Ruby, Alan

English

ScholarlyCommons@Penn

University of PennsylvaniaScholarlyCommonsGSE Publications Graduate School of Education6-27-2013Big, Bold, and Highly AccessibleAlan RubyUniversity of Pennsylvania, alanruby@gse.upenn.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/519For more information, please contact repository@pobox.upenn.edu.Recommended Citation (OVERRIDE)Ruby. A., “Big, bold and highly accessible,” Times Higher Education, 27 June 2013.Big, Bold, and Highly AccessibleKeywordsuniversity, education, accessibilityDisciplinesEducation | Higher EducationThis other is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/5193/19/2019 Big, bold and highly accessible | Times Higher Education (THE)https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/opinion/big-bold-and-highly-accessible/2005083.article 1/1What do Arizona State University, the University of California, Riverside and the University of CentralFlorida have in common? Well, for a start they are all large – Arizona State alone has more than70,000 students – and have boosted their total enrolment to become increasingly diverse. In thewords of Michael Crow, president of Arizona State: “We deﬁne ourselves by who we enrol, not bywho we exclude.”They all serve a lot of “ﬁrst-generation” students: young people who are the ﬁrst in their family toattend college. It is their success with this group that makes the trio particularly interesting. And at allthree, about 60 per cent of students graduate within six years.They and three others – the University of Buﬀalo, the University of Texas at Arlingtonand GeorgiaState University – were the focus of a forum last month in Washington DC. Hosted by the NewAmerica Foundation, a liberal thinktank, the meeting, titled The Next Generation University, exploredhow these large institutions have succeeded at a time when state support for higher education hasbeen slashed.To be fair, all six are well-known institutions domestically and have large operating budgets that oﬀersome capacity for innovation. They attract good students and faculty, and are strongly connected totheir local communities: Central Florida, for example, has had close ties to the Cape Canaveralscientiﬁc complex and its vast workforce since its inception in 1963.All have worked hard to reduce barriers to access and completion for ﬁrst-generation students. Onestandout strategy has been reducing the real price for low-income students by targeting ﬁnancial aid:in a country where needs-blind or academic merit aid is common at elite universities, using students’socio-economic background to allocate ﬁnancial assistance is innovative.They have also put a lot of eﬀort into making sure that students stay on track to graduate. The vastcourse array in US higher education and the relative freedom students have to pick and choosesometimes act as impediments to completion. Learning lessons from the big online retailers that usecustomer preferences to predict future purchases, Georgia State utilises its 2 million student graderecords to predict success, allowing it to identify students who need particular support to graduateon time. It also determines the courses where students are most likely to struggle and matches thoseat risk with student tutors who have already completed the courses.All six universities have research ambitions but place a premium on good teaching: Dr Crow arguesthat contrary to popular wisdom, the best researchers are often the best teachers, as theirenthusiasm and ability to communicate about their ﬁeld helps them to engage students. Supporting,celebrating and rewarding good teaching are common at these large institutions. Some use ﬁnancialincentives, and there is a lot of support for pedagogy through technology and professionaldevelopment. This commitment to teaching is an important factor in staﬀ recruitment and retention.Individually, none of these strategies is distinctive or unfamiliar. What is distinctive is the breadth ofthe policies adopted by all six institutions and the fact that they have been pursued and sustainedover many years.For me, the biggest point made by the sextet’s record is that it is possible to increase access tohigher education by attracting and retaining ﬁrst-generation students and ensuring their success,even during a period of constrained resources.

Big, Bold, and Highly Accessible

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Big, Bold, and Highly Accessible

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