Category: Thinking

Higher Education, Thinking

Time and Space

ProvostMissy

There were a few flurries on my way to work this morning and with them came the inevitable barrage of email messages asking, “Are we closing?” Last year at this time, we did not honor the notion of a snow day because we were set up for flipping online at any moment. Everyone had equipment at home. Everyone had to be ready for all contingencies. Snow days were an old-fashioned notion that should no longer interfere with education. This year things are different. We’re back in the classroom and we want our snow days back!

Whew! As a New Englander, I am a big fan of the found moments that snow days can bring. Time to finish a project, uninterrupted. Time to shovel the snow, a task I still enjoy. Time to take a nap that I never expected to take. Except we had our first snow day on Friday, and none of this was true. That snow day was a meeting filled workday for me. Darn that Zoom/WebEx/TEAMS/GoogleMeets platform. Oh well, snow days were a nice idea.

Of course, when we all moved online in 2020, the idea that you couldn’t continue education from any location became suspect. We all stepped up the COVID-19 challenge and found a way to continue providing the best possible education in multiple, but mostly remote formats. We doubled-down on (constant) cyber-connectivity and forged a new educational path together. We adjusted to the realities of our crash courses in online instruction (and the skills we hadn’t fully mastered), the lack of sufficient coordination of online and on-ground experiences (which, made getting access to a quiet space on a computer when needed, a challenge of our students); and the experience of “zoom fatigue” that wore everyone out. We should be proud of our flexibility and responsiveness, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that even as we venture back into the classroom, our world has fundamentally changed.

It is time for us to recognize that our expectations about education and work have radically shifted and we now expect flexibility. This is why a faculty member who, prior to COVID-19, thought teaching online was totally inappropriate for their discipline, now writes at the first sign of snow – “Can I switch to online for the day?” This is why departments who have offered a few online classes for years, now don’t know how to choose who gets to teach online and who does not because now everyone wants a course or two online. They don’t understand why there might be limits to what we should offer. This why some students are irritated that they can’t get that one last course online so they can finish up, while they start a new job or relocate or otherwise juggle their education with something else. This is why people in higher education who do non-instructional work that can be just as effectively completed from home, do not understand why administration might say no to a fully remote schedule. And so on.

These shifting expectations have thrown a wrench into our typical planning processes. Sometimes our conversations get a bit heated because we are looking at each question or need from a single person’s perspective. Without fully defining the overall goals, opportunities, or problems we want to solve with flexible working and learning opportunities, decisions will appear capricious or stubborn. There is a lot to sort out here and I am really doing my best to envision the whole, even as the best paths are still eluding me. What is most important to recognize is that the questions we are asking reveal a fundamental shift in how we define higher education. That shift will have unintended consequences, so we’d better think things through. Here are a few linked thoughts that I’m wrestling with:

  1. What is the value of learning on campus? Is it essential or is it a nice to have? Does it need to happen daily, weekly, monthly? For whom is it essential? Why? If the answer is campus is less valuable than we once thought, then how many classrooms do we really need? If on-ground learning is less than essential to a good education, then do we lose the developmental part of higher education (helping teenagers become adults) that we have so heavily invested in in the United States?
  2. Is it possible to reimagine our working/learning flow in a way that makes it easy to transition between on-ground and online environments? Do we have the resources to ensure that all students and faculty have the proper equipment? Do we have the resources to make sure that all faculty understand the important differences between online instruction, remote instruction, and hybrid courses and how pivot between them? How do we make sure the transition doesn’t undermine students who really only do well in one of these modalities? How do we make sure that switching does not negatively impact other things like attendance at events or participation in co-curricular programs or signing up to live in the residence halls? Again, does being on campus matter?
  3. Is it important for faculty and staff to be on campus all the time? What are the things that make it important to be physically present? What messages are we sending if the dominant experience of our campuses is walking down hallways with closed doors/empty rooms? If we look for greater flexibility, how much office space do we need? Should we go with more shared offices and create alternating schedules? How many buildings do we need? Parking?

I know lots of folks have been thinking about this for a long time. Some have transitioned to mostly online universities, while others consider the classic campus experience to be the very definition of what a college education should be. Those of us at regional comprehensives have played with small pieces of these questions for years, but now it is time to fully think it through. It is complicated for us, because we serve such diverse learners looking for very different experiences. Whatever answer we end up with will involve a complicated matrix of variables. But we all got a big dose of “it could work differently” last year. Now that we’re back, we are wondering why it doesn’t.

