Within Our Sights

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WITHINOUR SIGHTS

Inside Campus Eorts t

Achieve National Leadership

in Public Higher Education

A Report to the People of Massachusetts from t

Massachusetts Department of Higher Educatio

October 20


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THE VISION

THAT DRIV ES

We will produce the best-educated

citizenry and workforce in the nation.

We will be national leaders in research

that drives economic development.

INTRODUCTION

2 LETTER FROM THECOMMISSIONERHigher Education Commissioner

Richard M. Freeland reflects

on this exceptional year

for Massachusetts public

higher education.

4 A FOCUS ONRESULTSMassachusetts campusescontinue their quest

for national leadership

among state systems of

public higher education.

WITHINOUR SIGHTSSecond Annual Report on the Vision Projectto the People of Massachusetts from the

Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

October 2013

MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC

HIGHER EDUCATION

29 CAMPUSES

15 COMMUNITY COLLEGES

9 STATE UNI VERSITIES

5 UNIVERSITY OF

MASSACHUSETTS CAMPUSES

300,000 STUDENTS

40,000 FACULTY AND STAFF

$600 MILLION IN ANNUAL

RESEARCH EXPENDITURES

On the Cover

The gatehouse atMassBay Community College


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Featuredthroughout

DATA

71 DATA DASHBOARDSThis section provides a detailed

summary o Massachusetts public

higher educations standing, withnational comparisons and trends

where available, in the key outcome

areas o the Vision Project.

More DATA AT

www.MAss.eDu/vpreporT

FeATures

15 COLLEGE PARTICIPATIONWhat does it mean to be ready

or lie ater high school? PreK12

educators and higher ed aculty

join orces to meet the states need

or an actual denition.

27 COLLEGE COMPLETIONSome campuses are scoring

impressive results in their eorts

to help more students graduate

in less time.

41 STUDENT LEARNINGMassachusetts is leading a national

eort to create a multi-state system

to assess student learning without

use o standardized tests.

49 WORKFORCE ALIGNMENTCampuses are building talent

pipelines in health care, IT and other

high-demand elds byutilizing a new game plan or

workorce development.

59 PREPARING CITIZENSThe Commonwealth is the rst state

in the nation to track civic learning

at its public colleges and universities.

65 RESEARCHFrom genetic breakthroughs to

robotics testing, UMass

research is improving lives and

driving economic development.

CLOSING

ACHIEvEMENT GAPS

Innovative work is underway across

the state to end inequitable

educational outcomes among

students o dierent ethnicities,

genders and economic backgrounds.

70 PHOTO CREDITS


4/88WITHIN OUR SIGHTS 2013 Vision Project Annual Report2

LETTER FROM THE COMMISSIONER

2013 was an exceptional year orMassachusetts public higher education.Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Legislature heeded the calls

o students and amilies, business and industry leaders, and the highereducation community, all o whom made the case or increased investment

in our system. Public colleges and universities now educate two-thirds o

Massachusetts high school graduates who attend college in this state, where

72 percent o jobs will soon require some post-secondary education.

This scal year, Massachusetts ranks among the top ve states

in the nation in the increase o state appropriation or

public higher education over the previous year, a remarkable

shit rom budget reductions seen in the recent past.

The bold leadership shown by Governor Patrick and the MassachusettsLegislature was in response to two developments: concern about rising

college costs and a new sense o urgency about the need or excellence

in Massachusetts public higher education. The presidents o our

community colleges demonstrated an impressive response to calls rom

the Patrick Administration and Legislature or more ocus on workorce

needs and educational accountability. The president o the University o

Massachusetts, Robert Caret, played a leading role in advocating or

increased revenue through a groundbreaking 50-50 unding proposal linked

to institutional commitments to reeze ees. At the same time, state and

business leaders showed a compelling awareness o the role that our public

campuses play in educating the states uture citizenry and workorce.

Two decades ago, it would have been unthinkable or Massachusetts public

higher education to aim or national leadership. These colleges and

universities were considered junior partners to private institutions in the

states higher education community.

Today our public campuses are being called upon to play the

leading role in educating the states uture citizenry and

workorce. In the words o Governor Patrick, We need all o

Massachusetts educational assets ring on all cylinders.

To achieve the goal o becoming a national leader in public higher education,

the Legislature tied much o the increased FY2014 appropriation to

perormance, with a new unding model or community colleges and

competitive grants to reward campuses with unding or projects

that advance Vision Project goals. Through this strategic agenda approved

by the Board o Higher Education in 2010, the campuses o the public

system have engaged in a unied eort to strengthen academic perormance

in both educational achievement and researchwhile also holding

themselves accountable to the public or results.


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Our drive or increased accountability also extends to our work to achieve

cost savings across our campuses. In 2012, the nine state universities and15 community colleges ormed the Partnership to Advance Collaboration

and Eciency (PACE). To date, PACE has promoted cost savings and best

practices that have already generated signicant savings in auditing services,

banking ees, membership ees, and procurement. This year the campuses are

partnering with the Department o Higher Education on a systemwide eort

to achieve eciencies in the area o inormation technology.

Last alls Time to Lead: The Need for Excellence in Public Higher Education was the

rst in a series o annual Vision Project reports which will provide a ull

accounting o where public higher education stands in comparison with

other states. Although it is still too early to see major movement in system-wide data, this years report contains powerul examples o campus-level

work to drive real change through innovations in teaching and learning,

successes that we intend to bring to scale.

This second annual report documents the current standing o Massachusetts

community colleges, state universities and UMass campuses with regard to

key academic and research-related outcomes and does not shy away rom

detailing areas where improvement is needed.

But we believe that the goal o achieving national leadership among state

systems o public higher education is within our sightsand that the

work highlighted in these pages oers concrete evidence that the system iswell on its way to achieving them.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Freeland

Commissioner of Higher Education

A Ba YaWinners o FY14 Vision Project Perormance

Incentive Fund grants celebrate at RoxburyCommunity College. From let: UMass BostonChancellor Keith Motley; Madison Park HighSchool headmaster Diane Ross Gary; Madison

Park student Beza Tadess; UMass Boston ViceProvost Joan Becker; and Roxbury CommunityCollege President Valerie Roberson, alongwith Massachusetts Education Secretary

Matthew Malone and Commissioner Freeland.



September 2010

200 aculty and administrators attend

Vision Project launch conerence supportedby Nellie Mae Education Foundation

vision projecTTiMeline20102013

Key events andpartnerships to dateon our road tonational leadership

Brainpower is our signature economic edge, and ailing to inest in thatin Massachusetts would be like Teas ailing to inest in the oil industr or

Iowa ailing to inest in corn. In Massachusetts we know in order to grow jobs and

unlock economic opportunit we must put a college education in reach o all

o our students. Thats wh we will continue to push to und our public higher ed

sstem at record leels.

THe HonorABle DevAl l. pATricK, Governor oF MAssAcHuseT Ts

may 2010

Massachusetts Board o HigherEducation (BHE) approvesVision Project perormanceagenda or community colleges,state universities & UMass

WITHIN OUR SIGHTS2013 vision Project Annual Report4

A n chat Salem State University students hit the books in the

new Frederick E. Berry Library and Learning Commons, opened in 2013.


7/885Introduction

January 2011

The Boston Foundation awards $125,000 grantto support Vision Project data collection,

analysis, reporting on progress towardnational leadership goals

February 2011

Davis Educational Foundation unds AMCOA(Advancing a Massachusetts Culture

o Assessment) with $268,000 grant tostrengthen learning outcomes assessment

march 2011

In a bid to improve college readiness,

BHE approves new standard or campusadmissions requiring our years o highschool math beginning in all 2016 orapplicants to state universities, UMass

Massachusetts needs to be a national

leader in public higher education.

To reach this goal, the system needs

a way to ocus its work and track

progress. The Vision Project providesthe ramework or system-wide and

campus-level activity in seven key

outcome areas. In this section, we

provide a status check on where

we stand todayand why we believe that

the goal o national leadership among

state systems o public higher education is

within our sights.

