Sustainability
- Reallocating resources as needed
PRACTITIONER, PRESIDENT, AND PARTNER PERSPECTIVES
Kathleen Cleary, Associate Provost for Student Completion, Sinclair College, Pathways Coach (posted 4/5/2018)
None of the colleges I’ve worked with have been given a huge present of new additional funds. So everyone’s making decisions about how can we reallocate human and financial resources to get the job done. So in some institutions they may combine career advising with academic advising to offer greater capacity to serve students during down times of the different traditional structures of career and academic advising. Another institution might decide to invest in additional advising based on a return on investment analysis that says, “If we can raise completion by 10 percent, that will pay for two advisors,” you know, for instance. So I think institutions are looking both at the front end and the back end, the input and the output, to determine return on investment and where to best place their resources.
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Reallocating resources as needed
Anne Kress, President, Monroe Community College, Pathways College (posted 4/5/2018)
The reality for most community colleges now is that it’s not about finding new resources, it’s about reallocating existing resources. And, you know, when you’re reallocating something, it means you’re taking it away from some place and putting it some place else. So there are going to be some folks who may not be happy about it. But I think getting ownership of that idea, having enough folks who can say, “This is the right place to spend those dollars.” I will say at MCC we’ve actually integrated guided pathways into our strategic plan. And our strategic plan guides resource allocation. So it’s a no brainer for us at this point. We also gave individuals at the college who were enthusiastic about the idea the opportunity to serve as school specialist, which is part of our model, sort of a student concierge, if you will, and faculty liaisons. And both of those opportunities really drew early adopters and in a sense rewarded them by giving them a more active role in the pathways.
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Reallocating resources as needed
Brenda Hellyer, Chancellor, San Jacinto College, Pathways College (posted 4/5/2018)
We realize it can’t be just top leadership that understands our strategic goals and the work that we’re doing. We have to have momentum throughout. The heavy lift around this pathways work is with department chairs and deans. And so how do you provide them with the resources they need? They need to understand what we’re trying to achieve with pathways. They need to understand that it’s going to be messy and hard work. But they also need to understand that we have resources in place to support them. And so that’s been a really critical component for us. And again, the work that we’re doing, we know those deans and department chairs are really having to dig into the messiness and then come back with solutions. And so we’re investing time and support for them.
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Reallocating resources as needed