Higher Education, Thinking

Focusing on the Mission

ProvostMissy

It is nearly mid-January and we are preparing to launch the spring semester. Still juggling the ever-changing environment of the pandemic, we start with uncertainty — as we have for the last two years. The Omicron variant is an unwelcome wrinkle to say the least, but the protections we have used to maintain a reasonable level of safety on our campus remain the same: strongly encourage vaccinations, require masks, provide access to testing, and encourage everyone to stay home if they feel sick. Indeed, the only real change in CDC guidelines of late has been around the length of quarantine. We’re sorting that out, for the residential students in particular, and emphasizing the need to wear well-fitting masks. In three semesters of working in a COVID-19 environment, masks and monitoring infection rates have proved effective, with limited spread in the residence halls and none in the classroom. So, we face uncertainty to be sure, but a stable uncertainty at this point.

It would be easy for this new variant to steal our focus this semester. We’ve grown accustomed to emergency meetings and conversations about what to do next. But I think it is important to acknowledge that without a change in the guidelines, based on solid scientific evidence, there really is nothing left to discuss. So, while we wait for new information from credible scientists, I’m more interested in focusing on what we hope to accomplish with our students this semester. I’m starting with a look at our mission.

Western Connecticut State University changes lives by providing all students with a high quality education that fosters their growth as individuals, scholars, professionals, and leaders in a global society.

I love this simple yet profound statement. Changing lives is an exhilarating goal. It speaks to our commitment to the power of learning, recognizing that higher education creates paths to new professional opportunities, supports the development of new understandings of how the world is organized, challenges ideas about what constitutes evidence, and even fosters the growth of new friendships. For our first-generation students, education may provide a step toward a new socio-economic status and all that entails. For our students whose parents and grandparents attended college, their attendance expresses a continued commitment to the importance of education in shaping worldviews and futures. What a privilege to be part of this journey, as we simultaneously open our students’ eyes to new ideas and have them open ours to their experiences and perspectives.

Then there is our commitment to access as we strive to provide “all students with a high quality education.” This is a tremendous responsibility. It requires focused attention on the varied needs of the students we admit to our university. To truly serve all of them, we need to keep a keen eye on our data, in the aggregate and in the details. For our undergraduates, this has meant attention to the details of our retention and graduation rates. Over the last several years, we have worked hard to differentiate what I call the on-ramps for our students. This is the result of unflinching analysis of who we lose. In response to our data, and looking at strategies that have worked elsewhere, we have transformed our education access program, added a peer mentor program, included FY in the general education curriculum, and grown our honors program. Analysis of these efforts is positive (some better retention and graduation rates), but it is not good enough yet. We will continue to evaluate the results, looking for the next clue to student success and modify these efforts accordingly. The clues are readily available, but we must act on them.

At the graduate level, we have responded to student interest in programs that advance their careers. From transforming existing degrees to better align with career prospects, to developing new degrees that meet emerging needs and opportunities in the region, our portfolio of graduate degrees has evolved to appeal to the students we hope to serve. Most recently, much of graduate education has moved online, first due to the pandemic and then in response to the needs of working adults. We need to offer them more flexible opportunities as they juggle jobs and families. We want to meet them where they are. We want to serve all students. This, too, arose from detailed looks at data, including enrollment patterns, student feedback to our programs, and analysis of regional workforce needs. While this approach to curriculum may feel a bit more career focused and less idea focused than we like to imagine, I remind myself that graduate education has nearly always been about careers (advanced credentials or the path to a doctorate) and it has never been devoid of ideas. We are serving our students well in this regard.

What next? Well, on the path to any of our degrees, I am confident that all students will grow as individuals and scholars. It is less clear if we’ve created enough opportunities for professional growth at the undergraduate level and I’m not sure we’ve truly focused on cultivating leaders. Mind you, I think there are pieces of both woven throughout our majors and our co-curricular experiences, but I’m not sure our students can see it. I’m also not sure we’re specific enough. Since we’ve taken the time to identify all of these areas for growth in our mission, it is probably a good time to make sure that we are truly working toward them in a clear and coherent way. I’ll be taking a closer look at this aspect of our mission in the months to come.

Yes, the mission is where I will turn my attention this spring. It offers such clarity, reminding me of our purpose, and erasing the hundred other unproductive distractions that claim my attention daily. Our mission is necessarily broad and open to many nuanced steps (some of which are outlined in our strategic plan), but it is also really quite direct. It drives us to these simple and important questions:

  • Are we providing all students access to that high quality education?
  • Does that high-quality education create opportunities for growth as individual, scholars, professionals, and leaders?
  • As a result, are lives changed? And of course, that most vexing of questions of all:
  • How do we know?