INTRODUCTION

5Introduction



auguSt 2011

Massachusetts STEM (Science, Technology,Engineering & Math) Plan accepted bythe National Governors Association as amodel or state STEM initiatives

December 2011

Massachusetts Competitive Partnership and BunkerHill Community College partner to launch the "Learnand Earn" pilot program, oering BHCC students paidinternships with some o area's largest employers

February 2012

Association o American Colleges &Universities grants Massachusetts statusas a LEAP State, paving the way or interstatecollaboration on learning outcomes assessmen

KeY ouTcoMe1 cg patat

wHere we sTAnD Massachusetts is a national lead

in the number o young people it sends to college, but:

Among recent MA public high school

graduates enrolling in public higher ed,

1 t 3 a t mda

during their rst semester o college1

These rates have remained fat or ve years. Further,

college-going and college readiness rates or Arican-

American and Latino students trail those o white studen

by as many as 31 percentage points, with no signicant

movement on these gaps in the past ve years.wHere we see proGress In an unprecedented

partnership, PreK12 educators and public higher

education aculty are taking critical steps to bridge the

readiness gap between the senior year in high

school and the rst year in college. Meanwhile, Hyk

and nth e cmmty cg are among

the campuses using aggressive, creative recruitment eort

to achieve double-digit increases in Latino student

enrollment and retention. Turn to page 20 to read more

about this work and to page 72 to track the data.

THe Focus Increasingthe percentage o high school

graduates who are goingto collegeand the readiness

o these students or

college-level work

September 2011

15 community colleges win $20 million,three-year grant rom U.S. Dept. o Labor toimplement the Massachusetts CommunityColleges and Workorce DevelopmentTransormation Agenda (MCCWDTA)


July 2011

Legislature creates $2.5 millionFY12 Vision Project PerormanceIncentive Fund, establishingcompetitive grant programto support campus initiatives toachieve Vision Project goals


9/887Introduction

THe Focus Increasingthe percentage o students

who earn certicates &degrees to meet the state'sneed or a highly educated

citizenry & workorce

march 2012

BHE votes on revisions to Vision Project keyoutcomes and metrics, adds Preparing Citizensas 7th key outcome; vote establishesMassachusetts as rst state to track civiclearning as accountability metric

may 2012

Davis Educational Foundation provides$328,580 grant to expand AMCOA work;Massachusetts hosts conerence in Boulder, CO,to discuss/plan multi-state assessment systembased on student work, not standardized tests

KeY ouTcoMe2

cgcmt

wHere we sTAnD Massachusetts leads the nation

with 51 percent o 25- to 64-year-old residents holdingcollege degrees.2 But demand or college-educated work-

ers is now outpacing that supply. By 2020, 72 percent o

Massachusetts jobs will require some college education.3

At present, 67 percent o Massachusetts high school

graduates who attend college within the state enroll at

a public college or university.Not enough o these

students complete degrees and certicates to meet the

states workorce need:

Graduation and student success rates are

at ghty ab th ata aagand hae remained at or e ears

Massachusetts will need more graduates to meet

workorce needsand must nd ways to close

achievement gaps, some o which are even larger than

the national average.

wHere we see proGress uMa l and

Famgham stat uty have achieved signicant

improvement in their graduation rates. Discover

their ormulas or success beginning on page 28, and

explore the Vision Project metrics on page 74.

June 2012

In a bid to improve college readiness, BHEapproves new standard or state university,UMass admissions requiring three years ohigh school science beginning in all 2017

7Introduction



September 2012

DHE releases Time to Lead, rst Vision Project annual report

including baseline data or measuring progress

11 campuses begin pilot Completion Incentive Grant program,

using nancial aid to urther Vision Project goals

wHere we sTAnD Massachusetts public college

and university students score at or below the nationalaverage on national licensure exams or proessions

like nursing and accounting, as well as on graduate

admissions exams. However these exams test only small

numbers o students on narrow areas o college learning.

Massachusetts needs a more comprehensive model or

assessing knowledge and skills in critical areas like:

wtt cmmat

Qattat ltay

cta ThkgThe new model must help educators improve educational

programs to achieve better results. And it must allow or

comparisons o student learning between campuses and

among states.

wHere we see proGress Massachusetts is a

national leader in organizing a multi-state eort to de-

sign cutting-edge ways to measure and compare student

learning without using standardized exams. Meanwhile

community college and university aculty are collaborat-

ing to build new assessment models using samples o realstudent work. See a progress report beginning on page

41 and a dashboard o available data on page 75.

KeY ouTcoMe3

stdtlag

THe Focus

Improving teaching &

learning throughbetter assessment, plus

documenting our resultsor the public


July 2012

Legislature increases PerormanceIncentive Fund or FY13 to $7.5 million,instructs DHE to develop a communitycollege unding ormula based inpart on perormance on Vision Projectgoals, establishes new DHE Ofceo Workorce Coordination and newRapid Response grants to advanceVision Project workorce agenda


11/889Introduction

December 2012BHE endorses Nursing & Allied Health Planto address states growing need or morehighly educated nursing workorce

wHere we sTAnD Concerns about Massachusetts

ability to keep up with the demand or college-educated

workers deepen when we examine specic areaso high workorce need. According to our estimates

on pages 7679, Massachusetts is heading or a

shortage o graduates rom public higher education

in these elds including:

In STEM disciplines alone, 36,000

aat ad baaaat dg

b gatd than the workorce

will need b 2020

wHere we see proGress Through strategic

planning and greater connectivity with business and

industry, Massachusetts public colleges and universities

are developing and transorming programs to help

more students gain skills and credentials needed to work

in innovative and high-growth elds. Bdgat stat

uty and Maat cmmty cg are

among the campuses closing ethnic and gender gaps in

math and science, while the Department o Higher

Education has developed a strategic plan to address a

looming shortage o high-skilled nurses. Turn to page

49 or more on this work and to page 76 or all othe projections.

KeY ouTcoMe4

wk Agmt

THe Focus Aligningoccupationally oriented

certicate & degree

programs with the needso statewide, regional &

local employers

march 2013

Governor Patrick announces rst-ever HighDemand Scholarships to students pursuingcareers in high-need elds

9Introduction

January 2013

In State o the State Address,Governor Patrick calls orhistoric levels o investment inFY14 budget to increaseaordability, achieve VisionProject perormance goals



march 2013

Alongside Board o Elementary & SecondaryEducation, BHE approves states rst College &Career Readiness Denition to improve, assessstudent readiness or lie ater high school

may 2013

DHE convenes statewide AMCOA summit totake stock o Massachusetts work in learningoutcomes assessment over past three yearsand to develop plans or moving orward

wHere we sTAnDWith a 2012

Bad Hgh

edatvote to add Preparing Citizens as a

key outcome o the Vision Project, Massachusetts

became the:

1t tat th at to include ciic

learning and engagement

within the metrics used to assess the perormance o its

public higher education system. This is already a

strong ocus o work or many campuses, 10 o whom

have received the Community Engagement Classication

rom the Carnegie Foundation or the Advancemento Teaching. At present 24 campuses collect, analyze

and share data regarding aspects o their students

civic learning.

wHere we see proGress A Task Force has

recently completed its recommendations to the Board

o Higher Education on how to develop a statewide

civic learning strategy. Meanwhile Mt wahtt

cmmty cg is nding that service learning

projects appear to boost retention rates by keeping

undergraduates on track to complete their studies.

Learn more starting on page 59.

THe Focus Providingstudents with the

knowledge & skillsto be engaged,

inormed citizens

KeY ouTcoMe5

pag

ctz



13/8811Introduction

OctOber 2013

Within Our Sights, second Vision Project

annual report, is released at statewideconerence attended by over 400 acultyand administrators rom Massachusettspublic colleges and universities

wHere we sTAnD Chronic achievement gapsexist among students o dierent ethnicities and

economic status:

Aay a dat o educational

successwith little moement in the past

e ears

Closing these gaps is not only the right thing to do,

but it is also one o the most powerul strategies

to propel Massachusetts to national leadership in all

educational outcomes.

wHere we see proGress The success o

Holyoke and Northern Essex Community Colleges in

increasing Latino enrollment (page 20) and o

Bridgewater State University and Massasoit Community

College in closing gaps in STEM elds (page 52) are

two important examples o progress. But closing gaps is

so essential to the success o the Vision Project that

campus eorts in this area are woven into all Vision

Project-related work.

lk th thght th magaz

to learn more about campus eorts to close gapsin College Participation, College Completion,

Student Learning and other work, and get the big picture

on achievement gaps through the wide array o metrics

on page 80.

