Sustainability
- Determining barriers to sustainability (state, system, and institutional levels)
PRACTITIONER, PRESIDENT, AND PARTNER PERSPECTIVES
Diane Troyer, DKT Solutions, Pathways Coach (posted 4/5/2018)
So for it to be sustained, I think we really have to see that whole institutional shift, which is beyond culture change to actually operational change. So that’s one thing that I think gets in the way of sustainability. And I think the other thing is the lack of attention to buy-in and engagement at all levels of a college from the beginning. If a small group of people are the ones involved in pathways, or if it’s a pathways steering committee, or if it’s driven by a president and not really — if people don’t know why they’re engaged, then it’s going to be very difficult to sustain it. And I think when we see colleges doing well it’s because they have really deepened that engagement, broadened that engagement. You can ask anyone in the college, “Why are we doing pathways?” and they have an answer.
Karen Stout, President & CEO, Achieving the Dream, Pathways Partner (posted 4/5/2018)
So the challenge in staying the course is that we are often using lagging data to evaluate our progress. And in using lagging data, there’s a time gap between the time we put forward a new intervention or process or system and the time we see results. So in that period of time, a leader has to be very aware that it’s important still to celebrate small wins and that it’s important to find analogous cases, colleges that are similar to yours that have been on the same path that ended up showing strong results. So that you can continually talk to your college community about what success looks like, where you are on the success trajectory, to set the context.
Ed Massey, President, Indian River State College, Pathways College (posted 4/5/2018)
In terms of large challenges, there’s a difference on both sides of our house, in the academic and the occupational, it creates different challenges for us. CTE [career and technical education] has done pathways for years and years, but our work with them is more about more intensive pathways, more intentionality in the sequencing and the course content and the learning outcomes. And they have gotten on board, and they understand it, and so we just on that side enhanced what they were currently doing. On the academic side, it’s a little bit tougher with all of the general education courses and students on the academic side — not as definite as the occupation side is in terms of what they want to major in. So there I think the biggest challenge has been to provide the resources, to provide the encouragement, the support, and also the communication.