. The first step, then, that academic advisers can take towards the goal of facilitating opportunities for successful learning and playing key roles in aiding students as they navigate the college environment and creating their college experience is being aware of who the students arriving at their doorsteps are, at least demographically speaking. Another important step is sharing this knowledge with faculty and others on campus who will be working with these students, as is the practice at Wheaton College (Kuh, 2010 p 214). Though we surely want to avoid boxing in our students, failing to take into account the affect that population characteristics may have on the potential for success in the current environment as well as the generalizable needs groups of students are bringing with them to campus. According to Kuh and colleagues (2010) Student Success in College there are also a number of specific approaches to providing incoming students with the resources necessary to acclimate to their new environment as well as aiding all students in successful navigation of their academic plan and overall college experiences. Best practices for creating conditions that matter in which an Office of Academic Advising (OAA) can help facilitate include the implementation of summer

FINAL bridge or other enhanced transition programs and the creation of a wide spread and well connected safety net across campus to catch struggling students. In this essay, I will discuss the role that an OAA can play in the implementation of each of these practices as well as the importance of OAAa involvement. Summer bridge programs, extended orientations, and first year seminars are practices cited in the Kuh (2010) text that can play a role in creating conditions that matter on a campus. Such programs can be particularly useful in providing students with the resources and skills necessary to navigate institutional bureaucracy as well as their academic plan and co-curricular experience. Early introduction to the campus environment and resources can help first year and transfer students who identify with populations that have historically been underserved with a knowledge base of institutional resources that exist to support their success in college. Time

spent interacting with peers, faculty, and academic support staff including academic advisers can facilitate connections with campus as well as provide a road map to institutionalized resources. Programs such as the POSSE (Pathways to Student Success and Excellence) can be of particular importance to encouraging the success of academically and economically disadvantaged students by providing the encouragement necessary for such students to take advantage of tutoring services and faculty office hours effectively (Kuh, 2010 p 116). These practices can help send the important message to students that yes, academic standards are rigorous and they should expect to work hard, but success is possible for all students and they can find support across campus to aid them in achieving it themselves (Kuh. 2010). The OAA can be particularly involved in elements of bridge programs or first year seminar courses by advocating for the presentation of informational materials and the inclusion of other components dedicated to supporting academically underprepared or at risk students to

FINAL meet high expectations. Advocating for the inclusion of academic course work in summer bridge programs or the inclusion of study skills and test taking advice components in first year seminar courses are some examples of strategies that the OAA can play a key role in implementing. The OAA can also be intentional about the image it presents regarding the accessibility of academic advising staff and faculty advisers. Cultivating connection and

relationships early (for instance during orientation, bridge programs, or a first year seminar in the fall semester) and maintaining them throughout the students tenure, as is the practice at Longwood University, (Kuh, 2010 p 213) or at least until the student transitions successfully to a relationship with their major related faculty adviser, is another practice that the OAA can undertake to support both disadvantaged students as well as the population of Millennial students used to close support in their academic endeavors in successfully navigating academic work as well as managing their goals and degree plan. Another area in which the OAA can act as a key player in creating conditions that matter at an institution is the development of wide spread and well connected safety net across campus that institutionalizes communication about academic and social well being of students. Such a net allows multiple points of connection to students to send up red sparks (yup, Harry Potter reference necessary) to alert others involved in supporting students (such as counselors, advisers, good hearted groundskeepers, faculty, and other support staff) when students are struggling. A seamless net is integrated into the social fabric of an institution and connects all areas that have frequent contact with or responsibility for the success of various students and student populations for new students, for instance, academic advising, first year experience, residential life, and faculty to facilitate the sharing of information about the status of students, particularly in instances of concern. Some institutions create such networks by establishing a position that

FINAL integrates shared physical space and responsibilities between offices, as is the case between residential life and academic advising staff in the position of first year advisers (live-in

residential coordinators who also provide academic advising support to first year students in their facilities) at Miami University. Others train faculty or other staff teaching first year seminars in best practices for academic advising and assign them class cohorts of advisees consisting of some or all of the students they teach each semester, as is the case at Macalester and Wheaton Colleges (Kuh, 2010 p 246). Furthermore, the OAA should ensure that a developmental model of advising is implemented throughout these nets by advocating for policies supporting this approach as well as by providing necessary training to other entities and individuals (Miller & Murray, 2005). Whatever iteration they take, it is important that these nets be seamless, integrated, and redundant on a campus.