THe Focus Closingachievement gaps amongstudents rom dierentethnic, racial & income

groups in all areas oeducational progress

July 2013

Legislature expands commitmentto public higher educationin FY14 budget, distributescommunity college undingvia new perormance ormula,maintains Perormance IncentiveFund at $7.5 million

KeY ouTcoMe6

cg

AhmtGa

11Introduction


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15/8813Introduction

The data will takesome time to moe,but when I isit our

campuses I see acult and

sta who share the

vision and are personall

committed to reaching

the leadership goals wehae set or ourseles.

Were seeing some earl

signs o change at indiidual

campuses, which is er

eciting. I hae no doubt

that deeper and more

persistent sstem-wide

results will ollow.

cHArles F. DesMonD,cHAirMAn,

MAssAcHuseTTs BoArD oF

HiGHer eDucATion

The goals o the Vision Project are inormed by the data,

but driven by the campuses. The ollowing section tells

the stories o hardworking aculty, sta and students at

Massachusetts community colleges, state universities

and UMass campuses who are committed to the pursuit o

academic excellence and the goal o attaining national

leadership among state systems o public higher education.

FeATures



Dg u emt Students ride La Guagua pal College, thebus to college, a ree shuttle between Holyoke Community College and

the citys largely Latino downtown neighborhoods. Story on page 20.

1


17/8815Key Outcome 1. College Participation

KeY ouTcoMe1

cgpatat

Massachusetts is a national leader inthe percentage o high school graduatesthat attends college. Yet even as anational leader, the Commonwealth isnot where it needs to be in preparingstudents or college. Through the VisionProject, public campuses are partneringwith PreK12 colleagues to:

rd mb tdth a ad g- k

cat aadm tt th

c th ad -mga g-gg at


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csSw,Executive Director,Northeast RegionalReadiness Center at

Salem State University

cs Ksk,Dean o Business,Science and MathPrograms, BerkshireCommunity College

e god,Assistant Vice President

o Planning and

Strategic Initiatives,Northern Essex

Community College

S m,Vice President,Academic and

Student Aairs,Cape CodCommunity College

S l,SeniorDirector o Alignmentand Engagement,

MassachusettsDepartment oHigher Education

mb,

Director o

Assessment,Greeneld

Community College

Q: W ws so o o v

s do ow?

Christine Shaw: We needed to changethe conversation rom What do you

need to be a high school graduate?

to What do you need to be success-

ul in college or in a career?

Charles Kaminski: The denition was

important because it would really

help bridge the conounding gap that

exists between MCAS completion

and students walking through the

door shocked that they were placedinto pre-college-level (non-credit)

work. It would allow the community

colleges to develop curriculum

based on what high school students,

having met this denition, would

actually be able to do.

Ellen Grondine:It also provided an

opportunity or K12 and higher

ed to take responsibility or student

learning rom the beginning.

I think, prior to this, there was a

nger-pointing (between K12

and higher ed). The work on the

denition has provided a bridge

that wasnt there prior.

Q. W s dv d o

o do o o

d dss?Sue Miller: We were hearing rom

some policy makers, business

and industry leaders, and other

constituents that our student

outcomes didnt match their

expectations. So I think we had to

go back to stage one and say,

How do we meet the expectations o

the world and higher academia?

Christine Shaw: There was a sensethat the structure was nally in

place or this discussion, that we

could move past a discussion

that always ends with We use

MCAS in PreK12, and Well, we

use ACCUPLACER in higher ed (or

assessment purposes). Now we

were asking each other, How do we

develop the pipeline so that people

can transition easily and quickly

rom one level o education intothe next?

People came to the conversation a

little leery. Im not sure weve got

complete buy-in yet that this is going

to work, that were going to have

this collective and seamless public

education system. But the denition

helps drive us in that direction.

I think it was the rst

time we reall looked

at how we are going

to make such a large,

sstemic change,

not onl in how we

delier instruction

but how we as colleges

take responsibilit

or the students who

become teachers.



Q. W w sk os

o dsssos w pK12

s d dsos? W

w o s?

Sue Lane: The superintendent

o one large urban school sys-

tem was very direct and saidat the start o one meeting, I we are

not talking about college and career

readiness or all students, then we

cant have this conversation. That

sentiment was echoed in every single

meeting across the Commonwealth.

Ellen Grondine: What struck me was

the rank discussion around teacher

prep. One o the principals stood up

and said, I you keep cranking out

the same teachers, were still going

to have the same issues. And I think

it was the rst time we really looked

at how we are going to make such a

large, systemic change, not only in

how we deliver instruction but how

we as colleges take responsibility or

the students who become teachers.

Charles Kaminski:At Berkshire we

already had three years o working

with high schools to bridge the basicskills gap, and I think rom talking

to my own colleagues and PreK12

aculty there was an appreciation o

the new eort statewide to come up

with a system to have this seamless

transition, rather than us out here

doing our thing and other regions

doing their own.

Sue Miller: We worked with a core o

our high schools on language artsand math...What we ound on both

sides is that they (in PreK12) are

doing a lot o interesting and good

things but in a vacuum that didnt

help students through the transition

to college.

Gd cmmty cg

psd bo p remembers the

local high school student who was

signing the papers to drop out o

school, literall walking awa rom

her education, when her guidance

counselor called her back.

He suddenl remembered this program at Greeneld

Communit College (GCC), and he told her about it, Pura

recalls. That oung woman has not onl graduated

rom high schoolshe went on to graduate rom GCC and

is now enrolled in a our-ear college.

Greeneld welcomes would-be dropouts and students

with educational challenges into its edata Tat

pgam, a partnership between GCC and two area high

schools. Students accepted into the program rom T

Fa and Gd Hgh sh take classes at GCC

and are eligible to earn both high school and college credit

or their communit college courses. Each entering cohort

takes a three-credit rst-ear eperience course but then

enrolls in classes with other GCC students. The become

ull-edged members o the campus communit and are

able to access the Colleges ull arra o academic support

serices. ETP is partiall nanced through the ederalcmmty Dmt Bk Gat program and pri-

ate donations, along with unds rom the two high schools

and the College. While unding has remained constant, it

has not kept pace with rising educational costs, which has

orced GCC to reduce the number o student seats aailable.

Despite the unortunate cutbacks, the program continues to

achiee successes with at-risk students. While Turners Falls

and Greeneld High Schools hae graduation rates that are

signicantl lower than the statewide aerage, the ETP

program graduated 94% o its seniors in 2012 and 95% in

2013. This past ear, 91% o all credits sought b the

students were earned. Haing secured their high school

diplomas, 79% continued on to college.

In high school I was coninced I was going to drop out

because I did not t in sociall with the other students,

wrote one ETP graduate, Class o 12. I elt er alone and

disappointed in msel that I was so anious to attend

school eer morning. I came to GCC, took risks, made

riends, and ound a sense o sel and communit that neer

eisted or me beore. ETP changed m lie.

Amt ot th D

18

FrOm page 171


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Abt ya ag, Hyk

cmmty cg bght a b.

Not a large one. Just a 20-seater. The

HCC Express runs in the evenings

between campus and the largely

Latino neighborhoods in downtown

Holyoke, and its ree. The brightorange and yellow bus is more com-

monly known around campus and

around the city by its Spanish name,

La Guagua pal College, literally, the

bus to college.

Naturally, La Guaguas most im-

portant purpose is transporting

students who might not otherwise

be able to get to school. Its also a

mobile billboard. Encuentra lo mejorde ti!the message says on the side.

Find the best in you!

In a way, the bus also represents

HCCs commitment to the Latino

community, providing access to a

traditionally underserved popula-

tion and creating pathwaysroutes,

so to speakto a college education.

COLLEGE PARTICIPATION & CLOSING ACHIEv EMENT GAPS

cam Tagt lat emt

Frank Discussion. I remember a

humbling meeting not long ater I

arrived at HCC in 2004 with Edward

Carballo, then the Holyoke school

superintendent. He said to me, Bill,

you guys arent doing the job.

He was right. I knew the numbers.

