WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED
In conducting our environmental scanning in recent years, it became
clear that in order to meet an increasing demand for lifelong learning
opportunities not tied to traditional, credit-driven modalities, we
needed to use every instructional weapon in our arsenal. We needed to
value equally all instructional programs and services. With the
creation of a level playing field for all instruction, the artificial
and self-imposed barriers that had formerly created a caste system that
valued credit over noncredit instruction and transfer over training
functions would begin to erode, true internal collaboration would
increase, and an organizational culture grounded in a true one-college
model would emerge.
To do this, we began to embrace a simple phrase, Zen-like in its
simplicity but powerful in its impact:
Learning is learning is learning.
Anne Arundel Community College is the largest single-campus community
college in Maryland. It has seen exponential growth in recent years.
During the period of FY97-FY02, when growth in state-funded credit and
continuing education enrollments among the 16 Maryland community
colleges averaged slightly less than 17 percent, enrollments at AACC
grew over 24 percent. In FY02, the college served over 60,000 students.
The increase in the percentage of enrollments between FY97 and FY05 is
projected to be almost 30 percent.
In this period of unprecedented growth, the college was driven by its
strategic plan. The plan identifies planning priorities driven by
mission mandates. Planning priorities include (a) meeting community
needs; (b) student success; (c) community outreach, impact, and
presence; and (d) institutional integrity. The strategic plan seeks to
amplify the institution’s mission mandates: quality, access,
affordability, responsiveness, and accountability.
As a college priority, meeting community needs is in many ways the
major driver of the strategic plan. The complex and diverse needs of
our community effectively caused the college to re-examine its
priorities, ultimately placing equal importance on transfer programs,
occupational programs, continuing education activities, and workforce
development initiatives. The resulting growth in enrollments has led to
discarding the old organizational paradigm, where units of the college
(e.g., transfer, career, continuing education, developmental) operated
in silos that were defined, predictable, and contained. The emerging
model for the college is more dynamic, reflecting a variety of delivery
modes, formats, and timeframes; entry and exit points; measurements of
knowledge, skills, and abilities; and credentialing methodologies to
meet community needs. Faced with creating internal systems to support
the exponential growth in enrollments while dealing with the external
pressures that all community colleges currently face, we chose to
reinvent ourselves to meet new challenges and new opportunities.
Perhaps the most important step was creating the new and still emerging
paradigm – a continuum of lifelong learning – as the framework for the
learning college at AACC. This required blurring the lines between
credit and noncredit instruction, not as the goal, but to foster the
growing realization that the college was in the business of producing
learning in students regardless of their age, educational plan, or mode
of instruction. The key to this evolution was a series of
organizational initiatives designed to accelerate the transformative
process.
ORGANIZATIONAL REALIGNMENTS
In 1996, the college president realigned the organization to position
the institution to be more responsive to internal and external forces.
Back then, college senior administrators held traditional titles: Vice
Presidents for Academic Affairs, Student Services, and Finance. The
president created a new position of Vice President for Continuing
Education and Workforce Development in order to demonstrate the
college’s commitment to the business community and the concept of
lifelong learning, while combining the Student Affairs and Academic
Affairs positions to reinforce commitment to student success.
Consequently, the functions of continuing education and workforce
development were given parity with traditional academic units of the
college. Over the next four years, this new division worked with the
college’s academic departments on new program development while sharing
resources, both human and physical, to deliver quality instructional
programs, thus strengthening the college’s overall linkages to the
business community while fostering a culture of internal cooperation
and collaboration.
Driven by the strategic plan, and responding to the growing respect
earned by new continuing education and workforce development
initiatives, the president moved the organizational structure to the
next iteration. In 2000, the college returned to three vice presidents,
but their titles and responsibilities reflected an increased commitment
to the central mission and vision: Vice President for Learning, Vice
President for Learner Support Services, and Vice President for Learner
Resources Management. The notion that learning was everyone’s
responsibility was further reinforced through the merger of two
instructional vice presidents into one position responsible for the
totality of the college’s learning offerings. The Vice President for
Learner Support Services’ position consolidated student support
services with instructional and administrative information technology
responsibilities. The concept of Learning Resources Management
emphasized that offices and services previously viewed as being
peripheral to instruction now played a critical role in assuring that
learning was fully supported and maximized at all levels of the
college. These realignment initiatives sent a clear message to all
stakeholders that the college was serious about learning and meeting
the needs of all learners.
