What is Lumina?Lumina Foundation for Education, an

Indianapolis-based private foundation, is committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college—especially 21st century students: low-income students, students of color, first-generation students and adult learners.

(from Lumina’s website)

What is Lumina?Lumina’s goal is to increase the percentage of

Americans who hold high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina pursues this goal in three ways: by identifying and supporting effective practice, through public policy advocacy, and by using our communications and convening power to build public will for change.

(from Lumina’s website)

What is the Lumina Degree Profile?Paul Gaston: “Seeking to Improve Student

Achievement Through Greater Intentionality”

Avoiding “No College Student Left Behind”: standardization tied to high-stakes tests run by federal government

Set of “low hurdles” for every student at every institution (calibrated by degree level)

Why did Lumina sponsor the DP’s creation? Without broad understanding of what is meant by

an associate or baccalaureate degree, students (and faculty?) find it difficult to align courses with intended outcomes

General education may be regarded as something to “get out of the way” prior to major

Accreditation feels more like a burden to be borne than an opportunity to be seized upon

Who Wrote the DQP?Carol Geary Schneider, AAC&U President

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University (general education reform; Bologna process)

Clifford Adelman, Institute for Higher Education Policy (Toolbox Revisited)

Peter Ewell, VP National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (assessment)

The HLC testing the DQPThe Higher Learning Commission of the North

Central Association of Colleges and Schools

20 Colleges and Universities Collaborating to Test the Lumina Degree Quality Profile

Feedback for Lumina

Should the HLC adopt the DQP or some version?

Our criticsArum/Roksa: Academically AdriftDerek Bok, Our Underachieving

CollegesEmployer reports

ConcernsIndications the public is losing confidence in higher

education Policy makers increasingly critical of accreditation—and

inclined to intrudePublic strategies to increase college participation and

degree completion meaningless without shared understanding of what degrees mean

Lamar Alexander: influential critic

Lamar AlexanderFebruary 2009 to college presidents at

ACE/2009 Newsweek article“American higher education could learn from

Romney's warning to the Big Three a half century ago.”

“many colleges and universities are stuck in the past”: semester system, tenure stifles innovative thinking, students graduating in six years, rising tuition

Big Three needed to look for innovation; so does higher education

HOW CAN WE PROVE THE VALUE OF HIGHER

EDUCATION?

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Why a Degree Profile?• The DP “describes concretely what is meant by

each of the degrees addressed.”

• The DP “illustrates how students should be expected to perform at progressively more challenging levels.”

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Organization of the Degree Profile

Five areas of learning• Integrative Knowledge• Specialized Knowledge• Intellectual Skills• Applied Learning• Civic Learningshown as interrelated, not discrete

Assessment-ReadyGaston reports that DP uses active verbs

everywhere

Created a set of goals with assessment built in

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Example of AssessibilityEngaging Diverse Perspectives(examples from Paul Gaston)

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CIVIC LEARNING: CIVIC IDENTITY AND COMMITMENT

Degree Profile Learning Objective 3: A student can take an active role in the community (work, service, co-curricular

activities) and examine civic issues encountered and insights gained.

Capstone (4)

Intermediate (3)

Intermediate (2)

Entry (1)

Provides evidence of experience in civic engagement activities and describes what s/he has learned about her/himself as it relates to a reinforced and clarified sense of civic identity and continued commitment to public action.

Provides evidence of experience in civic engagement activities and describes what s/he has learned about her/himself as it relates to a growing sense of civic identity and continued commitment.

Evidence suggests involvement in civic engagement activities is generated from expectations or course requirements rather than a sense of civic identity.

Provides little evidence of her/his experience in civic engagement activities and does not connect experiences to civic identity.

CIVIC LEARNING: ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE

Degree Profile Learning Objective 2: A student can describe historical and contemporary positions on democratic values and practices, and presents his/her position on a related problem.

Capstone (4) Intermediate (3)

Intermediate (2)

Entry (1)

Connects and extends knowledge from one’s own academic field to civic engagement and to one’s own participation in civic life and politics.

Analyzes knowledge from one’s own discipline making relevant connections to civic engagement and to one’s own participation in civic life and politics.

Begins to connect from one’s own discipline to civic engagement and to one’s own participation in civic life and politics.

Begins to identify from one’s own academic field to civic engagement and to one’s own participation in civic life and politics.

‘Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework: Promises, Fears & Realities’

Dr Vicky GunnDirectorLearning and Teaching Centre

Promises

• Raise educational standards across the nation (raise status of nation);

• Establish fair quality assurance – parity of standards

• Enable transfer and mobility in global context;

• Encourage perception by students of progression and development from school into life-long learning contexts.

Fears

• Infringement on academic freedom

• Impossible to differentiate within the sector

• Standardize quality down to lowest common denominator

• Allow accreditors / quality agencies too much influence (institutional autonomy)

Realities - students

• If they do read them, students don’t really understand them (transparency is questionable);

• Students from Scotland are, as of yet, not opting to go abroad in the numbers that justify such a framework on mobility grounds;

• Haven’t been used to help students engage in co-curriculum design.

Realities - academics

Employers?Employers?

Research view on SCQF

“The framework that emerges from this study [impact of NQF] as the most successful, the SCQF, had relatively limited ambitions....”

Difficult to replicate because:

part of very long-term incremental policy reform

relatively strong Scottish educational institutions

Allais (2011) 238.

Futures?

• Differentiation of the sector means NQF good for in-nation quality assurance and we have yet to come up with a better system

• Current emerging trend: not meeting differentiated missions’ needs

• Need for an enhancement framework that is transnational if mission differentiation continues?