In a city with a Latino population o

41 percent, HCCs Latino enrollment

was a meager 14 percent.

I cant stress enough the importance

o campus leadership standing up

and articulating emphatically that

increasing Latino student enrollment

must be an institutional priority.

A Turnaround. Today, the numberslook a lot dierent. From all 2006

to all 2012, weve boosted our

enrollment o Latino students rom

866 (ull- and part-time) to 1,465,

an increase o nearly 70 percent, and

Latinos now make up about 21

percent o our students.

How Did We Do This? Two words.

Recruitment and retention. We not

only needed to do a better job draw-

ing Latino students to campus, but

we needed to do a better job keeping

them here.

We have dozens o programs now

that reach out to underserved

populations, including students

rom low-income amilies who are

oten the rst ones in their amilies

to attend college.

For example, eight years ago, our

admissions oce startedAVANZA 2

College, a program that walks

students and their amilies through

the college registration, transer

and nancial aid process. A ew years

ago, we opened an Adult Learning

Center in downtown Holyoke above

the bus station in a building called

the Picknelly Adult and Family

Education Center. Here, we run

pre-GED and GED-preparation

HOLyOKE COMMUNITy COLLEGE

o th B t cg BY williAM Messner, presiDenT

1

6


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24/88



This tremendous

growth isthe result o a

ocused eort

to address the

needs o the

communitieswe sere.

H Atty Students take advantage o academicsupport services at the Student Success Center, which is unded by

NECCs ederal grant or Hispanic Serving Institutions and the VisionProject Perormance Incentive Fund.

most at-risk students, and a Summer

Bridge Program to prepare Latino

high school grads or their reshman

year in college.

Since the Student Success Center

opened in November o 2011, over

1000 students have utilized its

services. Students who took ull

advantage o the centers resources

rom the all o 2012 to the springo 2013 had a 78.2 percent retention

rate, as compared to a similar group

o students who had minimal

engagement with the center and had

a 65.8 percent retention rate.

Access & Opportunit. Providing a

college education to Latino residents,

along with a ull complement o

support services, is tremendously

important to us at Northern

Essex. By 2020, 72 percent o jobs

in Massachusetts will require

an associates degree or certicate.

We want to ensure that the

growing number o Latinos living

and working in the Merrimack Valley

have access to the educational

programs that will lead to well-

paying careers.



Dag th n pat

is k dd soo d, w os o o sd d s o o.

Thats how Famghamstat uty English

Proessor lo hoow

describes the earl, pre-vision

Project engagement between

Uniersit acult and teach-

ers at area high schools. The two groups o educators had

agreed to meet in a bid to help more students prepare or

college-leel math coursework. B the end o the dance (in

act, a series o conersations that later resumed with vision

Project unding), both sides had shed their initial wari-

ness and were able to moe as partners. More importantl,Framingham was beginning to see a signicant drop in the

number o students placing into deelopmental (remedial)

coursework rom those eeder schools (Marlborough, Frank-

lin, Framingham and Natick). The number o students rom

those schools needing remediation in math dropped rom

21% in 2012 to 9% in 2013.

We didnt reall talk to each other beore, een though

we were teaching the same students, recalls Hollowa o

the pre-vision Project discussions. But ater one o these

conersations, I remember Jo c, the chair o ourmath department, saing, Wow, now I understand wh m

students hae been conused. Were not een using the

same terminolog. I I had known the terms being used

b teachers at their high schools, m students would hae

understood me much aster.

A v pt pma it Fd grant

proided the FSU acult and area high school teachers

with stipends to work together on STEM course redesign.

MaBay cmmty cg was also a partner in the

process. One o the topics o these peer discussions was

gap analsis, identiing areas where students were in need

o better preparation or college coursework and how we

can get students to be actie learners and critical thinkers

through course design enironments. The dialogue was ke

to helping educators rom the eeder schools understand

the importance o looking beond the admissions process

when helping students prepare or college.

Framingham preiousl had pockets o people working

with PreK12 partners, Hollowa sas, but the vision

Project proided alidation that such eorts were not

onl critical, but needed to be brought to scale at the

institutional and state-wide leels.

When the Time to Leadreport came out, I was reall ecited

because this is what wed been doing and now I could see

that it was also on the states agenda.

Wok w soos o ddsss o dss s oss sw os ss.

In spring 2012, Mdd

cmmty cg

teamed with the uty

Maahtt l

and educators rom

our-ear high schools to

map the new Massachusetts Curriculum Framework orEnglish Language Arts to the Aat Ama

cg ad ut Written Communication vALUE

(valid Assessment o Learning in Undergraduate Education)

Rubric, part o the AAC&Us Liberal Education or Americas

Promise LEAP (Liberal Education & Americas Promise) initia-

tie. The vALUE Rubrics are being used to guide campus

work in deeloping new assessments o student learning.

We did this to see i our high school colleagues were going

ater the same things in the area o composition that we

were, sas K bs, Associate Dean o K16 Partnershipsat Middlese. It was reall eciting work because, at

the end, we were able to see signicant oerlap between

the English Language Arts rameworks and the LEAP

vALUE Rubric.

Thirt-two educators took part in Taking the LEAP to

Readiness or College-leel Writing. The mapping eercise

helped them see real alignment between the states

English Language Arts curriculum ramework or high

school juniors and seniors and e o the seen areas o

competenc spelled out in the vALUE Rubric or written

communication. Middlese is now deeloping a web portal

where the results o the mapping will be aailable or

reiew b all acult.

The immediate result is that our acult were able to see

that students hae done a lot o this work at the high

school leel, sas Burns. So the hae a better understand-

ing o what students should be able to do when the arrie

at Middlese, and the high school acult hae a better

understanding o our standards and epectations.


1



Boston Public School junior K bo still isnt sure i

she wants to be an artist or a nurse, but her participation in

the Maahtt cg At ad Dg AtadBd program has made her eel condent that shell be

read or college when the time comes.

Artward Bound has gien me the eeling o how it is to be

a college student, she sas. I hae oercome lots o

challenges such as organization, ollowing through with

m ideas, and time management.

Funded b a v pt pma it Fd

grant, MassArts rst-in-the-nation art and academic college

preparator program is about to enter its third ear. The PIF

grant allowed MassArt to leerage nearl hal a million dol-lars in support rom local and national oundations.

The ear-round program is ree and requires students to

make a het our- or e-ear commitment to academic

tutoring and isual arts instruction, all o it taking place

in a dedicated classroom and studio space at the MassArt

campus. MassArt students and acult sere as mentors

and coaches, engaging students in communit art projects

and galler ehibitions. While art is the draw or most o the

student participants, the are also required to take hal-da

English and math classes and three nancial literac coursesduring a si-week summer session.

What were seeing rom our initial data is that the

program is clearl ostering a desire to go to college

among students rom demographic backgrounds

with lower leels o college participation, sas D S,

Associate Proessor o Art Education at MassArt.

Kelina hopes her Artward Bound portolio will strengthen

her college application. While the program has proided

her with a close insight into the MassArt curriculum,

it has also gien her a broader understanding o what a

college enironment is like and what colleges are looking

or in a student.

On m rst da at Artward Bound I elt er nerous andsh, Kelina remembers. But as I got to know eerone I elt

united because I was with people who hae similar interests

as me. We help each other when we are struggling with our

artwork and share ideas that will help improe our work. I

eel like haing these skills will help me in the uture.

StuDent SpOtlight

Ka Ba Atad Bd

QuicK taKe

eay cg Students at mo

Ws co cosPathways Early College Innovation School earn

both their high school diploma and an associatesdegree. Thirty-one percent o the rst graduatingclass and 53 percent o the second graduatingclass made the Deans List or Presidents List.

Seventy-one percent o Pathways

students are low-income orrst-generation college students.

cg Kdg High school student Kelina Bracero mixes art classand college prep work at MassArt.


28/88


29/8827Key Outcome 2. College Completion

KeY ouTcoMe2

cgcmt

Massachusetts public college and university studentscomplete degrees and certicates at a rate that is

at or just a ew percentage points above the nationalaverage. Given the Commonwealths economic ocuson knowledge-intensive industries and its steadilyincreasing dependence on public higher educationto produce a high-skilled workorce, these numbersarent strong enough to ensure that Massachusettsstays competitive with other states and nations.