Having reorganized to emphasize the commitment to learning, the next
step was to implement an accelerated approach to new initiatives, aimed
at meeting community needs. Several specific approaches were developed.
LEARNING RESPONSE TEAM (LRT)
The president created the Learning Response Team to replace the
traditional President’s Cabinet as the senior leadership team. The LRT
focuses on administrative and management structures and systems that
enable the college to meet the new and emerging learning needs in a
timely and effective manner. Furthermore, the new structures and
systems had to ensure maximum continual improvement of all
instructional programs, initiatives, and services.
With weekly meetings chaired by the president, the LRT is comprised of
the vice presidents, all deans, and other key administrators.
Appointing members beyond the traditional academic leadership set the
tone that everyone is responsible for the success of our learners.
The LRT takes a systems approach to its work. The group routinely
examines issues, problems, and opportunities that are brought forward
by faculty and staff. Each topic is viewed within the context of the
college’s mission and strategic plan. If action needs to be taken, the
scope of the project is carefully defined and a learning design team is
identified to develop an implementation plan. Underlying assumptions
and limitations such as fiscal, physical, and human resources are
identified.
Initiatives advanced by the LRT have included the establishment of the
college’s coordinating council for developmental education, integration
of service learning into the curriculum, expansion of the honors
program, and implementation of a prior learning assessment system.
Additionally, the LRT reviewed and endorsed proposals for the creation
of several now successful programs, including the Hospitality, Culinary
Arts, and Tourism Institute; the Center for Teacher Preparation and
Professional Development; and the Institute of Criminal Justice, Legal
Studies, and Public Services.
LEARNING DESIGN TEAM
When the LRT approves a new project, a Learning Design Team is
generally formed to move the initiative forward. The members of the LRT
identify who should be part of the Learning Design Team and the
respective roles of its members. Faculty, administrators, professional
staff, and individuals from the community may be asked to participate
in the process. Members of a Learning Design Team are asked to develop
a plan that will implement new structures and systems to support the
initiative. Members of the team select an approach, develop detailed
project requirements, create a timeline, and analyze budget
implications.
One of the outcomes of the Learning Design Team has been close
collaboration between credit and continuing education and workforce
development units of the college. Colleagues across the institution
have worked together to focus on delivering instructional programs in
new educational arenas. In many cases, the groups have seen the need to
create new entities, such as institutes or centers, in which both
credit and continuing education learning opportunities are provided to
meet the diverse needs of all populations served in the community.
For example, the plan to implement the Hospitality, Culinary Arts, and
Tourism (HCAT) Institute included vision and mission statements,
staffing and facility requirements, external partnerships, and an
annual budget. The HCAT implementation plan took into account all of
the learning opportunities related to the industry, ranging from
associate degrees and certificates to avocational classes and
international internships. The driving force behind the HCAT Institute
is the realization that regardless of the way components of the program
are delivered, there is one educational bottom line: learning is
learning is learning.
NEW WAYS OF DOING FACULTY BUSINESS
Because of increasing enrollments and new delivery methods, formats,
and timeframes, instructional staff were faced with increasing demands.
The college examined how best to use its own workforce to meet these
demands, and implemented several nontraditional approaches to provide
learning opportunities.
Since 1998, AACC has been recruiting and hiring new faculty under a new
flexible job description, which allows instructors to meet contractual
obligations in a variety of ways other than teaching the standard five
three-credit courses per semester. Faculty with these contracts are
encouraged to accept assignments to support business and industry
contract training efforts, teach continuing education courses, serve as
mentors to other faculty, and work in teams to develop outreach to the
community. The college recently converted 10-month faculty positions to
12-month positions in order to ensure that a consistent level of
teaching and instructional support takes place all year.
Instructional Specialists. The college also began to hire full-time
instructional specialists to support a variety of delivery modes,
formats, and timeframes in certain disciplines. This enables the
college to assign specialists to a variety of differing environments
and locations. For example, instructional specialists in reading can be
assigned to facilitate instruction to Adult Basic Education students in
Anne Arundel County as well as developmental students enrolled at the
college.
Trainers. In support of its business and industry training programs,
AACC has created an instructional category of full-time trainers, hired
to support individual training contracts with a local organization.
