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The fervent embrace and nostalgia for a pre-pandemic “normality” in the daily cadence of higher education institutions may be getting in the way of progress in terms of enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. While the impact(s) — post and on-going — of the COVID-19 pandemic have and continue to pose challenges, since mid-2020 there have been, and will continue to be,] spaces wherein necessary and often “quick fixes” shone, and will continue to shine, a “bright light” on academic matters too long ignored and too often relegated to the margins of “it can wait” within institutional implementations of strategic plans.
So, the question is clear — Why do matters of revisionary steps in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates seem more urgent than ever? The answer to this question is not simplistic and too much time answering why now may contribute to a loss of time in implementation of innovation. Certainly, these areas have taken a massive plunge with direct pathways to the pandemic as a cause, yet a substantive number of institutions have been teetering on the margins of expansive trouble in these three lifelines for five years and more. The real key to the matters of enrollment, retention, and graduation rates demand a revisionary approach for measurable higher education outcomes toward the movement of existent colleges and universities beyond survival mode to thriving mode.
In stepping forward to address these questions, higher education leaders must examine their mindset and institutional resources for change that shape the movement of necessary work beyond discussions toward implementation. An eradication of the mindset that there is always next academic year to return to discussions toward some work on the decades-long and serious matters — of necessary curriculum revision, assessment alacrity, use of the assessment data to drive change, faculty and staff development, student mental health support, academic support centers and career centers restructuring, and so forth — must occur with time of the essence.
Let’s dial up a few pre-pandemic academic years for a brief review. Classes, meetings, and more classes and more meetings… And, somehow, the academic year turned into summer and the majority of the work populace dispersed for vacation until late July/early August when it became time to begin again with little to no time for the major changes and innovations talked about often, perhaps, during the bygone/previous academic year.
So, the academic year begins with the same questions. How has the assessment data been deciphered and utilized to create meaningful change — innovations — for the forthcoming year? What value is being added by reviewing the past year’s assessment data at the beginning of the academic year if it has no impact on the work of the year-in-progress?
What has higher education leadership learned?
What happened?
Let’s dial up the past five academic years for some institutions and view scenarios of simply getting through to the next year and the next and the next. The mantra of “we made it through another academic year” suddenly became hollow with the dramatically deep declines in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates during the onset of the pandemic. It created an urgency to act where more necessary work pre-pandemic would have set the stage for less survival panic toward innovating upon the creativity already set in place through the implementation of annual continuous change and improvement based on a conscious mining of the results of assessment. How often and rigorously did this take place in institutions that are now grappling with staying open due to the decline in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates?
This is not an article where I will assume the position of providing answer(s) to what is admittedly for far too many colleges and universities a major dilemma. Instead, I seek to spark the dialect — to open the discourse — so each institution can find its unique pathway to that “bright light” that spells an operating cadence that moves beyond sheer necessity into the realm of operational efficiency and, emphatically, beyond the often wished for pre-pandemic normality.
Let me offer that the cadence toward strength in these three areas of the higher education lifeline can and should be staged by actors within a frame of prioritizing needs beyond normality toward changing the operational paradigm. To begin a deliberate move towards changing the operational paradigm is to engage in deep discussions of exactly what components of pre-pandemic normality higher education leadership, faculty, and students seek to return to again. In listening carefully to responses to that question, I often hear idyllic responses that simply do not paint a realistic picture of pre-pandemic higher education operations. Think about that and discuss it — forthrightly — with key stakeholders in your institution and see if idyllic remembrances that challenge the realities of the past play center to the discourse.
With the clarion call during the last decade from accreditation institutions, funding agencies, and governments for higher education institutions to embrace innovation, creativity, and continual improvement in their operations, institutions with major challenges in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates must stop and ask — what components of the normality as remembered should be kept and where does innovation take over?
What has been learned from the necessary deviations from normality that can now systematically and thoughtfully become incorporated into the strategic plan and implemented?
From pervasive vantage points, it appears that strategy number one would be a refresh of institutional strategic plans — to incorporate vigorous prioritizing — across all units of the institution. It must be stressed that there is no one model that will work for all institutions based on the footprint of work since March 2020. Yet, there are many points of inspiration resulting in focused implementations across an encouraging number of college/university functionality areas. There is now, more than ever, an opportunity to share the best of the innovations and creativity for the current academic year.
Let us begin with a very few innovations — shared by colleagues across the nation — that can be incorporated toward strengthening enrollment, retention, and graduation rates:
Culture change in the higher education realm must be reality, not rhetoric…
- Students are attracted to an institution’s definitive brand before enrolling. What is the institution’s brand? Is it clear or is there an effort to do too much? Can faculty, staff, board members, and current students clearly articulate that brand? What is the intrinsic and extrinsic value of students enrolling in the institution?
- Students expect and want to have choices in how they access learning opportunities. They want to know that the choice to engage synchronously, asynchronously, hybrid, and face-to-face is an actual embedded option and not one that will dissipate with the lessening of the pandemic.
- Infusing resources within classes –not just as an aside — to support students in the areas of tutoring, advising, health and mental wellness, financial acumen, and spaces of creativity and joy. Students should not have to play “hide and seek” for support with their classes.
Retooling of professional development opportunities for faculty and staff in retaining students once they are attracted and admitted to the institution…
- Techniques for engaging and empowering instruction in the general education/foundational courses all students have to take must be a priority. When students are disproportionately failing foundational courses, there is no opportunity to retain first-year students beyond the first two semesters or quarters. This is the simplest of equations in the retention formula.
- High-touch use of instructional technology to teach, research, and gather assessment data as points of light for increasing student joy in learning and faculty research into ways of knowing and implementing innovative strategies for retention.
- Creating opportunities to connect the work within courses with the world of reality — work — through consciously connected co-curricular platforms.
- Providing access to virtual reality tools, resources, and services necessary for faculty and academic support staff to create VR moments and extended experiences.
- Dispensing with the rah-rah positivity in the face of inexpressible exhaustion by faculty who are still unequipped and inadequately supported to do the heavy lifting of remote and online learning. Provide the resources for those who want to retool and assist others with transitions who refuse to do the necessary work.
- And — please — help faculty, staff, and higher education leaders and boards understand the difference between remote learning and online education and instruction.
Rethinking and reshaping outdated academic budgets to accommodate and support futuristic learning…
- Departments, schools/colleges, and programs need to look closely at line items that have existed for years, decades even, for realism in supporting twenty-first-century academic work.
- Engage departmental, division, and program leadership in training opportunities on how to work with their staff in creating budgets based on current resources to address current needs and opportunities.
- Understand the importance of zero-based budgeting and engage stakeholders in the process of understanding where dollars emanate from and why some revenue is restricted and other revenue is non-restricted.
- Discuss revenue streams with faculty and staff toward writing grants and seeking private donor contributions in sync with the Institutional Development unit. Set goals within departments, schools/colleges, et.al. for procurement of grants to lift the work of innovation and creativity.
Yes, the academic year for most institutions has begun. There are yet opportunities to move beyond surviving the challenges of enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. It will come down to a four-letter word, which will have different goals, objectives, strategies, and implementations for each institution based on the mission and vision: WORK.
Disclaimer: HigherEdJobs encourages free discourse and expression of issues while striving for accurate presentation to our audience. A guest opinion serves as an avenue to address and explore important topics, for authors to impart their expertise to our higher education audience and to challenge readers to consider points of view that could be outside of their comfort zone. The viewpoints, beliefs, or opinions expressed in the above piece are those of the author(s) and don’t imply endorsement by HigherEdJobs.