In a range o programmatic innovations that align

with Vision Project goals, many public campusesare now engaged in eorts to raise student successrates, by:

rmg ba that tdtg tad gadat

Takg am at ahmt ga thathd bak hgh-k tdt

Dg , hgh-mat bad ah ad d



COLLEGE COMPLETION

rag th rat

Graduation rates are

hard to increase

without a substantial

and sustained eort.

The work o these

uniersities makes thecase that raising

graduation rates, while

difcult, can be done,

sas Stan Jones,

president o Complete

College America.

i th b makt, g dta a a kd a,protecting individuals with advanced degrees against the chance o job

loss and nancial ruin. College completion is a predictor o uture

civic participation, and o a graduates ability to pay o student loans.

And, or business and industry, the supply o skilled graduates ready

to work in knowledge-based sectors is key to determining whether a

company grows deep roots in Massachusetts or moves elsewhere.

For all o these reasons, the Vision Project goal o national leadership in

College Completion is critical to the well-being o the Commonwealth.

(For a look at where Massachusetts stands in relation to leading states,

see page 74.)

Two Standout Institutions. While all public colleges and universities are o-

cused on completion, two universities have shown particular improvement in

six-year graduation rates o rst-time, ull-time reshmen. At the uty

Maahtt l the graduation rate increased 9.8 percent between

all 2007 and all 2012. At Famgham stat uty, the six-year rate

increased 8.9 percent during the same period (Source: USDOE/IPEDS).

I am very impressed with these signicant increases, says S Jos,

president ocmt cg Ama. Graduation rates are hard to

increase without a substantial and sustained eort. The work o these

universities makes the case that raising graduation rates, while dicult,can be done.

Academic leaders at both campuses agree that a multi-aceted strategy

involving the entire campus communityespecially acultyproduced the

promising results.

T Campuses,TStrategiesor Success

2



lag (ad lg-lag) cmmt.All

incoming reshman at uMa l are organized

into learning communities. Cohorts o students take

three courses and see each other nine times a week.

Two o the courses are required; the third is a seminar

related to a particular major. The goal, Provost ad

ad says, is to connect students with aculty rom

their area o interest.

When you look at what happens at universities, a resh-

man says, I want to major in engineering, but they may

not see a aculty rom engineering until their third year.

That is not a good model. You want to provide them

with an opportunity early on to meet someone who rep-

resents the discipline.

Acting on a suggestion rom Student Services, the Uni-

versity also launched dorm-based Living-Learning Com-

munities, each ocused on a program major and staed

by a tenured aculty mentor. Freshmen retention rates

or LLC residents was 89 percent rom all 2011 to all

2012, 7 percent higher than the retention rate or

all reshmen.

UMASS LOWELL

w A imattAbt s

FRAMINGHAM STATE UNIvERSITy

i K w cd D Bttcam-d cmt Mag. For interim

President and ormer Vice President o Academic Aairs

ro m, Framingham States graduation rate did

not do justice to the campus he loved.

I believed our rate was not refective o our quality and

that we could do better, he recalls. Its not enough to

have conversations inside the university and say, We

know were good.

Faculty and administrators began working together to

change the way they communicated with students. Start-

ing at orientation and with all student academic and

nancial aid advising, students at Framingham State

began to get the message about the importance o nish-

ing college in as ew years as possible, says Martin. We

became very systematic and we drilled that message hard,

and it came as a bit o surprise to some parents.



Fhma rah c-. UMass

Lowell has aggressively pursued the

co-op model o business and indus-

try work experience or students,

using av pt pma

it Fd grant to expand

proessional co-ops by 54 percent

and community co-op placements by

77 percent rom 2012 to 2013. The

same und supported an increase in

service learning, with more than 130

additional students participating

during the spring 2013 semester and

another 171 scheduled to take partin all 2013.

As a result, students become much

more ocused on what they want to

do, Provost Abdelal notes. They

say, I really learned rom co-op

UMASS LOWELL

FrOm page 29

Administrators also realized thatthey had stopped reerring to co-

horts as the Class o 2011, so they

began hanging banners at campus

events that eatured the names o

all students in a cohort and their

expected graduation year.

Part o the success is putting it back

in students heads that this is a

our-year experience, says Susanne

Conley, Vice President or Enroll-

ment and Student Development.

Ft-Ya Fdat.

Framingham State aculty and sta

attended the Foundations o

Excellence program oered through

the Gad ittt, and as a

result o the programs rigorous

sel-study, decided to revamp their

approach to reshman orientation.

what I want to study and what I

dont want to study. And o course,

they develop signicant connections

to aculty.

eay wag sytm.UMassLowell is one o a growing number

o campuses using a computer-based

early warning system to identiy

students who appear to be struggling

just weeks into the semester. Every

two weeks, aculty are reminded to

check their rosters to see which stu-

dents appear to be having problems.

And then through our student advis-

ing centers, we reach out to those

students, says co md,Lowells Vice Provost or Undergrad-

uate Education. We try to see whats

going on. Is it a nancial problem?

Personal, or academic? Our response

rate rom aculty has been 90 percent.

Looking back, Conley now says, I

cant believe we just threw books at

them and said, Heres a course cata-

logue. Now, incoming students take

placement tests and then, based on

their majors and general education

requirements, we say Heres your

schedule.

All reshmen are required to take a

rst-year oundations course aimed

at helping them adjust to college

expectations. In their second term,

reshmen learn rom peer mentors

how to make their own courseschedules and track progress to

graduation day.

Framingham also studied its resh-

man classes and discovered that

undeclared commuter students were,

as Conley puts it, the most likely

We had conersations

with the acult,

encouraging them

to think anew, sasProost Abdelal. And

some o the acult said,

Dont ou want us to

weed out the weaker

students? And we said,

No, the students we

hae admitted, we want

them to succeed.

o th Fh l Framingham State

is graduating more students.

FRAMIN GHAM STATE

FrOm page 29

2


33/88



Th DFw rt. UMass Lowell

has begun using spreadsheets to

track students who are getting Dsand Fs or withdrawing rom chal-

lenging courses such as Calculus and

Organic Chemistry.

The ailure rates in Calculus or

Engineering, a two-semester

sequence, were between 60 and 70

percent, Mandell recalls. We

met with the math department and

we realized that by the time

students had gotten to calculus they

had already orgotten pre-calc.

The sequence was redesigned to inte-

grate the two courses, and large lec-

ture classes with 300+ students were

reduced in size to 3040 students.

UMASS LOWELL

FrOm page 31

stamg rqmt,Attakg c Bttk.

Framingham reviewed all academic

programs and ound that additional

requirements were slowing student

progress toward completion.

So we urged and cajoled the

department chairs and curriculum

committees to streamline, and

Id say weve moved about a

third o our departments in thisdirection, Interim President Martin

says. People delude themselves

in saying the more requirements we

have, the more prepared students

will be. There is no relationship

between the number o courses

required and academic rigor.

And that was a place the aculty

balked, Mandell remembers. They

said, We have our best lecturers

doing these larger classes, and i we

switch to smaller classes there will bemore inconsistency and well have to

hire more (part-time) adjuncts.' We

said, Thats OK. We think its really

alienating to be in a class o 300

where you cant ask a question.

The University also made placement

testing mandatory: We said its not

an option to take the harder course

and ail.

We had conversations with theaculty, encouraging them to think

anew, says Provost Abdelal. And

some o the aculty said, Dont you

want us to weed out the weaker

students? And we said, No, the

students we have admitted, we want

them to succeed.

Faculty came up with the idea o a

calculus camp, a three-week,intensive program oered ree o

charge to students who had received

a D in calculus and were likely to

ail i they moved on to the next level.

Eighty percent o the students

who took the course passed it with

a grade o C or better.

And when the camp worked, that

persuaded the aculty that they

could change the situation, ratherthan blame the ailure on the PreK

12 system, which we dont control,

Abdelal observes.

Faty pay a Ky r. Dr. Vandana Singh speaks to students in herPrinciples o Physics II course at Framingham State.

