Thinking Deeply about Student Learning

According to the recently released book Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matterthere is an endless variety of effective general education programs. All of the 20 highly effective four-year colleges and universities studied for the book have unique general education programs. For example, some of the general education programs described are term-long integrative experiences that replace a block of traditional courses. Others are connected to outside or cocurricular activities. And some conclude with senior-level capstone courses. Yet this diversity of general education programs is embedded in a common fabric: all serve to further the lived, rather than espoused, mission of the college or university. The general education programs of these institutions are not checklists of courses for students to complete; rather, they bind the liberal arts, disciplinary knowledge, and cocurricular experiences.

Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matterreports the findings of the two-year Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project sponsored by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University. literally explores deeply what makes some colleges and universities highly effective. Authored by renowned higher education researchers, DEEP selected 20 four-year institutions from a pool that had higher than predicted scores on the National Survey of Student Engagement and graduation rates, after taking into account student and institutional characteristics.

The 20 institutions were purposefully selected to represent a range of institutional types based on control (public/private), size, and location. As a consequence, the research team looked for the common elements that make large public multiversities, small private liberal arts colleges, and historically black or Hispanic institutions highly effective. Each school received two multiple-day site visits by a research team between fall 2002 and winter 2004. The research teams reviewed hundreds of documents using qualitative methodology, which included triangulation, peer and member checking, and searching for disconfirming evidence. The central task of the teams was to discover each institution's enacted mission.

What the research teams found is that the 20 institutions share six features that foster student engagement and persistence. Each institution has

• • a living mission and lived education philosophy,

• • an unshakable focus on student learning,

• • environments adapted for educational enrichment,

• • clearly marked pathways to student success,

• • an improvement-oriented ethos, and

• • shared responsibility for educational quality and student success.

The book illustrates each of these features with details from multiple institutions. For example, related to the focus on student learning, the University of Michigan invested $1 million per year for 10 years on initiatives that promote critical thinking and writing skills, invigorate liberal learning, encourage acceptance of pluralism, and improve faculty–student interaction. Recognizing the distinctive role of undergraduate education in a research university, the science and mathematics instruction in the first two undergraduate years was revised to feature the role of the sciences in liberal education.

In a more focused endeavor, faculty at Wheaton College (Massachusetts) asked the question, "What are we going to do about the good old Gen Ed checklist?" As an answer, they planned a new curriculum that "would invest students in their learning." The central themes of the curriculum are connections and infusion. "Connections" means that courses are connected or linked with the aim that the curriculum will be more creative and rigorous and offer greater breadth. "Infusion" provides a rationale and a mechanism for the faculty to introduce concepts important to the college's mission into the course structure.

Last, George Mason University is notable because the faculty reformed general education in little more than a year. The result is a program that is more structured and integrated across disciplines.

The external and internal conditions that prompted the institutions to create an effective focus on student success varied by institution and included such things as visionary leadership, assessment results, accreditation, declining enrollments, and reduced public funding. The unifying feature of the improvements made by these institutions is that change was embedded...