I look forward to exploring these questions this spring. I am certain my colleagues will have plenty of answers to them.

Welcome back, everyone.

Higher Education, Resilience, Thinking

What have you learned?

ProvostMissy

We’re speeding toward final exams, papers, and performances at a breathless pace. The Thanksgiving holiday always ends with that terrifying thought that we’re almost done and now what? Students are scrambling to catch up on the things they missed earlier, while juggling the remaining assignments and exam preparation. Faculty are wondering how they will complete the goals they set out for their classes and if it is possible to live up to their own aspirations. Administrators like me are wondering how it is possible that my to-do list is longer than it was at the start of the semester. Whew!

Well the good news is we always seem to make it to that finish line one way or another. The interesting news is that for most of us it was another. Clearly our planning processes are open to re-interpretation. Maybe that is a good thing. So, as I reflect on all that has occurred since classes began in late August, I am thinking about that simple question: What have you learned?

My husband once told me that when he was an undergraduate one of his professors asked only this question on the final. He says it was the most challenging exam he ever had. Being able to sum up all of your knowledge from one course in an essay addressing such an open-ended question can be truly daunting. Where are the essay prompts directing us to address specific details? Where are the multiple-choice questions that limit my thinking to which answer is correct? Where is the list of core concepts from which I choose my favorite and show off what I’ve learned about that one thing? What have I learned? That is just too much.

Or maybe we could have fun with this approach. It might free us from preconceived notions about what our students should have learned, letting us open our ears to what they really gleaned from our courses. It might show us how they have prioritized the course content, giving us clues about what went well and what did not. It might even help with course design next semester. I know, it doesn’t really work for everything. Sometimes there are very specific things that students must master by the end of the semester. Still, in some instances this could be a great question.

But, I’m not advocating for anything in particular today. Just thinking. For me, I’m considering what I have learned from my list of projects this fall. You see I had a long list of things to work on and almost none of them are complete. In some cases, this is because my list was problematic, and I was working on the wrong thing. In others it was because the scale of the job was larger than I’d hoped. And, of course, in several cases other priorities emerged. So, what have I learned?

First, I’ve learned that managing during a pandemic that appears to be under control is only slightly less exhausting than when we had no idea what would happen next. We started the fall pressing for vaccinations and hoping for normalcy only to encounter Delta. We did well, but just as I was getting optimistic about an even more normal spring, Omicron appeared. I guess, from this I must learn not to predict more than two or three weeks into the future. That sure makes it hard to plan things!

Second, I’ve learned that simple tasks have a way of turning into giant, multifaceted projects if I don’t continuously rein them in. This is, of course, the nature of the academic mind. We see the connections from one idea to the next, never wanting to settle on the narrow focus. This is wonderful in so many ways, and it can keep me from ignoring critical variables, but at some point this habit of expansive thinking is a way of avoiding decisions. In this case, I’ve learned to try to limit the number of variables to be considered in any project that I’d like to see completed. Note the word try. I might not be able to do this.

Third, I’ve learned that really good conversations are still better in person than on Zoom. I don’t hate this technology. I find it valuable for all sorts of quick, problem solving, task-oriented meetings. Remote meetings allow me to schedule more check-in meetings that are not too taxing for those involved. In other words, if I don’t have to ask folks to come to my office, it is easier to fit in a quick chat. Nevertheless, the tough stuff, the complicated stuff is still better in person. It takes time, trust, and focus to really uncover where things are going right and where they are going wrong. Somehow, being in the same room makes this more likely to happen than online.

Finally, I’ve learned that, as stressful as the world still is, good educational experiences remain at the heart of what is going on at WCSU. Faculty are starting to tell me about the clever ways that they modified their courses to deal with gaps in learning from last year (yes, there were gaps). Students have reported great support as they navigated a COVID scare or two. Activities on our curriculum committees show that departments are fully engaged in reviewing and updating their offerings to better support the goals they have for their students. We even have some new programs moving forward. In a climate where we might just tread water and wait out the chaos, people are actively working to make new things happen.

There is a lot more, of course. If there wasn’t my to-do list would not have gotten longer. But I am inspired from the lessons learned and more so by the great things that are actually getting done. So, let’s think of this race to the finish line as a sled ride and just say wheee!