FRAMING HAM STATE

FrOm page 31

2


35/88


36/88


37/88



Collaboratie Eorts. Funds

rom the grant (also known as the

Maahtt cmmty

cg wk DmtTamat Agda) have

been used to developed 24

contextualized developmental

education modules which are

housed in a digital library and

available or campus use. English

and math topics are based on real

scenarios ound in three top

industries where many student

graduates will eventually land

jobs: health care, inormationtechnology, and advanced manu-

acturing. Design teams comprised

o campus and industry representa-

tives aligned the modules with skills

needed or positions in home health

care, web design, or quality control.

In the health care literacy module,

or example, students might practice

writing a rebuttal to an insurance

company that denied a claim, or

translating a medical record into

plain English. The Common Core

State Standards are ront and

center in the modules, says b

t, an edat D-

mt ct (eDc) consultant who

helped design them. Faculty are

having dierent conversations with

students that point in the direction

o completion. Its opening up career

discussions.Ks D, a member o

the Qgamd cmmty

cg English aculty, used the

Inormation Technology module in

her intermediate writing class, and

watched a disabled student discover

a potential career path or himsel as

a help desk technician.

We were able to talk about this as an

entry point to an IT career or him,she recalls. It was like Willy Wonka

nding the golden ticket.

Daigneault says the contextualized

approach helps students gain a

much clearer under-

standing o why partic-

ular skills are necessary

or certain occupations,

discoveries that she and

other aculty believe

will motivate them to

work harder. Early data

based on student satis-

action surveys shows

that participants in the

contextualized writing

classes were 22 percent

more condent about their writing

skills and 22 percent more engaged

and ocused on their work than stu-

dents in traditional developmentaleducation courses.

Fueling the Workorce. At Bt

cmmty cg, where 8085

percent o students test into

developmental education courses,

the modularized approach to math

instruction is helping to move stu-

dents aster to into jobs. Associate

Vice President or Academic Aairs

ao u, who ormerly chaired

the engineering department, notesthat while students do get diplomas,

there tend to be more placements

than there are graduates, a

wonderul position to be in. But or

students stuck in the educational

quicksand o developmental math,

even the brightest employment

prospects can appear to be a mirage.

With computer-aided instruction in

ve labs unded by av pt

pma it Fdgrant, Bristols engineering students

are able to do an average o 4.7

math modules in a semester, up

rom a maximum o our under

the old model.

While only 60 percent o the stu-

dents were passing in the old devel-

opmental courses, now were looking

at rates where no one is ailing the

entire course. Its just how ar youveprogressed, Ucci notes. And the

average progress rate is 25 percent

higher than it used to be.

In the all o 2013, Bristol will try

to speed up the developmental

sequence even more, using a pre-

requisite model that injects algebra

lessons into a statistics course.

Students will actually take algebra

and statistics simultaneously, andbecause they are coordinated, stu-

dents will be able to get the algebra

content they need just in time to use

it in the stats class. This will save

them a ull semester.

Daigneault sas the contetualized

approach helps students gain a

much clearer understanding o whparticular skills are necessar or

certain occupations, discoeries that

she and other acult beliee will

motiate them to work harder.

FrOm page 35

2



Deelopmental (remedial)education is a serious drainon our education sstem,costing the state millions o

dollars, and students time and

mone, which neither can aord.

The innoatie was that campuses

are moing students out o

deelopmental education and into

credit-bearing coursework at a

aster rate is er encouraging and

is critical to our students uture

and prospects in the workorce.

linDA noonAn, execuTive DirecTor,

MAssAcHuseTTs Business AlliAnce

For eDucATion

buSineSS cOmmunity perSpectiVe

CEOs in the business world

oten turn to eecutie

coaches to help them set

strategic goals or their companies. Now, Bkh

cmmty cg students hae coaches workingone-on-one to help them set such goals or themseles.

Berkshires GtreAl (Gt r edat,

Adg ad lag) Adg ct opened in 2011

with support rom a v pt pma it

Fd grant.

Without the grant, we would not hae been able to sere

this population o students, nor pa or the sta and train-

ing, sas los hwz, Director o Transition and Deel-

opment Programs at Berkshire. The coach is seen b the

student as being on the same team as the acult. The help

GetREAL students to problem sole, learn how to manage

their time, and to deelop goals.

Recognizing that students who place into remedial English

and/or math present unique challenges not onl in their

academic preparedness but in oerall readiness or college

lie, GetREAL hired and trained e academic adisors/

coaches who in the rst ear worked with 20 students.

The strateg appears to be working: 100 percent o partici-

pants in the GetREAL pilot persisted in their studies (persis-

tence dened as enrolling or more than two semesters). In

all 2011, the course completion rate or GetREAL students

in English was 94 percent, compared with a baseline o 72

percent. In math, the numbers were also strong: 66 percent

completion compared to a baseline o 39 percent.

One o the coaches, mk c, documented his

eperience working with an English student in a Berkshire

blog post:

At BCC, I nd mysel mining diamonds in the

GetREAL program Imagine our delight when

several o the aculty mentors stumbled upon a

real diamond, when we were asked to help look

over an English assignment or a student named

Samantha. Samanthas short essay about her

grandmother, entitled Wait Until You Get a Load

o This, bowled us over. It is nice to see our mine

producing gems.

At a commuter college like ours, GetREAL is a home that

builds connections or students, sas Hurwitz. It has be-

come a critical retention tool.

Bkh stdtGt reAl abt s

Reducing Students Costs.And

such a savings also has nancial

implications. On average, students

who test into developmental

education classes at Bristol take

three years to complete a two-year

degree. Ucci hopes the new instruc-

tional approaches will reduce the

time-to-degree or ull-time students

by at least a semester.

We want to be hotbeds o innova-

tion, he emphasizes. Historically,

we havent had the resources

to do things on a system-wide basis.

The Vision Project PerormanceIncentive Fund has allowed us

to create instructional resources

and really ree up aculty to

do the development. Its been a

wonderul experience.

37Key Outcome 2. College Completion



At the end o her rst ear

at Maahtt cg

lba At (MCLA),student r W

was running behind in

credits needed to graduate within our ears. The Arts

Management major had not et completed a math prep

course that she would later need to enroll in college-leel

math. When sta with the MCLA ct stdt

s ad egagmt (csse) encouraged Rhea to

enroll in a summer course to help her sta on track or

graduation within our ears, she worried about a potential

three-hour commute to and rom campus.

MCLAs worries were more long-term: What i students like

Rhea ail to make it to graduation da? The question was at

the heart o a new college initiatie to help such students

earn 30 credits beore the start o their second ear.

Launched in all 2011 with a v pt pma

it Fd grant, the 30--3 program oers a

wa or students to earn 30 credits in three semesters

beore the start o their second ear at MCLA. 30-in-3

identies and proides support to rst-ear students at

risk o not earning enough credits to graduate within

our ears. According to co D, MCLA vice

President o Student Aairs, 30-in-3 was launched ater

college data showed that students who did not obtain

30 credits b the beginning o their second ear had lower

persistence rates and took longer to graduate.

We hae an opportunit and a responsibilit to ensure that

all students, and especiall rst-ear students, understand

how important it is to earn enough credits toward gradu-

ation right rom the start, sas c bow, MCLAs

vice President or Academic Aairs. Some o them needpre-college courses to prepare them or college-leel work,

but those credits do not count toward graduation. So we

wanted to nd a wa to help them sta on track.

During the all 2011 semester, the program identied 28%

o the MCLA rst-ear cohort who would benet rom 30-in-

3 support. The students were oered additional academic

adising, reresher workshops, tutors, and specialized

coursessuch as the one that Rhea enrolled inin an

eort to support them in earning 30 credits b the start o

their second ear. The strateg has paid o. In just two ears,MCLA has increased the number o students earning 30

credits beore the start o their second ear rom 30% in all

2010 to 63% in all 2012.

For Rhea, what rst appeared to be a challenge became

a highl rewarding eperience. Her course was oered

online, easing her commuting ears. She enjoed making

digital connections with her proessor and classmates. She

obtained three more credits, giing her the desired 30, and

she gained more ocus, what she described as a wake-up

call to the need to graduate on time.

