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Reimagining the Culture of Leadership for Student Success
A revision to the practical and popular guide, this book asks the crucial question within today's environment, "What's a student-ready college?" Higher education leaders are responsible for preparing their institutions to serve the students they admit in the best way possible. By asking ourselves how we can transform our institutions into student-ready colleges to create a new culture of leadership that is responsive to current challenges and focuses on understanding and utilizing student assets and social capital to achieve shared goals for student success. Becoming a Student-Ready College shows you how.
Conversations in higher education tend to focus on defining college readiness for students. Too often, we forget to ask the question from the other side, and we miss important opportunities to develop institutions in ways that can help students thrive. Higher education leaders and educators can better serve today's college students through responsive and redesigned practices and policies. This updated edition features revisions and new material that speak to the social realities of today's incoming students and cover the latest strategies and techniques for connecting with learners to foster equity and success.
* Leverage existing resources to the benefit of students and deliver the right support at the right time to achieve equity in student outcomes and build on students' assets
* Design eco-systemic partnerships and support programs that nurture the relationship between the student and the institution
* Strengthen institutional capacity-building for achieving defined student-ready goals
* Build shared governance to promote agency and to foster change and collaboration
Becoming a Student-Ready College explores leaders' shared responsibilities in advancing student success and provides practical recommendations for educators at all levels.
List of contents
Preface xiii
About the Authors xvii
Acknowledgements xxi
Chapter One: The Time Is Now: A Call for Student-Ready Colleges 3
The Quest for College-Ready Students and Redefining Readiness 10
A Profile of Twenty-First-Century Students 16
The Science of Student Readiness 22
The Value of Student-Ready Colleges and the Emerging School-to-Work Economy 25
The Path Forward: Taking Steps to Transformation 29
Chapter Two: Leadership Values and Organizational Culture 33
New Perspectives on Leadership 37
Values and the Student-Ready College 39
Does Collaboration Serve a Greater Good or Is It an End in Itself? 41
Leadership for Grassroots Empowerment 43
Changing Perspective on Educators 47
Exemplary Practice: The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater 47
Positive Vision of Educators 54
Inclusive Professional Development for Everyone Who Teaches 57
Student-Ready Practice of Governance 62
Building Out the Change Effort 64
Exemplary Practice: Alverno College 65
A Pragmatic Approach to Shared Governance 69
A Vision of a Place Ready for Students 72
Conclusion: A Vision to Guide Collaboration 76
Chapter Three: Intentionality by Design to Support Student Success 79
Intentionality by Design: Centering Equity, Diversity, and Belonging 83
Removing Systemic Barriers and Challenges for Students 85
A Caring Educator 87
Embracing a Paradigm Shift 90
A Culture of Belonging 95
Defining Student Success as Learning 97
Promoting Excellence in Student Engagement 99
Charting Your Course of Action 102
Conclusion 103
Chapter Four: Leveraging Ecosystem Partnerships in Support of Student Readiness 107
Engaging the Ecosystem 111
A Critical Survival Instinct: The Opportunistic Self-Awareness of Student-Ready Colleges 115
Three Levers for Establishing and Aligning Impactful Ecosystem Partnerships 120
Student-Centered Symbiosis in Support of Today's College Students 130
Questions to Consider in Establishing and Aligning Ecosystem Partnerships 133
Conclusion 139
Chapter Five: Educating the Whole Student 143
Whole-Person Leadership and Learning 146
Belief in Student Capacity to Learn as a Genuine and Public Commitment 150
Challenges to Belief in Student Capacity to Learn 154
Addressing Deficit-Mindedness 157
Sites for Action 165
The Wealth That Students Bring 167
Institutional Long Views 168
Leadership Responsive to the Ecosystem 172
Conclusion 178
Conclusion 179
References 187
Index 209
About the author
TIA BROWN McNAIR is the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and the Executive Director of TRHT campus centers at AAC&U. She is co-author of
From Equity Talk to Equity Walk.
SUSAN ALBERTINE is the retired Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Student Success at AAC&U.
NICOLE McDONALD works as Assistant Vice Provost for Student Success Strategies at the University of Houston.
THOMAS MAJOR, JR. is Associate General Counsel at Lumina Foundation.
MICHELLE ASHA COOPER is the Acting Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Office of Post-secondary Education.