Accountability, Evaluation, Thinking

Remember the Qualitative Data

ProvostMissy

The phrase “data-driven decision-making” has become the gold standard for proposing policies, research, or other plans to improve outcomes in higher education. You cannot apply for funding for anything without some evidence to support justify the proposed project and a detailed evaluation plan. This, of course, should not be startling for higher education. Building cases for our research and related decisions is at the heart of all that we do. What has changed is what we define as sufficient evidence. Spoiler alert – it is quantitative data.

Much of this transformation is to the good. We have new tools that allow us to gather quantitative data much more easily than we once did. With Survey Monkey or Qualtrics data from a well-designed questionnaire can be easily launched and analyzed. Getting a good sample is still a challenge, but digital tools make reaching potential respondents better than ever before. The tools for statistical analysis have similarly evolved in ways that help the analysis section of a study to perform functions that were once reserved for the most advanced mathematical thinkers. And with access to large databases, the sky’s the limit for exploring behaviors of various populations.

Then there is the power of “big data” which is so powerful in medical research right now. With access to studies from all over the world, scientists can get at a level of analysis that is much more nuanced than we once experienced. It is so exciting to see that, with all of the information available, it is possible for physicians to move from a generalized Chemo cocktail to one that has been edited more specifically for the genetic traits of an individual. It is truly breathtaking to see the advances in science that these tools provide.

In higher education, the data-driven movement is really impacting our evaluation of university outcomes at every level. We move from the big picture – graduation rates and retention overall, and then fully scrutinize factors that might show us that we are systematically leaving specific groups of students behind. Often referred to as the achievement gap, colleges and universities are no longer (and should no longer be) satisfied with gaps in retention and graduation that break down along gender, income, first-gen, and other socio-cultural groupings.

Attending to these gaps is, indeed, driving policies and programs at many universities. At WCSU, it has led to a revision of our Educational Access Program (Bridge) and to the addition of a peer mentor program. We’re tracking the impact on our overall retention rates, but also taking a deeper dive into different clusters in our community to see where we need to do more. What has really changed for us is that we are designing these efforts with follow up analyses built in from the start, so that we don’t just offer things and then move on. We have a plan to refine as we go. This is a good change.

Still, this focus on statistical data can lead to gaps in understanding that are significant. As always, our results are only as good as the questions we ask. Our questions are only as good as our ability to see beyond our worldview and make room for things we never anticipated. This is a challenge, of course, because we often don’t realize we are making assumptions or that our worldviews are limited. It is the nature of our disciplinary frames; it is the nature of being human.

Although my education has included anthropology and media ecology (both with lots of attention to our biases and qualitative data), I realize that I have been struggling to find ways to incorporate more qualitative analysis into all that we are doing at WCSU. It is tricky because it is more labor and time intensive than analyzing statistical outcomes or neatly structured survey data. It is also tricky, because we need to be informed by the qualitative without falling into the problem of generalizing from the single case. And, of course, it is tricky because, well it takes sustained practice with ethnography to do qualitative well.

I was reminded of this, as I began to read Gillian Tett’s, Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See Business and Life. This text explores the ways in which the habits of anthropology can be transformative to business processes of all kinds. It isn’t so much a “new” way to see things – after all anthropology has existed as a discipline for over a century – nor is it new to see it as a tool of business and governments (see Edward T. Hall for a glimpse of the past) – but it is an excellent reminder that anthropology offers a powerful lens. Tett’s book is full of examples of mis-steps in the tech industry and in marketing because those in charge never even questioned their assumptions about how people interact with technology. The hiring of a full-time anthropologist helped to address some of that. She also reminds us of the difference between asking questions and observing behavior – not because people lie, but because our questions were calculated to get the responses we got and, therefore, missed the bigger context. Our narrow lenses go beyond market research and explain socio-political challenges and misunderstandings on a global scale. These are important reminders, all.

So, I am reminded to take the time to dive into the questions that most statistical research will miss. There is more to understand than calculating the percentage of students who answer the question: “How often do you use the tutoring resource center?” with often, sometimes, or never. There’s the whole long list of feelings that complicate seeking help. There’s that long list of other priorities (work, co-curricular, family). There are the things I haven’t thought of yet, that are barriers to using the resources we are providing. There is research on this, I know, but I think there is more to know.

