The brief case studies featured here (and the longer versions available online at www.aacu.org/qc/
casestudies) illustrate promising approaches to institutional collaboration and change, captured in the flowchart’s recommended action steps . Transfer partners participating in the Quality Collaboratives (QC) project revealed multiple ways in which faculty and their colleagues were able to collaborate across institutional and departmental boundaries to place faculty at the center of the transfer process and to facilitate student success .
When establishing sustainable campus change efforts, project participants found that it was critical to engage a diverse group of stakeholders, including contingent faculty members . Non-tenure-track faculty are the new faculty majority and “it’s becoming increasingly unrealistic” to keep these faculty members at the margins of such efforts .12 When establishing project teams, it’s also important to engage faculty, staff, and administrators who are familiar with campus change mechanisms and who can lay the groundwork for further practitioner engagement .
Initiative fatigue often prevents campus practitioners from engaging deeply in new projects . Clarifying the work and conducting an inventory of relevant campus structures and goals may help to bring practitioners on board . Calibrating the work of multiple initiatives across disciplines already connected to similar work may also help (see the Mount Wachusett Community College/Fitchburg State University dyad case study) . Fitting campus work into statewide convenings of disciplinary groups (see the Kentucky dyad case study) provides faculty the opportunity to work cross-institutionally on valid assessments, and revise course outcomes and degree pathways . Connecting new campus projects with statewide initiatives can also be a way of leveraging additional funds .
12 Ann Ferren, Rebecca Dolinsky, and Heather McCambly, “Collaborative, Faculty-Led Efforts for Sustainable Change,” Peer Review 16/17, no . 4/1 (2015): 31 .
what matters most to faculty and staff: student learning and student success . Team leaders introduced change efforts slowly, via faculty and staff workshops . The Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) provided a framework for meeting curricular and assessment needs, along with other “construction materials”
including the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes (or ELOs, a set of proficiencies for twenty-first-century liberal learning)13 and the VALUE rubrics (which accompany the LEAP ELOs and are used to assess authentic student work) .14 Putting these construction materials in conversation with each other, campuses mapped DQP benchmarks onto the VALUE rubrics (see the Middlesex Community College/University of Massachusetts Lowell dyad case study) . Campus partners also mapped the DQP benchmarks onto learning outcomes associated with, for instance, the Bachelors of Applied Arts and Sciences degree in the University of Wisconsin System, which uses a combined curriculum from two institutions for a degree conferred from the two-year institution (see the University of Wisconsin–Waukesha/University of Wisconsin–
Parkside dyad case study) .
Campus team leaders reported over and over again that project work strengthened their already- established relationships . College students in the United States are more mobile than ever, making strong transfer partnerships critical to student success . In The Quality of a College Degree: Toward New Frameworks, Evidence, and Interventions, one of two reports emerging from the QC project, Humphreys, McCambly, and Ramaley argue for collaborative responses to complex problems in higher education, underscoring the importance of teamwork within and across disciplines, institutions, and regions .15 The efforts highlighted in this publication illustrate this type of collaborative culture for student learning, based on respect and trust, in which many faculty are already deeply engaged . As noted in the Ivy Tech Community College–Central Indiana/Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis dyad case study, faculty networking across transfer institutions with colleagues who teach in the same disciplines leads to
“rich dialogue about student work that might not happen in an intramural discussion .”
13 LEAP, or Liberal Education and America’s Promise, is AAC&U’s signature initiative that champions a twenty-first-century liberal education for all students in higher education . For more information, see http://www .aacu .org/leap .
14 VALUE, or Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education, is a campus-based assessment initiative sponsored by AAC&U as part of its LEAP initiative . For more information, see http://www .aacu .org/value .
15 Debra Humphreys, Heather McCambly, and Judith Ramaley, The Quality of a College Degree: Toward New Frameworks, Evidence, and Interventions (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2015) .
AC T I O N S T E P S F O R A D VA N C I N G T R A N S F E R S T U D E N T S U CC E S S | 29 The QC project also featured cross-disciplinary, faculty-driven collaboration (see California’s innovative
Paths program) that offers students the opportunity to choose from interdisciplinary minors based in general education courses . As Ferren, Dolinsky, and McCambly have noted, establishing what Watson and Watson have called “collaborative and participatory” campus relationships “may take more time than top- down mandates, but it allows for the iterative process through which ideas are tested and refined, group trust is established and membership is expanded, and initiatives become embedded and sustainable .”16 QC project participants across the states certainly encountered challenges and barriers—some of which are documented in this publication . The preceding pages also evince much success over the three years of the project, as well as many lessons to share with colleagues embarking on similar work . Collaborative change is possible, as this publication, the in-depth QC report Collaboration for Student Transfer:
A Nationwide Degree Qualifications Profile Experiment,17 and the companion publication Assessment Practices for Advancing Transfer Student Success: Collaborating for Educational Change illustrate .18 The campus change efforts established during the QC project have positioned participating transfer partners to sustain and assess positive outcomes related to student success and have laid the groundwork for broader change across higher education, if campus practitioners build on the lessons presented in this publication and its companions .