FINAL Assessment and I-E-O The mission statement of Grand Valley State University (GVSU) reads: Grand Valley State University educates students to shape their lives, their professions, and their societies. The

university contributes to the enrichment of society through excellent teaching, active scholarship, and public service. (Grand Valley State University, 2007) GVSU requires that each academic department and student life area establish appropriate Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for the students enrolled in their courses, involved in their programs, or utilizing their services. The institution has created a University Assessment Committee (UAC) to serve as the guide for the creation and implementation of consistent assessment practices across campus. To ensure implementation of UAC policy and recommendations, the institution has also developed the position of Assessment and Accreditation Officer (AAO) within the Provosts Office. To ensure that each area is able to assess achievement relative to the SLOs they have identified, the institution has also created the position of Assistant Director of Assessment (ADA) to provide training and support relative to SLO assessment. GVSU relies on the development of local visions, missions, goals, and SLOs that are in line with and support appropriately the overall academic mission of the institution. To this end, the UAC, AAO, and ADA have developed materials to be proliferated throughout the institution that outline the history, intent, and underlying assumptions of the process of SLO assessment across campus to help guide pragmatic and context appropriate implementation in all specific instances. (Grand Valley State University, 2008) The intent of the UAC and GVSU leadership is to develop a comprehensive, multi-level, cyclical assessment structure that permeates the institution and aids in the process of continuous improvement in which administrators, faculty, students and external organizations are engaged in examining and refining all aspects of the

FINAL universitys operations including its academic components, its administrative functions, its facilities, its policies and procedures, its impacts on students, and its relationships with the

broader community and world. (Grand Valley State University, 2008) The cycle of assessment occurs on GVSUs campus over the course of three years, with each year between devoted to planning and data collection respectively. This is intended to ensure that SLO plans are revised based on assessment every third year. This assessment is intended to occur at every level, from individual courses to programs, departments, offices, divisions, and university wide. This is how GVSU gathers data intended to assess its achievement of institutional SLOs and thus its institutional mission. Though this assessment practice seems thorough and efficient as outlined, I believe that it is deficient in terms of implementation of the I-E-O model. Comprehensive assessment based on the I-E-O model means including an initial assessment of the student population arriving on your campus each year. Thus, assessment bust begin as soon as student interaction with the institution does and result in as accurate and comprehensive a picture of the student population in areas related to likelihood and risk for success in achieving the desired SLOs as possible. This is necessary in order to gain any true sense of what the value added of institutional policies, practices, and environments is to gains in areas pertaining to these outcomes. Take, as an example, the component of GVSUs espoused mission related to public service. In order to assess the achievement of the intended outcome of promoting public service, GVSU must measure variables like the average amount of time spent on volunteerism or service learning as well as the level of understanding and purpose for involvement for its incoming class of students. It then must assess the rates of growth or decline related to not simply the quantitative element of service hours completed but also the qualitative depth of understanding related to the

FINAL understanding of social and individual concepts related to as well as depth of reflection on and commitment to the principle of public service, among other factors. One way that GVSU might implement such assessment of outcomes based on a specific environmental factor related to this

institutional SLO is to measure these factors within its student population at intake implement a practice such as mandatory co-curricular service to the community coupled with a reflection and/or dialogue component, and use the outputs from this component to assess the impact of this specific environmental practice on the achievement of desired outcomes.

FINAL Customer Service and Education

Education is the business of learning. The business of producing learning is an inherently different than most other business products. First, learning cannot be produced independently of an individual and therefore cannot be created on an assembly line. Thus, the type of cost effective, efficient practices used in typical means of the business of production are not highly applicable in the higher education setting. To mechanize the process of education implies trying to create the same products (outputs) with different materials (inputs) by passing them through a standardized process (environments). Adaptability is necessary in the environments created by institutions of higher education in order to ensure that the diverse inputs they receive can all access and engage in the process necessary to allow them to successfully become adult citizens prepared to engage in and with society in a beneficial manner. It is no more possible to create a standard process of turning every type of tree into good flooring planks than it is to create such a process to transform every type of young person who enters into a successful adult. We may all be trees, but we come in different types with associated different harness, color, and grain type, not to mention our individual histories related to the components necessary for survival and thriving evidenced in our particular ring patterns. Also, inherent in the business model is the principle of customer service. Customer service is about making the customer as satisfied as possible related to your particular business or product at any given time. This is not what learning is about. In fact, one feature of practices that promote the business of education and the production of learning is that they often make the student (customer) uncomfortable as the sayings go, learning begins where your comfort zone ends, or, if you are not crying, you are not learning. In all seriousness, learning real, deep, transformative learning is an expansion of the self to include something more. Making space

