Increasing Student Success at Minority-Serving Institutions: Findings From the BEAMS Project

Details the five-step process used at over one hundred campuses to craft data-driven action plans to improve student success as part of the BEAMS (Building Engagement and Attainment for Minority Students) initiative. Includes case studies

SPEC Kit 356 Diversity and Inclusion

Today, diversity is defined beyond racial and ethnic groups and includes gender, sexual orientation, ability, language, religious belief, national origin, age, and ideas. The increase of published literature about cultural competencies, microaggressions, and assessment of diversity issues, as well as the inclusion of social justice movements in libraries, suggests diversity-related activities have increased and evolved over the last seven years. Over this time span, several libraries have obtained funding to support strategies to increase the number of minority librarians on their staff and support their advancement within the organization. There also appears to be an increase in the number of diversity or multicultural groups at the local, state, and national levels. However, these changes have not been consistently documented. Therefore, it is important to re-examine this topic to evaluate the impact of evolving endeavors, to see if more ARL libraries are involved, to see how diversity plans have changed over the years, and to document the current practices of research libraries. The main purpose of this survey was to identify diversity trends and changes in managing diversity issues in ARL libraries through exploring the components of diversity plans and initiatives since 2010, acknowledge library efforts since the 1990s, provide evidence of best practices and future trends, and identify current strategies that increase the number of minority librarians in research libraries and the types of programs that foster a diverse workplace and climate. The survey was conducted between May 1 and June 5, 2017. Sixty-eight of the 124 ARL member institutions responded to the survey for a 55% response rate. Interestingly, only 22 of the respondents to the 2010 SPEC survey participated in this survey, but this provides an opportunity to explore the diversity and inclusion efforts of a new set of institutions in addition to seeing what changes those 22 institutions have made since 2010. The SPEC Survey on Diversity and Inclusion was designed by Toni Anaya, Instruction Coordinator, and Charlene Maxey-Harris, Research and Instructional Services Chair, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. These results are based on responses from 68 of the 124 ARL member libraries (55%) by the deadline of June 12, 2017. The survey’s introductory text and questions are reproduced below, followed by the response data and selected comments from the respondents. The purpose of this survey is to explore the components of diversity plans created since 2010, identify current recruitment and retention strategies that aim to increase the number of minority librarians in research libraries, identify staff development programs that foster an inclusive workplace and climate, identify how diversity programs have changed, and gather information on how libraries assess these efforts

Measuring Altruistic Impact: A Model for Understanding the Social Justice of Open Access

INTRODUCTION Traditional assessment of ways in which open access initiatives and institutional repositories have provided a return on investment normally use pragmatic measures such as download counts and citation benefits. This pragmatic approach misses out on the powerful altruistic impact of improving access to international and/or marginalized communities. Using a frame of social justice, this article considers the importance of developing altruistic measures of repositories, particularly for institutions with missions specifically related to social justice and related themes. METHODS Using web analytics data for search keywords from eight institutions and geographic usage data from nine institutions, the authors were able to determine how well social justice related content is accessed by search engines and how much overall content is accessed internationally, particularly by lower-resourced countries. A social justice term list was developed to permit corpus overlap analysis with each institution’s search keywords, while the World Bank country income lists were used to determine international access by low and low-middle income countries. RESULTS Universities with mission statements explicitly mentioning social justice or Catholic social teaching had greater overlap with the social justice corpus. Low and low-middle income countries as defined by the World Bank were among the most engaged users. All institutions had at least one social justice search term in their top ten; Marquette University had five. Collection development in social science and environmental sustainability at Loyola University Chicago successfully increased this term overlap year-over-year and increased user engagement as measured by session length. DISCUSSION The results of this exploratory study indicate that it is possible to use repository data to evaluate the success of an institution’s open access and social justice initiatives. The year-over-year improvement of Loyola’s numbers suggest in addition that it is possible to increase social justice impact through collection development. Performing an analysis of social justice impact can be used as an overall strategy for repository success and outreach on campus, particularly for institutions where social justice is an important part of the campus identity. For repositories in need of further resources, the ability to quantify impact for university administrators and decision-makers may be of use. CONCLUSION For institutions with a social justice mission, improving social justice content may improve repository ranking in social justice related search results. Collection development strategies should focus on departments and/or individuals who are working in social justice related areas, which defined broadly could encompass much of an institution. For institutions that emphasize social justice, it may be easier to approach faculty who might not otherwise have an interest in open access issues