16 Ann Ferren, Rebecca Dolinsky, and Heather McCambly, “Collaborative, Faculty-Led Efforts for Sustainable Change,” Peer Review 16/17, no . 4/1 (2015): 30, with reference to William R . Watson and Sunnie Lee Watson, “Exploding the Ivory Tower: Systemic Change for Higher Education,” TechTrends 57, no . 5 (2013): 45 .
17 Terrel L . Rhodes, Susan Albertine, Gary R . Brown, Judith Ramaley, Rebecca Dolinsky, and Heather McCambly . Collaboration for Student Transfer: A Nationwide Degree Qualifications Profile Experiment (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2015) . 18 Gary R . Brown and Terrel L . Rhodes, Assessment Practices for Advancing Transfer Student Success: Collaborating for Educational Change
(Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2015) .
A template of proficiencies required for the award of college degrees at the associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s levels19
n
Knowledge
At each degree level, every college student should demonstrate proficiency in using both specialized knowledge from at least one field and broad, integrative knowledge from arts and sciences fields. Both kinds of knowledge should be pursued from first to final year, providing opportunities for integration across fields and application to complex problems—in the student’s area of emphasis, in out-of-school settings, and in civil society.
BROAD AND INTEGRATIVE KNOWLEDGE
Key areas include the sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, and global, intercultural, and democratic learning.
In each area, students
n Learn key concepts and methods of inquiry
n Examine significant debates and questions
n Make evidence-based arguments In addition, at each degree level, students
n Produce work that integrates concepts and methods from at least two fields
SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE
Students demonstrate depth of knowledge in a field and produce field-appropriate applications drawing on both major field and, at the BA level and beyond, other fields. Students learn
n Discipline- and field-specific knowledge
n Purposes, methods, and limitations of field
n Applied skills in field
n Integrative skills and methods that draw from multiple fields and disciplines
19 This chart summarizes Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile, released in 2014 . This release is informed by feedback from faculty and leaders from hundreds of colleges, universities, and community colleges that worked with the “beta version” of the document, which was published in 2011 . The full Degree Qualifications Profile is available for download at http://www .luminafoundation .org/resources/dqp .
AC T I O N S T E P S F O R A D VA N C I N G T R A N S F E R S T U D E N T S U CC E S S | 31
n
Intellectual Skills
Students hone and integrate intellectual skills across the curriculum, applying those skills both to complex challenges within major fields and to broad, integrative problem-solving challenges in general education and in civic, global, and applied learning. Skills include
n Analytic inquiry
n Use of information resources
n Engaging diverse perspectives
n Ethical reasoning
n Quantitative fluency
n Communication fluency
n
Civic and Global Learning
Students acquire knowledge required for responsible citizenship both from their formal studies (see knowledge and skills, above) and from community-based learning, and demonstrate their ability to integrate both forms of learning in analyzing and addressing significant public problems and questions, in both civic and global contexts. Civic learning may be demonstrated through research, collaborative projects, and/or field-based assignments.
n
Applied and Collaborative Learning
Students demonstrate their ability to integrate and apply their learning (see knowledge and skills, above) in complex projects and assignments, including collaborative efforts, that may include research, projects, practicums, internships, work assignments, performances, and creative tasks.
AC T I O N S T E P S F O R A D VA N C I N G T R A N S F E R S T U D E N T S U CC E S S | 33 Rebecca Dolinsky is a program manager and research analyst in the Office of Quality, Curriculum, and Assessment at the Association of American Colleges and Universities . She received her BA in sociology from Kent State University, her MA in sociology from Ohio University, and her PhD in sociology (feminist studies) from the University of California, Santa Cruz . Dolinsky is dedicated to equity issues, and her dissertation focused on the importance of intersectionality and inclusion in lesbian and gay activist spaces . Dolinsky has taught courses on gender and sexuality at Northern Virginia Community College and Loyola University Maryland, and she is currently conducting original research on LGBTQ student success and campus sexual assault . Dolinsky’s theoretical emphases include identity, inequity, social movements, feminisms, and emotions/affect . Dolinsky served as the Quality Collaboratives project manager .
Heather McCambly is project coordinator for the Pathways to Results and Finish Up Illinois initiatives at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership in Chicago, Illinois . Previously, she was program associate in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success at the Association of American Colleges and Universities . A passionate advocate for educational equity, McCambly has dedicated her career to increasing college access and success for nontraditional, low-income, LGBTQ, and racial and ethnic minority students . McCambly received an MA with honors in educational leadership and policy from Portland State University in 2013 . Her research has centered on the equity implications of performance-based budgeting and funding systems, intersectional identity and student success, and equity-centered change on the community college campus . McCambly worked on the policy thread of the Quality Collaboratives project .
Terrel L. Rhodes is vice president for quality, curriculum, and assessment at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), where he focuses on the quality of undergraduate education, access, general education, e-portfolios, and assessment of student learning . He was a faculty member for twenty-five years . He is the leader of VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education), AAC&U’s faculty-driven assessment project on student learning . He also leads the VALUE/Multi-State Collaborative, a twelve-state, one hundred–campus project utilizing the VALUE rubrics to examine benchmarks for quality learning performance at two-year and four-year institutions . For the past six years, he has lead AAC&U’s e-portfolio initiatives to enhance student learning, including the annual E-Portfolio Forum . Rhodes was co-leader of the QC assessment strand and overall lead for the Quality Collaboratives project .