Were er happ with the outcome or Rhea and other

students, remarks Brown. This program sets high aspira-

tions and supports the College Completion goals o the

vision Project. Moreoer, it illustrates the positie impact o

intentional adising on student success.

o Tak, o Tm Gadat

MCLA

2


41/88



Habt Md A look inside the classroom at Fitchburg State University, an active participant inthe statewide AMCOA (Advancing a Massachusetts Culture o Assessment) project. Learn more about

this collaborative work to strengthen assessment in public higher education on starting on page 45.

3


43/88



cmmmt a a

y tm in the lives o

college students and their amilies.

Diplomas in hand, graduates

head into the world with high

hopes and a well-earned eeling o

mission accomplished.

Like states across the nation, how-

ever, Massachusetts lacks the means

to report out what these studentsactually learned during their college

years. Scores on assignments and

nal exams, the standards or which

vary rom campus to campus, pres-

ent a decidedly narrow view. Without

the ability to gauge what students

have learned and are prepared to do,

its dicult to pinpoint stumbling

blocks or improve instruction.

State o Assessment. Learningoutcomes assessment has been a

hot topic in higher education

circles or years, but Massachusetts

pioneering work in this area is

drawing particular attention. O

keen interest is the states decision

to compare undergraduate student

learning across disciplines, campuses,

and states without use o a high

stakes exit examto build a new as-

sessment model rom the bottom up

based on actual student work.

Traditional standardized assess-

ments typically measure a test-takers

ability to recall acts and gures,which is arguably less relevant in the

digital age o on-demand inorma-

tion. Such measures provide little

i any insight into students ability

to internalize, interpret, apply, and

transer knowledgeyet it is this

more nuanced set o higher-order

thinking skills that is most needed

to address complex problems in a

rapidly changing world.

The Massachusetts Model. The

model embraced by the Maah-

tt Datmt Hgh ed-

at and participating campuses

allows students to demonstrate their

learning in multiple ways, using

classroom-based work. Rather than

simply collect and evaluate course

grades or test results, policy makers

and aculty participants avor assess-

ments that will enable instructors to

use the evidence to make curricular

changes, rethink course design,

and implement new classroom

teaching and learning methodsall with an eye toward improving

student learning.

Beginning on the ground with

aculty, sta, and administrators

rom campuses across the

Commonwealth, new assessment

programs built upon actual

student work are being developed

and implemented within and

across majors, across institutions,

and even across states. In thewords ocosso Fd,

This is the area o the Vision Project

where we have truly begun to move

the needle nationally.

BY Bonnie orcuT T, econoMics proFessor,

worcesTer sTATe universiTY; and

DirecTor oF le ArninG ouTcoMes AssessMenT,

MAssAcHuseTTs DepArTMenT oF HiGHer e DucATion

STUDENT LEARNING

A n v

lag otm Amt

3


45/8843Key Outcome 3. Student Learning

Fundamentals o Liberal Education.

What kinds o learning should be

assessed? Competencies that

are broadly embraced across the

nation include:

written communication,

quantitatie literac, and

critical thinking.

While campuses, instructors, stu-dents and prospective employers

value these broad-based skills, states

and local institutions have historical-

ly lacked the means to demonstrate

achievement in these areas.

In February 2012, Massachusetts

was accepted into the Ama

Aat cg

ad ut LEAP (Liberal

Education or Americas Promise)State Initiative. AAC&Us LEAP

Essential Learning Outcomes

and VALUE (Valid Assessment o

Learning in Undergraduate Educa-

tion) Rubrics served as the building

blocks or a concerted eort by 22

public campuses to develop the

Commonwealths rst statewide

post-secondary assessment plan.

The First Pilot. During spring 2013,

Massachusetts launched a pilot

study o a new statewide

model to assess learning

outcomes. Six campuses

Bt cmmty

cg, Famgham

stat uty,Mdd cmmty

cg, Mt

wahtt cmmty

cg, nth

e cmmty cg

and uMa l

participated in the pilot. A

sample o students nearing

graduation was identied

at each institution and

some o their completedcourse assignments were

collected or analysis.

The pilot outcomes gave

us condence in our ability

to measure learning using student

work, says p cosso, senior

academic policy advisor who led

In the words o

Commissioner

Freeland, This is

the area o the

vision Project where

we hae trul

begun to moe the

needle nationall.

a lOOK at leap Value rubricS

Qattat ltayalso known as nmay or Qattat

ragis a habit o mind, competency, and comort in

working with numerical data. Individuals with strong QL skills possess

the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems rom a wide

array o authentic contexts and everyday lie situations. They understand

and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative

evidence and they can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety

o ormats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc.,

as appropriate).leAp vAlue ruBrics AvAilABle FroM AAc&u AT www.AAcu.orG/vAlue


46/88


47/88



What might appear to be endless

rounds o conversation is, in

act, a painstaking process aimed at

constructing a new system o

student learning assessment in

Massachusetts. (See page 42 or

more on this work.) Unlike many

assessment models, this one is risingrom the ground up, its oundation

rmly rooted in aculty experience

and perspective.

Seeds o Partnership. The icebreaker

or us occurred when a campus at

one o these meetings shared its

ndings about scoring student work

or writing, recalls p mk, a

nationally recognized assessment

consultant who acilitated monthly

Adag a Maahtt

ct Amt (AMcoA)

meetings and quarterly coner-

ences during the projects rst two

years. I think AMCOA members

were amazed that someone would

actually stand up and share their

institutional results! But its thosemoments that have made the dier-

ence in this project, being able to say,

This is what weve learned, and this

is what we have to do to improve the

patterns o student work.

Statewide interest in AMCOA meet-

ings has been intense, productive

and engaging o aculty across all

three sectors o the public higher

education system. In its second year,

the project moved to disseminating

successul assessment practices, de-

veloping a bank o web-based assess-

ment resources, and creating a cadre

o campus-based assessment leaders.

Faculty, Maki says, have continued

to clamor or more opportunities to

score student work.Two o our conerence co-chairs,

e Wd at nth e

cmmty cg and Jd

to at Hyk cmmty

cg coined the phrase, Do

You See What I See (in evaluating

student work)? explains Maki.

This is a very important step in de-

signing a new assessment system.

When Hyk cmmty

cg won a v ptpma it Fd

grant in 2012, the campus

was alread deepl immersed in work to assess students

quantitatie reasoning (QR) skills. An assessment

committee had begun to use the Ama Aat

cg ad ut LEAP vALUE Rubrics to

gauge the qualit o student learning.

Our rst snapshot showed that onl a third o our students

were procient in quantitatie reasoning, that the were

strongest in calculation and weakest in the actual rea-soning, recalls Jd to, Director o Planning and

Assessment at Holoke. We had learned man things rom

artiacts o student work and rom student ocus groups.

We ound that contet was important. It helped when QR

was connected to inormation students could relate to.

Holoke decided to use the vision Project grant to bring

nine acult members into the assessment process, pair-

ing them with math eperts to deelop new quantitatie

reasoning modules or use across the curriculum. The

goal, based on the vALUE Rubrics emphasis on deeloping

Qattat rag

Amt at Hyk

students competenc and comort with numbers, was

to gie students man opportunities to analze numerical

data in their courses.

The guiding principle was, ocus on the use o numbers

and the interpretation o numerical data, Turcotte sas. In-

stead o a criminal justice student being asked to compute

crime stats, he or she might be asked to eamine crime data

on college campuses and decide which campus is mostdangerous and wh. In an English class, students looked at

a graph o social media users ersus non-users, and were

then asked to write a clear statement about cber-bulling.

Associate Proessor l hso incorporated her

quantitatie reasoning module into e sections o the

same nutrition class. Not onl was the oerall class work

much better than last semester, she obseres, But

the aerage nal eam score was 10% higher than the

preious semesters.

B the end o last spring, Holoke had doubled the numbero acult working on quantitatie reasoning assignments.

The vision Project grant allowed us to actuall do some-

thing about the student results we were seeing, sas

Turcotte. Preliminar data indicate about 80% o students

improed their oerall QR score rom the pre-test to

the post-test. There will be a lasting impact or Holoke i

acult persist in being intentional about quantitatie

reasoning as the deelop curriculum and assignments.

I that happens, student perormance will continue to

grow stronger.

FrOm page 45

3


49/8847Key Outcome 3. Student Learning

Branching Out.According to

AMCOA Working Group Member

n bss, Associate Proessor

o English at the uty

Maahtt Bt, the lon-

gevity o AMCOA nourished the

soil or a subsequent collaboration

between his campus and three

community colleges: Bk H,Maat and rby. The project

was unded by av pt

pma it Fd grant.

We elt the timing was right with the

Vision Project. We wanted to be

in dialogue with (the community

colleges) and learn more about their

expectations or reading, writing

and critical thinking because many

o their students transer intoUMB and ace our requirements,

Proessor Bruss recalled.

In a series o meetings, UMass

Boston aculty worked closely with

aculty rom Roxbury and the two

other community colleges, compar-

ing their expectations or student

work with an eye toward identiying

both commonalities and dierences.

Faculty exchanged assignments,

statements o value, and student

papers rom reshman English

courses, with the AAC&Us LEAP

VALUE Rubrics providing us with a

common language.

There was no question that our col-

leagues in the community colleges

valued the same things we valued:

student writers taking a position,

developing that position, and pre-

senting it in a way that anticipatedreaders needs and expectations,

Bruss observed. We ound some di-

erences amongst ourselves, in terms

o the value placed on students

sticking their necks out and taking

a position on the material they read,

or how much weight was given to

students explaining the importance

o the position they took. But in the

end, our story was one o undamen-

tal commonality.

The goal o this particular assess-

ment dialogue was to smooth the

transer pathway between the two

campuses. mk Kj, Associ-

ate Proessor o English at RoxburyCommunity College, remembers

a certain level o apprehension

amongst his colleagues about the

dialogue with UMass.

The concerns at RCC were that

were teaching a high percentage

o economically disadvantaged

students, and i we align our VALUE

Rubrics with those o UMass

Boston and make our assessment

and curriculum more rigorous,

more students may end up ailing,

Proessor Kjellman explained.

So we had this undamental debate:

do we make the curriculum more

rigorous, and risk more ailing? Its

ultimately a question o how you

dene student success.

The RCC group was rethinking

student success down to the level o

the individual assignment, Brussrecalls. Their VALUE statements

included the prototype o an assign-

ment fowchart that was extremely

precise. While all o us in the group

were thinking about these consider-

ations, the RCC group operational-

ized them very clearly. It certainly

went beyond anything I expected to

see when the project began.

The majority o RCC aculty taking

part in the discussions had never

seen assignments rom UMass Bos-

ton. Understanding UMass expecta-

tions, based on the shared review o

student work, Proessor Kjellman

believes, gave aculty the opportu-

nity to see how community colleges

need to structure writing assign-ments to help students prepare or

the uture.

The great benet, Proessors Kjell-

man and Bruss agree, is that the

dialogue gave time-strapped instruc-

tors a chance to pause and consider

what they mean by style, or how to

teach argument, and whether they

were using the same set o values and

terminology with students.

I cant emphasize enough how much

acultywho work nonstop teaching,

writing, ormulating assignments,

and reading drats and revisions

o student work based on those as-

signmentsappreciated the chance

to slow down, look closely at small

numbers o student materials, and

talk about what they see in them,

says Bruss. They ound it invigorat-ing. We need to stay with this, to

maintain the activity that the Vision

Project Perormance Incentive Fund

allowed us to pilot.

I cant emphasize enough how much acultwho worknonstop teaching, writing, ormulating assignments, and

reading drats and reisions o student work based on

those assignmentsappreciated the chance to slow down,

look closel at small numbers o student materials, and

talk about what the see in them, sas Bruss.


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52/88


53/8851Key Outcome 4. Workorce Alignment

The need or highly skilled nurses

was orecast to grow at exactly the

same time that large numbers o

nurses were expected to retire, along

with the aculty needed to teach the

next generation o nursing students.Research indicated that better-edu-

cated nurses had better patient out-

comes. There were good programs

in place, but Massachusetts lacked a

long-range strategic plan to address

the transitions o this workorce.

A Need to Rebalance. The real

catalyst or our work came in 2010,

when the ittt Md

and the rbt wd jh

Fdat issued a landmark

report on the uture o nursing,

calling or 80 percent o nurses to

be educated at the baccalaureate

or higher level by 2020, Cedrone

recalls. The data showed that 55

percent o Massachusetts incum-

bent nurses had associates degrees

or diplomas. The only way we were

going to rebalance Massachusetts

nursing workorce was to ocus on

raising the educational levels o

nurses already working in the eld.

But that strategy wasnt on the radar

to any signicant degree.

Instead, the ocus was on increasing

the pipeline o new nursesdespite

reports that many recent gradu-ates were having trouble nding

jobs. Older nurses, shaken by the

economic impact o the recession,

were postponing retirement. His-

torical assumptions based on labor

market projections would have to be

re-examined i Massachusetts was

to achieve the essential transition

toward a more highly educated nurs-

ing workorce.

It was that initial data analysis that

showed us that this is largely an in-

cumbent workorce issue, Cedrone

says. Absolutely we need new nurses,

and we know well have a retirement

exodus at some point. But in the

meantime, the critical strategy is

to support nurses currently in

the eld who seek to return or

additional education.

Consulting with the directors onursing programs at the campuses,

Cedrone quickly concluded that

rebalancing the workorce to achieve

the target o 80 percent BSN or

greater RNs by 2020 was unrealis-

tic. Through urther modeling and

in collaboration with campus and

industry leaders, the target o 66

percent was established and later

validated through a $300,000 grant

award by the rbt wd jh

Fdat or the Maahtt

Aadm pg ng

program. Campuses reacted

positively to the revised target.

Cedrone disaggregated the state data

so that individual campuses

could see the potential impact or

their nursing programs.



When Js cv transerred rom Maat

cmmty cg to cmba uty, he

remembered the parting wisdom o elderl relaties in

Haiti who had once told him, I ou want to accomplish

something, ou need to hae the heart o a lion. The

biochemistr major had heeded their adice, brushing

aside discouraging comments rom those who sas

hed neer be accepted to Columbia.

When he returned to Massasoit in 2012 to oer

encouragement to prospectie transer students, he

repeated the words that had once helped him

dismiss the nasaers. Be lion-hearted, he told students.

Appl to an school ou want to go to.

Chare is a poster child or the success o Massasoits

s Ta itat (sTi), which has led to a

remarkable increase in students pursuing science majors.

Massasoits Liberal Arts TranserScience (LATS) degree

program is now one o its astest-growing, increasing in size

b 35 percent since last ear alone, with a e-old

increase in students in just our ears. Fort-our percent

o LATS students are under-represented minorities; an

impressie 64 percent are emale. STI has receied the

Datmt Hgh edat @sa edmt

or sering as a model science, technolog, engineeringand math (STEM) program that can be replicated at other

campuses. This ear STI epanded to Bt and ca

cd cmmty cg.

As a member o the acult, Im er proud o the contribu-

tions wee been able to make to the success o STI, said

gs bod, biolog proessor. The diision o Science

and Mathematics acult are deoting man hours o

adising to help students orm career choices and nd the

Maat cmmty cg, Bdgat stat uDa stdt c t sTeM Fd

best path to reaching their goals. Massasoit also proides

undergraduate research opportunities or dozens o stu-

dents, with acult sering as summer research mentors. We

beliee that the adising and eposure to research hae

resulted in the success we see, with the majorit o these

students either transerring to a our-ear college or nding

emploment in a STEM related eld.

At nearb Bdgat stat uty, the ocus is on

training the net generation o science teachersand

making sure that students o color are well-represented

within their ranks. Minorit representation in BSUs biol-

og, chemistr, and computer science programs increased

rom 14 percent in all 2008 to more than 20 percent in all

2012 (similar to growth seen during the same time period atFthbg stat uty, Famgham stat uty

and Maahtt cg lba At).

In August, Bridgewater was awarded a $1.5 million dollar

nata s Fdat grant to recruit and deelop

talented undergraduate science majors to become elemen-

tar and secondar science teachers in high-needs districts.

The Maahtt s Tah sha pgam

will include Massasoit Communit College and our area

school districts as partners.

With this grant we will place a particular emphasis on train-ing students o color as science teachers, said Bridgewater

psd D mo-F ater receiing news o the

award. The addition o our new science center, combined

with this ocused eort, I beliee, wil

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