Content area
Full text
At the heart of every higher education institution are the students, the faculty, and the staff. Therefore, every effort to improve students' experiences on campus and academic outcomes must include the voices of students, as well as leadership from and intensive engagement with faculty and staff.
Over the last eleven years, Achieving the Dream (funded by the Walmart Foundation) has led a network of more than 200 community colleges working to reshape institutional cultures so that the policies, practices, and culture of community colleges are optimized to promote and support student success. Our work, like that of AAC&U's Roadmap project, is designed to help institutions develop pathways to simplify their students' journeys, to break down áloes between departments and campuses, to use data to inform every decision, and to engage students in their own learning experience. Our experience has taught us that faculty and staff are the key to successful cultural and organizational change and that the most sustainable and impactful change comes when they are not only engaged but also are the drivers of the work.
COMMON HALLMARKS OF ACHIEVING THE DREAM COLLEGES
While each college in our network approaches its student success work differently, based on the specific contexts of their institutions and students, there are common goals and strategies among all colleges in the network. The participating colleges
* Develop and commit to a strong common vision Leadership, faculty, and staff at all levels and across all functional areas of the college commit to a common vision for student success and a set of priorities for improving student outcomes. They work together to operationalize those priorities and maintain a focus on the students they serve.
* Align all their student success efforts under this vision. One of the greatest challenges to engagement is initiative fatigue. Great colleges know that aligning and integrating their student success strategies can help create time and resource efficiencies, reduce the likelihood of duplicated effort, and ensure all college personnel and stakeholders can see how each initiative works together to achieve the institution's goals.
* Build a culture of evidence and inquiry that permeates their institution. They continuously examine the students' experiences, progression, and outcomes, and these analyses inform the creation, implementation, and evaluation of their strategy to...