Insights and Lessons: Community Arts and College Arts - A Report to The Kresge Foundation

This report examines two pilot initiatives, Community Arts and College Arts, launched during the 2008 economic downturn. After the completion of the multiyear initiatives, the Kresge Foundation commissioned a report on the effort. The qualitative analysis offers lessons and insights on the theme of art-based civic dialogue and community revitalization

Strategic Directions for Gettysburg College, June 2007

Gettysburg is a college deeply rooted in the American experience. It was born of democratic values, strong optimism, and the firm conviction that only a liberal arts education fully awakens and prepares people to live purposeful lives as citizen leaders. Our founders were champions of freedom and liberty, progressive thinkers, and staunch believers in the power of the liberal arts to prepare leaders to meet the challenges of our young nation. Those beliefs were tested on the fields that surround our campus where a century and a half ago men gave their lives in a battle that defined our nation’s future and left an indelible imprint on its collective memory. We are but a short walk from where President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, the most eloquent expression of freedom and liberty ever spoken. The fields of Gettysburg also served as the training ground for a young West Point cadet who walked the battlefield and studied the tactical maneuvers of the generals of the Union and Confederate forces. Dwight D. Eisenhower would emerge as the general many claim most responsible for the victory of the Allied Forces in Europe in World War II in a campaign that would triumph over new threats to liberty and freedom—not just for our nation—but for the world. His vision went beyond national service to embrace a broader definition of engagement in public life. We celebrate that vision in our Eisenhower Institute housed in an elegant pillared building that served as home to Captain Eisenhower and his young family when he returned to Gettysburg in 1918 to command Camp Colt. [excerpt

Improving the Yields in Higher Education: Findings from Lumina Foundation's State-Based Efforts to Increase Productivity in U.S. Higher Education

In 2008, Lumina asked SPEC Associates (SPEC) to evaluate the foundation's grant making aimed at improving the productivity of higher education through statewide policy and program change. The initiative was initially known as Making Opportunity Affordable and later became known more broadly as Lumina's higher education productivity initiative. Eleven states received planning grants in 2008 and a year later seven of these states received multi-year grants to implement their productivity plans. In 2009, Lumina published Four Steps to Finishing First in Higher Education to frame the content of its productivity work. In 2010, the foundation, working with HCM Strategists, launched the Strategy Labs Network to deliver just-in-time technical assistance, engagement, informationsharing and convenings to states. Lumina engaged SPEC to evaluate these productivity investments in the seven states through exploring this over-arching question: What public will building, advocacy, public policy changes, and system or statewide practices are likely to impact higher education productivity for whom and in what circumstances, and which of these are likely to be sustainable, transferable, and/or scalable

The First-Year Gateway Experience: A Groundbreaking Model

Based on calls for a paradigm shift in higher education, which have appeared in the literature for years (Barr &Tagg, 1995; Tagg, 2003, Bryant University transformed its first-year experience into an innovative model, The First-Year Gateway). Informed by research from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education, the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ Liberal Education for America’s Promise, and the Wabash National Study, a group identified five learning outcomes: effective communication, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, diversity awareness, and information literacy. Key to this undertaking was faculty development, and utilizing assessment data to improve curricular design and learning outcomes. The result is an interdisciplinary 13 credit first-year program developed to foster a successful transition into Bryant University. Launched in fall 2012, assessment data was gathered to determine whether common learning outcomes were achieved. Faculty embedded student success goals into their courses, which are designed to foster purposeful adjustment to higher education. Preliminary assessment indicates institutional gains in retention, academic standing, and student and faculty engagement during the implementation year. The new model, based on Wenger’s community of practice (COP), created opportunities to discuss pedagogy. Most importantly, the model fostered faculty’s deeper understanding of first-year transitions

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available