Yes, I am a fan of quantitative data, but I must admit that I have learned much more from qualitative data over the course of my life. The insights of the unexpected interaction, or the opportunity to observe for long(ish) periods of time, have improved my questions and understandings, and generated much more interesting follow up work than the summary data have ever done. This is important for the work on academic success that we are engaged in at our universities. It is even more important (and not at all unrelated) when we try to see the barriers to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. I’m thinking it may be time to put a few anthropologists on the institutional research payroll.

Thinking

Time to Read

ProvostMissy

As I awoke Monday morning, I vowed to do no work. It was a holiday weekend and even if a provost’s work is never done, days off are necessary. Indeed, though I am not protected by any union – administrators don’t get that particular benefit – I recognize that my life and the lives of all of us have been improved by the hard work of labor leadership over the last century. One of those most important improvements in our working conditions is that there are days when we don’t work. Thank goodness for those efforts.

Well, despite my determination to laze the day away, I found a little task nagging at me. A dear friend has just completed a draft of her new book and she was looking for some feedback. With the day stretched out before me, I opened the draft and enjoyed a wonderful read. I won’t reveal anything abut the book here, so she has time to get to publication, but I will say it offered me all sorts of insights into the current state of our culture. As media ecologists, we always look at the ways in which our communication environments shape behavior, and she’s got some great observations about how our portable electronic universes are changing who we are.

But that is not what I am thinking about today. What I am really thinking about is how having a few uninterrupted hours to read an entire book is so wonderful. Although I did read the text on a screen, something I have come to prefer in recent years, I was able to completely ignore the endless stream of email that I usually address, and with the world around me relatively quiet, I could give the reading my full attention. It felt like a vacation.

My entire career in higher education has been about addressing things in chunks so I can manage the interruptions around me. I had my first child at the end of my first year as a PhD candidate. Even before the birth, the pregnancy was an interruption – distracting me from reading things closely and generally leaving me exhausted. After children and then with various teaching positions, I became an adept skimmer and expert at breaking projects into 15 minute intervals. It worked to keep me on track with my doctorate (more or less) and it helped me keep up with children and teaching assignments in the sanest way possible.

As an administrator, I read constantly. I start the day with email triage – addressing all the messages that came in over night to clear the decks for the day ahead. I scan the New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed looking for important information and potential research areas that I should follow up on. Then I drive to work and jump between reading, writing, meeting, and repeat. I write policy proposals, accreditation documents, edit proposals of all kinds in an effort to move things forward through various evaluative processes. I follow up on those morning articles, getting to the details of the research behind them and hoping to get smarter. It is important that I can do this kind of juggling and often I find it exhilarating. It allows me to jump between tasks productively, getting to various finish lines regularly. I’m never without a task ahead, but I can see progress.

But my expert skimming and juggling is nothing like sustained reading and the pondering of an idea. One can get a lot from an essay or an academic article, but to really engage an idea, book-length reading is still the best path. Don’t get me started on what doesn’t occur in video formats. I love them, by the way. Movies, documentaries, televisions programs, and little video tutorials all have their place in opening my eyes to ideas or processes that can be helpful or amusing. But watching isn’t reading. Reading is different.

I could try to dredge up some science for this essay, but you have Google, you can figure it out. No, this is really just about my experience of reading. It is slow enough to let me break down an argument as I encounter it. It allows me to back up and think without having to find the remote. It encourages me to pause and reflect, without having things run ahead of me. In book form, authors have time to layer in detail to the argument at hand, supplying new evidence and illustrations as I read on and helping me think things through. Yes, this is a kind of respite for me. I am slowing down, not deciding anything, just thinking.

In the book I read today, I was also reminded of the way an author’s voice is so important to the narrative. Now in this case I know the author, so it is cheating, but in all books there is a tone and rhythm that invites (and sometimes discourages) engagement with the tale being spun and the worldview being suggested. That invitation can help to block out the immediacy of our electronic world – helping to tune out the beeps and dings of our news feeds and friend groups, and just attend to the details at hand. The text becomes a person to whom I am giving my full attention. When I finish a book, I always feel better for having spent the time reading it. Synapses have connected and I am restored.

As I feel the wave of rejuvenation that my morning spent reading provided for me, I am thinking about education once more. It takes a holiday for me to have time to really read. What would it take for education to make room for real reading? You know we don’t make room for it now. Our current structure makes it nearly impossible. Can we come together to make the kinds of changes to the structure of higher education that will make room for that sustained engagement with ideas that we say we value? Perhaps this requires the same level of effort that our unions made to improve the quality of life for all of us. Readers of the world, unite!