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for that something more can be an uncomfortable process and this does not necessarily lend itself to customer satisfaction. So, the inherent values of at least this primary feature of the business model, which prioritizes customer service, and the model used in the business of education, which prioritizes good pedagogy and the facilitation of learning, are often in conflict. (Especially since we arent acculturated to appreciate learning and thus be patient with the discomfort that comes with it- and I personally will volunteer myself as a case in point.) As Sarah Schoper has been known to say, support does not mean removing the challenge (Schoper, Personnal Communication, 2013). Removing the challenge is exactly the aim of the customer service model. It is the opposite of what the most successful institutions of higher education [DEEP schools, as profiled in Kuh and colleagues (2010) Student Success in College] do. Common practice among these institutions is to communicate to students early and often that expectations are high, but that they are attainable for all. Though in the text the authors refer at many points to a primarily academic set of standards, they discuss through the book that expectations for student achievement and learning in all domains is high at these institutions. At these DEEP institutions, which facilitate higher rates of success in assessed areas of learning and development than average given the inputs of the student populations they serve, it would not be common practice to remove the challenge of dealing with difference and developing a sense of cultural competence by allowing a student to simply opt out of interactions with diverse others in any setting whether that be in terms of academic, residential, campus involvement, or otherwise. In situations of conflict, discomfort, or culture clash, operating on the basis of a business model with the emphasis on customer service, institutions should simply allow students to select their choices, as the customer is always right. False students are coming to institutions of higher education precisely because there are things they do not yet now

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and things that they think they know that they are wrong about. (Again, I volunteer my first year undergraduate or graduate self as tribute, I mean, example.) Developmentally, students are not always capable of seeing what can benefit them in the long game. What is more, even if they can, they may not be able to facilitate opportunities designed to provide the benefits of acquiring knowledge that they do not yet have, even if they recognize that they need or want it. I would ask the president if they would trust a company like Chick-fil-a (and yes, organizational ethical positions are quite intentionally highlighted with the choice of this business) to provide dinner intended to provide a sufficient introduction to American food and culture at their home for a visiting international dignitary. Or, perhaps more pointedly, if they would have attained the level of learning, appreciation for education, and life outcomes they currently enjoy if the CEO of that corporation had been in charge of implementing the same model they use to ensure quality control when making chicken sandwiches to his educational experience.

FINAL Reference

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Bowen H. (1977). Goals: The intended outcomes of higher education (pp. 31-59). Investment in learning: The individual and social value of American Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Davis, T. (2011). In this age of consumerism, what are the implications of giving students what they want? in P. Magolda & M. B. Baxter Magolda (Eds.), Contested issues in student affairs: Diverse perspectives and respectful dialogue (Chapter 5). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. DeBard, R. (2004). Millennials coming to college. In M. Coomes & R. DeBard (Eds.) Serving the millennial generation (Chapter 3, 33-46). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Grand Valley State University. (2007) Strategic Positioning 2010-2015. Retrieved from: http://www.gvsu.edu/strategicplanning/mission-8.htm Grand Valley State University. (2008) The underlying assumptions of GVSUs assessment of student learning outcomes. Retrieved from: www.gvsu.edu/.../assets/B8AD748BF1BE-C0A8-A2463EB026FEEEFD/gvsu_assessment_guiding_principles_2.pdf Keeling, S. (2003). Advising the Millennial Generation. NACADA Journal 23 (1&2) pp. 30-36. Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2010). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. Jossey-Bass. Miller, M.A. & Murray, C. (2005). Advising academically underprepared students. Retrieved from NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources. Retrieved from: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Clearinghouse/View-Articles/Academicallyunderprepared-students.aspx

FINAL Renn, K. A., & Reason, R. D. (2012). College Students in the United States: Characteristics, Experiences, and Outcomes. Jossey-Bass.

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