SUSTITUCIONES DE CUADERNOS ATA

The change process is a slow and complex development; the consideration of multiple factors or confounding issues further complicates this progression. Colleges and universities do not exist in vacuums. In addition, within institutions of higher education there are several moving parts that can add complex layers to the process of

implementing any new efforts or initiatives. Participants in this research study mentioned budget concerns, enrollment issues, student experiences, and frequent leadership changes as issues that compounded the challenges of institutional change efforts.

State budget issues were mentioned by participants at three participating institutions: the University of Community Achievement (UCA), Student Focus

University (SFU), and Commitment University (CU), and institutional documents from the University of Transformation (UT) demonstrated evidence of budget cuts. A focus group participant at CU mentioned a declining state budget that limited the amount of funds that could be devoted to student success programs and initiatives. Evidence from UCA, SFU, and UT pointed to budget cuts that involved reductions in personnel. Budget cuts can complicate organizational change efforts beyond not having money for specific programs. A focus group participant from SFU provided a description:

A lot of these changes [are coming] at a time when we’re going through a lot of budget issues… I think that the budgets and layoffs and all of that kind of stuff has a larger impact on people’s commitment and buy-in.

Like [another focus group participant] said, we’re all doing a lot more work for a lot less because so many people are getting laid off. And we’re taking on those extra responsibilities, and so to really kind of have that full commitment and buy-in, to be able to do a lot of those things, like get back to every student within 24 hours – we all want to do that, and sometimes it’s a little bit harder because we have so much more responsibility now.

Participants at the University of Community Achievement (UCA) also made comments about the complicating role budget issues play in organizational change efforts for student success. A UCA participant mentioned that faculty members within his college who had left were not being replaced. In addition, a staff focus group participant commented, “We’re feeling budget cuts from the state in regards to higher education, so it’s hard to put energy and money into student initiatives to get higher attention at the state level when we’re not getting state funding.” Budget cuts, as demonstrated by participant comments, cause anxiety at various institutional levels, mean institutions are “doing more with less,” and require additional thought when prioritizing what programs or initiatives can receive monetary support.

Participants at two institutions, the University of Transformation (UT) and the University of Community Achievement (UCA), noted falling enrollment as an issue that complicated efforts for student success. This issue relates to budgeting since lower enrollment numbers are also linked to fewer tuition dollars. Mary Brown, a mid-level leader at UCA, summarized the enrollment concern and how it relates to other

We’re dealing with an enrollment crisis, so everything we’re focused on right now is not so much “what are they doing with the funding formula” because the legislature is not going to give us enough more money to solve any financial problems… We’ve been flat funded for three years now, and that’s the good news… We have to solve our own enrollment problems, so when everybody’s focused on student persistence and student success, you know, retention and graduation rates, it’s not because we want to win a performance budget battle, it’s because we’re hemorrhaging. Institutions are facing increased pressures in times of reduced enrollment and reduced state funding.

In addition, participants at four of the five case institutions expressed concerns about the level of preparation many of their traditional-aged students were bringing to campus. As the focus on student success has grown across the nation (as some

institutions’ participants mentioned state-to-state competition), the pool of students has not necessarily changed. This means that as all institutions are working to grow

enrollment and student success rates, there is a limited supply (at least when considering high schools as recruitment grounds). A participant from Commitment University (CU) explained that the “tier one” or state research institutions tend to recruit and enroll the top of high school graduating classes. Teaching-focused and regional institutions, such as those included in this research study, tend to enroll students with lower ACT or SAT scores and lower high school GPAs, those students deemed more at-risk of succeeding in college. This factor puts additional pressure on these institutions because, as the CU participant noted, they have to “bring the students further” to get them to succeed.

A faculty member, Celeste Sampson, from the University of Transformation (UT) explained, “One of my biggest arguments is they [students] come from high school [where] they showed up every day, they did some work, and that was it. And so that’s what they do when they come to class, and they just don’t know how to study the math courses.” A faculty member, Mitchell Rice, from Commitment University (CU) echoed these comments:

There have been changes in the public [high] schools and what’s required to graduate…. The rule still is you have to have four years of math to graduate high school. Well, that used to be Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and then another class. Now it’s Algebra 1, part 1; Algebra 1, part 2; Geometry, part 1; Geometry, part 2. They’ve never even had Algebra 2. They’ve never had Trig or Pre Calc. They’re not ready for Business Calculus, but the meet the catalog prerequisites. So, we’re changing the prerequisites to give students a prep course to take Business Calc, to decrease the likelihood that they’ll fail, increase the likelihood that they’ll get through the class and into the major, and, if they do, that helps our retention.

A focus group participant from the University of Community Achievement (UCA) echoed these thoughts, “They [the high schools] don’t do a very good job of preparing students for college experiences.” This participant continued to explain not skill level but behavioral patterns such as students asking for extra credit or other “lax policies” in high schools having a negative influence on student development.

This perceived lack of preparation in high schools (which is compounded by institutions fishing deeper during recruitment) has required institutions to also consider this factor when addressing student success. Participants at both the University of Transformation (UT) and the University of Community Achievement (UCA) described the use of high school to college transition programs in which university staff went to high schools to provide services to facilitate a high school to college transition. A focus group participant from UCA commented, “There’s more pressure on higher education to dip into the high schools to ready students for college.” This is in addition to the

expanding use of student success best practices which is also addressed in the themes of this research project.

Although participants from only one participating institution, the University of Community Achievement (UCA), mentioned frequent leadership changes as a

complicating issue when attempting to employ efforts for student success, the comments made by participants described a situation worth considering. As other themes in this project have demonstrated, leadership matters in times of change. However, when multiple parts are moving, in this case in regards to staff covering duties because other personnel positions are vacant, more complications exist. As one participant from the UCA commented, “I think the interim leadership is so busy putting out other fires – there’s so many things going on here right now – that they’re not attending to us.” Another participation described the situation at UCA as being a “revolving door of leadership.” With rapid changes in leadership, participants acknowledged that the future was uncertain to some degree and that the “ball keeps moving.” Staff and faculty were unsure of targets to meet, what initiatives would remain, and how their role might shift

with each new adjustment to senior leadership. Frequent personnel changes complicated the discussion and implementation of student success efforts.