Keith Rowley

Not sure if this is right location to provide feedback on ATD action plan –

1. The priority 2 action plan has 3 rows listed with due dates of June or before. What is the status of these actions? Complete? In Progress? New?

2. What are BCs values? The student success visual list 3 values – equity; student-centered forms; evidence-based decisions. How do these reconcile with the values described in policy 1200 of the 6/6/18 board packet, which says:

Core Values
We, the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, and administration of Bellevue College, place students at the center of all we do and support and promote the excellence of their efforts. We affirm and embody pluralism; value collaboration and shared decision making; and honor creativity and innovation. We consider it our duty to anticipate changing demands in education and welcome the opportunity to shape its future. We acknowledge our responsibility to society and embrace the belief that widespread access to excellent postsecondary education is the cornerstone of a democratic society.

3. How is accountability going to be monitored, enforced with appropriate consequences should deliverables fall short?

Put steps in place to reach the goal. Proper documentation is needed. For example, if a department speaks with a student, that interaction should be documented in the student’s comments, so then when that student visits with a new person, that team player has the info to be the most effective for the student. This creates trust and saves time because the student doesn’t have to re-explain their situation.
Transition steps should be provided and tailored to each student, this seems to be the hardest part for students, and providing transition steps for which department will provide what, will make it easier for that student to follow through with the processes to get there goal met.

I would like to thank all of the members of the ATD teams. This work is vitally important for the future of the college. Because this work involves re-examining and rethinking long-established practices, I’m sure that it is challenging and fairly thankless. So, I wanted to be sure to convey my heartfelt thanks.

On the whole, I am a big fan of the Student Success Action Plan. The three primary initiatives are exactly the right three initiatives. Guided Pathways, integrated advising, and faculty development all build on existing work, draw from proven best practices, and are likely to move the right needles. In short, the ATD core team has put together a strong framework.

However, I don’t think the initiatives are as integrated as they could be. Just to pick a single example, the “exploratory sequence” mentioned in the Priority 1 work plan will need to be connected with the “integrative advising model” of Priority 2 and with the faculty development work in Priority 3. If our initiatives are interconnected and reinforcing, they will have much greater impact. It is vitally important to build in such connections from the very beginning. Currently, it seems that the work planning integrated advising has not been well connected to the Guided Pathways planning. Some co-planning sessions and perhaps a system of dedicated liaisons to connect the planning teams might be beneficial.

As we engage in this critically important work, we should examine successes at our peer institutions. I know that we desperately need to do and to act, but I worry that our planning is not as firmly rooted in the studies of student engagement and the scholarship of teaching and learning as it might be. We should include time to study and to reflect in our planning work. There is much we could learn from the City University of New York (CUNY) system, the Community College of Baltimore County, and Miami Dade College, as well as the University of Central Oklahoma and the Cal State system. These campuses have revamped their entry and enrollment systems, combined first-year seminars and learning communities, implemented mandatory advising, and integrated experiential learning and other high-impact practices into their Guided Pathways. They have all substantially narrowed achievement gaps while producing double-digit increases in graduation and retention rates.

The ATD teams have done a great job gathering and using data about BC’s current institutional capacities and strengths. It is wise to build on our strengths, and the ATD teams should be commended for this approach. But I would encourage us to also look at how other colleges have built connections between priority initiatives to integrate faculty development, academic and career advising, and experiential learning into their Pathways.