Tag Archives: winter quarter

Big Betty Meets COVID-19 (Coordinating Group Update)

For accurate and up-to-date information about COVID-19 and how it impacts Evergreen as a whole, please visit https://www.evergreen.edu/covid19

From my remote office (read: dining room table) to yours, greetings in the midst of a strange mid-March! 

I’ll start by thanking each of you for your continued commitment to our students and campus community right now.  I don’t think it can be said enough that we are all in this together.  I have been moved by my colleagues’ thoughtful responses and impressed by our collective creativity in the face of emergent needs. 

I’m sure the number one question on all of your minds right now is this: What’s happening with big bets?!?! (amiright?)

Here’s what’s new:

  • All members of the Coordinating Group have been invited to join the Big Bets Slack channel!  If you have Slack questions (like what the heck is Slack?), please let me know.  I’m no expert, but I am a millennial, so I’ll see what I can do. ❤
    • Slack is a way for us to visit quickly and in real time, share documents in one place, and keep track of all conversations.
  • All upcoming Coordinating Group meetings will be held remotely for the foreseeable future.  I created Zoom meetingsfor our upcoming meetings and sent out the Zoom instructions in the Outlook calendar invitations you should have already received.  Questions about that?  Let me know!  ?
  • I’m working on a Canvas site for the Big Bets process.  (God bless Canvas.)  I’ll send information out about that once I have it landed, and I hope that will be a central space for us to all check in about this work.
  • NEXT STEPS: The meeting we had set for today (3/18/20) got cancelled.  Instead, we have asked a small group of colleagues to work on aggregating models (which we mentioned in an email last week, before we all started trying to #flattenthecurve).  Those models will be ready for presentation on Wed 3/25, at which time I’ll (hopefully!) post them to our Canvas site.  I am working with a handful of folks to put together asynchronouswork that can be done between next Wednesday (3/25) and our next official meeting on Tues, 3/31 (remotely).  At that Tuesday, 3/31, meeting, we’ll visit synchronously about where we’re at in the process, we’ll (hopefully!) make model recommendations for feasibility studies, and we’ll take stock of the situation.
  • Here’s a recap on our timeline:
    • Wednesday, March 25: models aggregated and up on the (forthcoming) Canvas site
      • Request that Coordinating Group members engage in asynchronous work remotely via Canvas (and Slack and Zoom and and and…)
    • Tuesday, March 31 is our next official Coordinating Group meeting (happening remotely via Zoom, instructions already in your email/calendar invitation)
    • Into the future, and beyond! ? (ßit’s a rocket)
  • Lastly, while this is not expressly Big Bets related, I want to make sure all faculty are signed up for the remote teaching instruction sessions happening this week and next.  I’m been working closely with the incredible team of computer and tech folks, as well as the WA Center, to support these trainings.  THANK YOU for your willingness to meet the challenge of remote teaching head on! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

Yours in handwashing and physical (but definitely not emotional!) distancing,

Emily

P.S. Allow me to proselytize about the importance of staying home?

 

How markets affect the future of colleges

Here is a review of a recent book, The College Stress Test, from Inside Higher Edthat helps articulate the state of higher education and the pressures facing many colleges and universities today.

The College Stress Test is written by University of Pennsylvania higher education professor Robert Zemsky, former Penn director of institutional research Susan Shaman and Middlebury College professor — and former provost — Susan Campbell Baldridge, and is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The book is available through the Evergreen Library’s SUMMIT program.

Additionally, Zemsky, Shaman, and Baldridge collaborated on an article featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, available here:

Will-your-college-close-chronicle-2-7-20Download
Photo by Michael Marsh on Unsplash

Coordinating Group Meeting 2/26/20

The Coordinating Group held a joint meeting with members of the Standing Committee on Curriculum to work on rapid prototype modeling for the “big bets” process on Wed, Feb 26th; 25 people attended.

Participants worked in small groups and were given different categories to work with, including student populations (based on Selingo’s student population models), “growth narratives” (below), and curricular ideas that came from the week 6 Faculty Meeting presentation.

  1. Completion College. Such colleges help “some college, no degree” students finish a degree by integrating credits earned at other institutions, assessing and providing credits for prior learning through experience, and providing extensive support services. Completion colleges typically have over 50% of their students age 25 and older and are often reliant on online instruction
  2. Career Connected Learning. In this model, educators and employers work together to combine classroom instruction with relevant real-world experience.  At the four-year college level, this model includes extensive use of experiential learning opportunities such as co-ops and internships.
  3. Increase Graduate Studies. The college currently has three graduate programs. There are a variety of other master’s degree programs that residents in the South Sound region, especially state government employees, would find compelling.
  4. Low Residency Paths of Study. Available data suggest that the current generation of transfer students find online BA programs compelling, due to their flexibility
  5. Alternative Credentials. Many colleges and universities are beginning to emphasize offering alternatives to the BA and BS, such as micro-credentials and certificates.  Studies have shown that these alternative credentials have surprising impacts on student success.
  6. Reputation Change. It is likely that our relatively poor local reputation (in local high schools, in particular) is an important factor behind our long-term enrollment decline.