Each trainer is required to work a 40-hour week that typically includes
a combination of training and instructional design duties. The length
of the trainer contract generally coincides with the duration of the
training contract with the organization.
HELPING FACULTY FOCUS ON LEARNING
Designs for Learning. Driven by the college’s strategic plan and
implemented in 1997, the Designs for Learning Project funds faculty,
both individually and in teams, to design innovative instructional
strategies and alternative pedagogies appropriate to the college’s
learners and its instructional programs. Preference for funding is
given to teams because this approach gives a project a broader base of
expertise, creates a synergy diffused across programs, and maximizes
the possibilities for duplication among a range of discipline
faculties. All proposals include a plan for learning assessment that
projects a potential for increased learning and increased student
success through application of specific technologies or alternative
pedagogies.
Online Academy. Created in 1998, the Online Academy creates a
collegewide structure for developing online courses that fosters
creativity and focuses on instruction within the context of a team
approach. Developed by faculty and staff, the academy helps teachers
develop asynchronous learning opportunities through a six-step process
from conceptualization of the course to its delivery. The Academy
targets the development of credit courses that meet general education
requirements or are part of a certificate or degree program identified
for online delivery. The Academy also supports the development of
noncredit courses and training modules. To date, over 75 credit courses
have been developed through the Online Academy.
Learning College Orientation. Beginning in fall 2000, the college
embarked on a deliberate and concerted effort to give all new
instructional employees, both credit and noncredit faculty, the
necessary support to produce increased learning in all encounters with
students. New faculty members hired under the flexible faculty job
description are given a supplemental development contract for a week in
the summer before their first year's teaching contract begins. During
that week, they go through an intensive orientation to our college and
the concepts of the learning college. Additionally, as part of their
first-semester courseload, they are assigned 45 hours of professional
development activities founded on the learning college concept.
Workshops, seminars, and roundtables are presented throughout the first
year of teaching to introduce this freshman class of faculty and
instructional staff to Anne Arundel Community College's philosophy,
mission, and learning goals.
In addition, all activities are designed to create a learning network
in which the college's many development and support mechanisms are made
user-friendly to the new faculty and instructional staff. The intent is
to help faculty master areas such as classroom assessment, applied
learning and research, use of competency-based strategies in
instruction, and managing a classroom of multigenerational learners. By
giving new faculty an intensive orientation to contemporary pedagogical
practices and a shared understanding of the learning college concept,
we view this program as a solid investment in our future and our
organizational culture.
ADVANCING CONSENSUS
During the past year, further steps were taken to accelerate the
evolution. Our Strategic Planning Council participated in a retreat
with a consultant who took them through an evaluative process where
they benchmarked the college against the Krakauer Criteria for a
Learning College. Almost 100 criteria were examined and evaluated, with
responses ranging from “no evidence this item has been implemented”
through “this item has been fully implemented across the entire
college.” This exercise was helpful in identifying, through a gap
analysis, areas where the current strategic plan was not fully aligned
with identified and prioritized criteria for a true learning college.
Subsequently, the entire college community was asked to respond to an
extensive survey in which strategic priorities, collegewide goals, and
highly rated learning college criteria were identified. Faculty and
staff responses to the relative importance of each item indicated the
college community felt that the goals and strategic priorities were
highly aligned with the identified learning college criteria. Faculty
and staff were also given an opportunity to comment on each area of the
process and to recommend multiyear strategic objectives that should be
considered for subsequent implementation.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
During the past seven years, faculty and staff at AACC have undergone a
tremendous shift in their approach to the work of their community
college. The focus on learning has generated increased respect for the
various areas of the college and has led to equity among academic,
continuing education, and workforce training programs. As we have made
this shift, we have also increased our ability to respond quickly and
effectively to new initiatives that meet community needs. Our faculty
continues to evolve as we invest in their continuing professional
development and expand their potential through diverse teaching
opportunities.
We have come a long way, and there is much more to accomplish. We
continue to take Darwin’s caution about change to heart. The
evolutionary journey to become a true learning college continues at
AACC, with all faculty and staff increasingly focused on a common goal:
to help those in our community reach their full potential as citizens,
workers, and learners.
Martha A. Smith (mailto:masmith@aacc.edu) is President, and Andrew L.
Meyer (mailto:almeyer@aacc.edu) is Vice President for Learning at Anne
Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland.