Demography is (Not) Destiny
Sonny Ramaswamy,
NWCCU President
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Martin Luther King, Jr. in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
In the 1970 book "The Real Majority,” Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg wrote about the role of the changing demographics in America on electoral outcomes. One of the chapters in the book was entitled, "Demography is Destiny—Unyoung, Unpoor, and Unblack.
"
Since then the phrase “demography is destiny” and its counterparts “demography is not destiny” and “zip code is not destiny” have become part of the American zeitgeist and have been used by many others, including yours truly, in multiple different contexts, particularly in regards to the significant changes we have seen in the demography of America and its exacerbating impacts on the deeply dividing bimodality of America in regards to wealth, home ownership, economic and social mobility, crime, health outcomes, educational outcomes, and myriad other aspects of society.
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Bridges
Mark Mitsui,
Portland Community College President
When my wife, Melanie and I moved to Portland, Oregon from Washington DC, one of the first things we noticed about Portland is that it has a lot of bridges. Over the last few years we have come to think of Portland Community College as one of them. PCC is a bridge to a better life, a bridge to greater opportunity through education and training.
Like many communities, the greater Portland metropolitan region is at an important crossing. On one side, we have robust economic growth and low unemployment and on the other we have escalating housing costs, gentrification of once diverse neighborhoods and inequitable gains in median household income.
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Lake Washington Institute of Technology Strategies to Close Equity Gaps
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Ruby Hayden,
Vice President, Student Services
LWTech
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Amy Morrison
,
President;
LWTech
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Sally Heilstedt,
Dean of Instruction
LWTech
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Suzy Ames,
VP, Instruction;
LWTech
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At Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTech), all student success work aligns with Guided Pathways, which builds upon four practices to support equitable outcomes for all students: 1) mapping pathways to student end goals; 2) helping students choose and enter a program pathway; 3) keeping students on path; and, 4) ensuring that students are learning (Jenkins, D., Lahr, H., Fink, J., & Ganga, E. (2018).
In support of Guided Pathways, LWTech has implemented several widely accepted, collaborative, and innovative practices to close equity gaps. This work resulted in a community of belonging to support students and led to students of color increasing their rate of graduation by 25% from baseline data in Fall 2015.
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NWCCU’s Paradigm Shift: Part II
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Alana Hoare
, Quality Assurance
and Accreditation Liaison Officer, Thompson Rivers University
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Pamela Goad
, Executive
Vice President,
NWCCU
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In the
November 2019 Beacon
we wrestled with the seemingly disharmonious fundamentals of accreditation:
accountability
and
improvement
. Continuing on in our discussion, we seek to unpack how people understand quality assurance (QA) processes; what underpins their views; and, what (and how) do internal and external factors curb the positive intentions of assuring academic quality?
Why does it matter?
QA practitioners and higher education leaders are required by regulators to ensure policies and processes are met, yet they operate within a system of collegial governance with faculty autonomy over teaching and learning pedagogy. The over reliance on quantitative measures for performance assessment feeds the tension between quality assurance processes as an accountability measure versus as a tool for continuous quality improvement. Despite new rhetoric for accreditation as
mission-driven accountability
– suggesting a contextualized approach to performance measurement - we continue to see attempts to rate the quality of institutions by numeric metrics alone. Can the essence of the value of higher education be captured in a number? Not likely.
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The Beacon Award for Excellence in Student Achievement and Success is an annual award to recognize institutional or programmatic accomplishments in student achievement and success at the NWCCU family of institutions.
Please watch for information on submitting nominations April 1, 2020 for the Beacon Awards.
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2019 Beacon Award Winners
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Felicia DeWald
,
Director, NevadaFIT
University Nevada, Reno,
accepting award from Thayne McCulloh, President Gonzaga University, NWCCU Chair
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Lydia McDermott, Director of the Center for Writing and Speaking, First Year Experience Writing Coordinator, Associate Professor and Chair of Rhetoric and Composition, accepting award from Thayne McCulloh, President, Gonzaga University, NWCCU Chair
Dana L. Burgess , the Charles E. and Margery B. Anderson Endowed Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics
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NWCCU selected for an Intermediaries
For Scale Grant
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has selected the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, along with 11 other organizations, for funding through its Intermediaries for Scale program. The focus will be to promote student success and close equity gaps at our institutions, focusing on four main objectives:
- Increase awareness of colleges’ and universities’ efforts to transform themselves to become more student-centered.
- Inform campus-level decision-making (and decision-makers) about options, opportunities, and risks related to adopting and implementing policies and practices designed to improve student outcomes.
- Support transformation efforts by providing guidance on changing policies and practices and measuring the impact and effectiveness of those changes.
- Build connections among colleges and universities and supporting organizations to promote timely and efficient exchange of best practices and lessons learned.
The initial phases of this work will unfold over the next two years, developing a strategic plan for delivering support services and launching pilot programs to scale. We hope you’ll join us in making this a successful venture.
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Update to the NWCCU Annual Dues Structure
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The current annual dues structure has been in place over 15 years. It has 18 tiers, based on an institution’s E&G (educational and general) expenditures and mandatory transfers, exclusive of medical school and hospital budgets.
The current dues structure does not accommodate the dynamic nature of significant institutional growth or the effect of inflation during this time. Because of this, the smaller institutions have moved up the tiers to the middle portion of the scale, while mid-sized institutions have moved to the upper end of the scale. This resulted in mid-sized institutions paying the same dues as the large institutions, creating a disproportionate burden on the smaller institutions.
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LDS Business College to become Ensign College
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Since its inception in 1886, LDS Business College has undergone various changes as the institution has responded to the marketplace, enabling it to provide valuable and relevant education for its students. With these goals in mind, the Board of Trustees of LDS Business College announced that LDS Business College will become Ensign College. This change will be effective at the beginning of the new academic year, September 1, 2020.
The new name was inspired by Ensign Peak, the spot above the Salt Lake Valley that Brigham Young said he had seen in a vision before leading the church’s pioneers to the West in 1847.
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Mr.
Ron Slinger
Miles Community College
January 2020
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Dr.
Christine Girard
National University of
Natural Medicine
July 2019
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The College Gazette Identifies Three Northwest Public Universities on the Rise
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President Waded Cruzado
Montana State University
NWCCU Commissioner
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President Noelle Cockett
Utah State University
NWCCU Commissioner
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President Marlene Tromp
Boise State University
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The College Gazette has identified 10 public universities in the US, including Montana State, Boise State, and Utah State, that are making dramatic, positive changes to their curricula, facilities, faculty, and more.
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Portland Community College Receives Boost Grant from Kresge Foundation
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Portland Community College receives the BOOST grant from the Kresge Foundation. The $495,000 grant to PCC and Albina Head Start is to connect low-income residents and students to human services and educational pathways. This is one of six partnerships nationwide between community colleges and human services nonprofits that have been selected to participate in Kresge’s Boosting Opportunities for Social and Economic Mobility for Families (BOOST) initiative.
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NWCCU Quality Culture Project
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Ms. Alana Hoare and Dr. Pamela Goad are conducting a study to examine factors positively and negatively impacting a
culture of quality in NWCCU membership institutions. A culture of quality is defined as a culture “in which structural/managerial and cultural/psychological elements act in synergy to continuously improve education” (
Bendermacher, Egbrink, Wolfhagen & Dolmans, 2016, p.39
).
By surveying institutions and conducting focus groups, we aim to uncover how common misconceptions may be influencing accreditation efforts within the NWCCU region. Focus groups will meet during the NWCCU March workshops on March 3
rd and March 4
th. Data on three areas – views of accreditation, leadership styles, and performance measurement of institutional effectiveness – will be collected to provide NWCCU information for potential resources to strategically lessen the adverse influence of these areas on accreditation efforts.
In addition, Ms. Hoare and Dr. Goad intend to map a path for higher education institutions to embed a learning ethos within the organizational culture by identifying approaches to unpack prevailing misconceptions about quality assurance (QA). A goal is to begin developmental groundwork for qualitative indicators as a reliable and valid complement to quantitative indicators to assist institutions in furthering efforts to create a quality experience for students. For more information and to follow the project, you can find regular updates in the NWCCU Beacon. The first post appeared in the November 2019 titled
NWCCU Paradigm Shift
.
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Themes for The Beacon 2020
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The Beacon is NWCCU's quarterly newsletter intended to inform its member institutions and other stakeholders of updates, news, resources, and information pertaining to accreditation and higher education issues. We have covered topics such as:
Current Issue:
• March 2020 – Vol 2, Issue
3:
Closing Equity Gaps
Our next issue is schedule for release mid-May and is focused on the topic of
Global Citizenship
. We are looking for great stories and insights from our member institutions and colleagues across the globe. Please considering submitting an article for the upcoming issue.
Please send your comments to Selena M. Grace (sgrace@nwccu.org) or Jan Wilson (jwilson@nwccu.org) as well as inquiries for a contribution to The Beacon.
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NWCCU Calendar and Events
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View Prior Conference Presentations
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Annual Conference: November 2019
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ALO and EIE Trainings:
March 3-4, 2020
- March 3, 2020 ALO Training | Agenda (0.2 MB) | Slides (5 MB)
- March 4, 2020 EIE Year 7 Training | Agenda (0.1 MB) | Slides (11.7 MB)
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Upcoming Workshops and Webinars
Assessment Essentials: Assuring Standards of Educational Effectiveness and Quality Improvement
May 4th, 2020
Salt Lake City, UT,
Registration TBD
Mission Fulfillment Fellowship
The 2020-2021 Fellows will meet at University of Puget Sound on June 9-11, 2020.
Events
NWCCU 2020 Annual Conference
November 17-20, 2020
Hyatt Regency Seattle Downtown
Seattle, Washington
Upcoming Commission Meetings
June 24-26, 2020
Whitney Peak Hotel
Reno, Nevada
January 13-15, 2021
Hyatt Regency Seattle Downtown
Seattle, Washington
See the NWCCU website for registration for specific events, and for more details:
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