An interesting report from the Washington Roundtable and the Council of Presidents regarding a goal for 70% of all Washington high school graduates to attain some sort of credential. This is relevant for the workforce development work happening with the New Academic Directions (NAD) (aka “Big Bets”) work.
https://www.waroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/P270_RestartingAmidstCovid_7.2020.pdf
Summer work has begun! With this pivot, the language of “Big Bets” has given way to “NAD: New Academic Directions.” Don’t worry, it’s all a part of the same project. The difference is we now have our “big bets” and we are figuring out what that all looks like through feasibility and implementation over the summer months.
Essentially, what started out as a fairly centralized project overseen by a Coordinating Group and Planning Team has split into a variety of work groups set to evaluate different aspects of the proposal passed by the faculty in June 2020. JuliA Metzker described the current organizational structure as a “nesting dolls” affair—apt!
Many of you should have access to the Big Bets Canvas Site, a storehouse of resources for the Big Bets Summer Institute held in June. In “Modules,” there is a “Shared Archive” section that maps out much of the summer work. For a glimpse, here are some of the overarching documents we’re using (below).
I’m sure it’s not lost on you that we have made a quick pivot from spring quarter to summer work. No sooner did we commence an amazing commencement, we jumped into a full season of Summer Institutes! (A BIG thank you to the wonderful and talented staff at the Washington Center–JuliA Metzker, Rachel Homchick, Violet Cavicchi Munoz, Bonnie Walden, Charles Favor, Eric Stein, and others.)
Our kick-off institute (in addition to a great institute for First Year Experience staff instructors serving next year), has been the Big Bets Summer Institute held Thursday, June 18, and Friday, June 19. Many people in our community have been given access to the Canvas course connected to this Institute and that course is a storehouse of great information, including recordings of both days of the Institute: https://canvas.evergreen.edu/courses/3317 For folks not able to access that course, many of the same resources available there are available here: https://sites.evergreen.edu/bigbets/resources/
Additionally, I wanted to put a few hyper-relevant documents here in this post for easy access. Cheers!
Here is the finalized analysis for the 2020 Non-Retained Student Survey from Amadou Ba and Coral Garey of Evergreen’s Institutional Research.
As passed at the June 3, 2020 faculty meeting
Remember that Big Bets Graphic Timeline from back in January? Well, we are clipping right along toward our goal of a thriving Evergreen!
The week 10 faculty meeting was held yesterday (Wednesday, June 3, 2020) and a vote was held on the proposal (for more information, see this post). Amendments were suggested, amendments were accepted, and the proposal passed overwhelmingly. That means we will continue to explore robust, exciting, new academic directions for Evergreen, beginning this summer with a deeper look at feasibility followed by implementation planning.
We are far from done, but we have reached a noteworthy milestone with much community support! We absolutely could not have gotten to where we are now if not for all of you. Your input, work, feedback, and thoughtful engagement have brought us to where we are today.
For fun, let’s take a look at some of the numbers:
124 total meetings, workshops, and gatherings related to the Big Bets project since Nov 2019
Greetings, All. All quarters are busy at the end, but this one seems especially so with the Big Bets work well underway. I’ll do my best to keep everything on this site updated.
Please find below two supplementary documents provided by Nancy Koppelman related to a proposed amendment focused on Schools, and another from Eirik Steinhoff, also regarding Schools.
Additionally, here is a supplemental document from Marja Eloheimo regarding amendment number six (see “Big Bets Amendments,” below) and one from Laura VerMeulen, also regarding Schools.
And, drum roll, please… the amendments we’ve received! Compiled in one document–thank you, Kevin Francis!
An update and some responses to FAQs we’ve received in the last week.
See you all at the Faculty Meeting on Wednesday!
Results are in from the 143 students polled about components of the recent Big Bets model. Check it out!
Here is a Market Analysis drafted by Eric Pedersen and Larry Geri. The information in the analysis is a guiding force for the Big Bets work. This post has been updated and includes the latest draft of the Market Analysis. https://sites.evergreen.edu/bigbets/wp-content/uploads/sites/529/2020/08/Draft-New-Directions-market-study-rev-6-7-20.pdf