*Apologies for the images being sideways!  I’m working out what to do about this, but wanted to at least get the models to you all for now.  Thanks for your patience!  🙂 

What is an educational desert?

Here are two interesting articles exploring the notion of educational deserts, and, more broadly, what it means for institutions of higher education to serve community members nearest to their physical location (within 50-60 miles of the campus).

Photo by Susan Yin on Unsplash

Student and Academic Life Staff Meeting Activity 2/13/20

We have had a robust week of “big bets” updates, including at the Wednesday, February 12th faculty meeting and at the Thursday, February 13th staff meeting for the Student and Academic Life (SAL) division. 

The faculty meeting update on “big bets” was led by a group of faculty serving on our Coordinating Group–a big thank you to Carri LeRoy, Karen Gaul, Kevin Francis, and others for putting together a robust discussion and activity centered around all (500+!) ideas received thus far.  I hope to post to the website the presentation they put together as soon as I receive it–stay tuned. (Edit: the first iteration of the data presentation is available here. Enjoy!)

The SAL staff meeting was another great opportunity to engage our community in the “big bets” process.  Co-chairs Jen Drake and Larry Geri offered process updates, we reviewed the website, and we invited attendees into an activity focused on supporting two populations of potential student populations: “career starters” and “career accelerators” (taken from The Differentiated University). Career starters are 18-24 year old students focused on their professional lives who view colleges as a “stepping stone.”  Career accelerators are working adult students who believe college credentials will improve their chances of obtaining higher paying jobs. 

Pictures below are the answers generated by SAL staff participants to the question “what are your BEST ideas for supporting” career starters (orange paper) and career accelerators (green paper). 

Coordinating Group Meeting 2/3/2020

The Coordinating Group met Monday, February 3rd; 23 people attended.  Below are photos from the meeting.

Feb 3, 2020 Coordinating Group Agenda

We talked about how, because this initiative is coming from the Provost’s office, the process is overseeing Student and Academic Life–that’s our sphere of influence.  We have partners in all areas of campus, and many representatives from other divisions are members of the Coordinating Group, and our focus for the work resides in Student and Academic Life (SAL).

The Evergreen State College organizational chart (high level)

One of the exercises we did was around model generation within constraints.  The constraints given were to build curricular frameworks for these different potential student populations (below).

Model generation exercise with constraints around potential student populations
“Thumbs,” a voting exercise (that we actually didn’t use this time, but can be helpful for checking in with a group)
The Parking Lot
Index card prompts at the end of the meeting.
One of the models generated over the last few Coordinating Group meetings.
One of the models generated over the last few Coordinating Group meetings.

Examples from model generation exercise

Kathleen Eamon, Karen Gaul, Laurie Meeker – 2.3.20 meeting

Thought experiment on how to serve specific students: 

  • Wouldn’t it be great if adult learners mentors mentoring the career starters
  • Engaging adult learners, strong mentorship programs FOR the adult learners, community and professionals, linking with external partners
  • TRIAD? Support intergenerational relationships
  • Heavy, integrated advising (advisors who work as team, or capacities to do financial aid and registration)

 Hybrid online and low residency, high intensity… options for adult learners

  • Especially exciting for Interdisciplinary MFA, but also possible for humanities
  • Commuter Lounge on main campus – the people that need, lockers, facilities, kitchen
  • Smart housing choices

Supposed to be creating new poem, but…

  • Catalyst HUB – already happening, job description director/fellow/faculty posted soon
  • Especially good for 1-24 Career Starters

Transfers – are they Career starters? – on track, know where they want to go

  • When students run things – speakers series, film series, student run, conference, college supported… reframing student activities around academics; study – is this energy building or non-sustainable? Building capacity important. 

Minoritized students – culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum – across the curriculum;

  • What if the college committed to being an anti-racist institution? Julia Metzger asked this in a summer institute? What would that look like? How would that commitment shape the curriculum and the student experience.
  • Serving the students who are already here = 58% LGBTQ and attracting more
  • Intentionally building community and culture beyond a LGBTQ center, academically… a curriculum… central commitment of the college? Faculty hiring? Or building faculty capacity?

Homework

Explore: Uncharted Territory: A Guide to Reimagining Higher Education from the d.school at Stanford

Coordinating Group Meeting 1/27/2020

The Coordinating Group met Monday, January 27th; 24 people were in attendance.  The agenda (pictured below) included

  • talking about timeline changes–we realize we’ll need to slow the process down to make sure we include everyone;
  • discussing the shift from the original call for ideas to the idea of model construction;
  • a data presentation by Coral Garey of Institutional Research (file attached below);
  • a discussion of the data;
  • an exploration of our current model (attachment below and here);
  • and continued model exploration in small groups.

As models are created, we’ll post them here along with all the models generated by the community on January 13th and 15th, here.

*Sorry for the glare! Agenda for the meeting
IR-Data-Presentation-on-1.27.20Download