At a time when more than a quarter of college freshmen do not return for a second year, there is no more important goal for colleges than student success. But what can a provost do?
Having led two major student-success efforts at a regional comprehensive university, I am pleased to say the answer is “plenty.” Indeed, by approaching this goal from five angles, a provost can do more than any other individual to ensure that the greatest number of students not only return but also thrive and graduate.
Distill the agenda. The first lesson every provost must learn is that it is faculty members who drive institutions. They control the curriculum, search for other professors, and teach. No effort related to student success — or any other academic effort — will succeed without faculty commitment.
Beware of the phrase fatale “faculty on board,” which suggests that administrators have missions they could realize if only they could get faculty members to mind the marching orders. This approach is not likely to succeed, and it shouldn’t. Rather, leaders should be distilling their faculty colleagues’ knowledge, goals, and passions into a common mission.
Student success rests at the core of any university’s mission, but it must compete with the many demands on provosts’ time and attention.
Look at the faculty at any regional institution, and you will find many who are passionate about teaching students. What strategies do those faculty members believe would be effective for reaching these students? If they could have any resource, plan any activity, renovate any facility, what would they request?
When we developed an experiential-learning program at Indiana University at Kokomo, we took this grass-roots approach. After leading brainstorming sessions where we established outcomes and generated possible activities, I asked faculty members within each unit to develop the right mix of experiential learning in their disciplines. Then, with assistance from staff members, we started the program, which we called the KEY (“Kokomo Experience and You”). The results included faculty investment and a program that was better than anything I could have devised, because it was the product of experts who knew their disciplines and their students.
Reward success. Stephen Covey’s observation that “You basically get what you reward” applies to higher education. Research has long been the gold standard for tenure and promotion, even at many regional institutions. For junior faculty members, the calculus for allocating their finite time and energy is clear: Investing in the work that will produce articles and books has a far better return than studying and using evidence-based teaching practices, cultivating positive relationships with students, and mentoring them outside the classroom.
For a long time, altering this reward system was all but unthinkable. But the current emphasis on student success has created a new climate. Today we have newly compelling reasons to increase retention and graduation rates: decreasing enrollments, performance-based funding, and pressure from accrediting agencies, to name a few. Meanwhile, the best reason remains foremost in the minds of our teachers: Educating students is at the core of our mission, and doing it well is the right thing to do.
That’s a powerful lever that provosts can use in their efforts to promote student success. Many professors already value teaching and would like to see it count more toward tenure and promotion. And they hold the keys.
Lead culture change. Success in changing the reward system depends on culture change. Academic culture is largely a product of the faculty and staff, but it is susceptible to the influence of administrators. Faculty members shape the criteria for tenure and promotion, but the provost plays a major role in applying those criteria. As a result, professors rightly wonder what the provost values.
So tell them. Talk openly and ebulliently about student success. Give shout-outs to instructors who have stepped up to mentor students or planned extraordinary learning opportunities. When you hear good things about your colleagues’ teaching, drop by their offices to thank them. Share the data that demonstrate the successes their efforts are helping to create. These simple efforts send a loud and clear message: Our institution values student success, and we will reward those who pursue it.
Support the “runners.” The nationally known K-12 educator Ron Clark speaks of supporting a school’s “runners,” the go-getters who make good things happen. Today we have a wealth of research we can use to support these “runners.”
One form of professional development can play a particularly powerful role. A faculty-learning community focused on student success, such as the Student Success Academy we have started at Kokomo, can serve as a vehicle to share evidence-based strategies with faculty members. By calling on participants to conduct their own research on student success and then share their findings with colleagues, we can extend its influence. This form of professional development is especially powerful if participants are encouraged to cite it as evidence of excellence in teaching in their tenure-and-promotion dossiers.
Create a space. As provosts attend conferences, read articles, and talk with colleagues, they encounter many tips, strategies, and resources to advance student success. Too often we hang these tools on the pegboard and never get around to building anything. We need an active workshop, in which builders are swinging hammers and turning screwdrivers.
For our university, that workshop is “Re-Imagining the First Year,” a program involving 44 member institutions of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The association has supported our work with conference sessions, webinars, and consultants, but the most important thing it has done is provide a “space” for us to channel our ideas and work. We also have a workshop “manager,” an assistant vice chancellor, who coordinates our initiatives and resources.
Now we are putting tools to work to build structures and engines for student success. For example, I have assigned readings to members of our “Re-Imagining the First Year” team, and I frequently refer the assistant vice chancellor to information I encounter in my reading. Of course, those builders don’t wait for me to make suggestions. They have work to do and a shop where they can do it.
Not all provosts have such a workshop, but they can join another program or craft their own. The key is to create a space where committed and capable faculty and staff members can put the right tools to work.
Student success rests at the core of any university’s mission, but it must compete with the many demands on provosts’ time and attention. With the right approach, however, provosts can make the most of their unique position to achieve powerful results.
Mark Canada is executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Indiana University at Kokomo. He is a co-author, most recently, of Introduction to Information Literacy for Students (Wiley, 2017).
