Diverse Conversations

Mentorship is a huge part of professional success in higher education. If nothing else, having a solid mentor helps higher education professionals to develop valuable contacts and integrate themselves into their employer institution.

Finding a mentor, though, can be a tricky thing. Some people are naturally good at formulating mentor-mentee relationships. Others simply don’t know where to start.
To get some insight into how higher education professionals can go about finding the right mentor for their career goals, I sat down with Dr. John Caron, senior associate dean, Academic and Faculty Affairs at Northeastern University College of Professional Studies, who has made mentorship a key area of his professional focus.

Q: Starting with a fairly obvious but important question, tell me some of the key benefits of having a mentor in a higher education professional setting?

A: I’ve found that having someone you can reach out to when you need advice or talk through an issue you’re dealing with is immensely valuable when working in a higher education professional setting. Throughout the course of my professional life, which spans about 25 years, I’ve been fortunate to have had many mentors at different points and times during my career.

One of the most influential mentors to me was a former supervisor who became a mentor to me for seven or eight years. As a first generation college graduate, I found myself wanting to pursue a doctorate degree while working full-time and I was trying to figure out how to make that goal happen. My mentor had actually gotten her doctorate while working full-time, so she was great at helping me map out the pathway and more importantly instill the confidence in me to make this happen. I don’t think that I would have done it without her – she was a role-model because she not only achieved it herself, but showed me how I could do it.

Q: What sort of mentorship has played a role in your career? What have been some of the key highlights for you?

A: One key role my mentors have provided me with is helping me navigate new positions in higher education that required a different level of leadership. For example, as you take on positions of increasing responsibilities, the leadership skills that worked in previous positions may not work. My mentors were very helpful in giving me advice about how to develop skills I needed to be an effective leader.

Q: Mentor-mentee relationships can be immensely valuable but they can also emerge in various different forms. What importance should higher education professionals place on finding a mentor who aligns to their professional goals? Is it important to choose a mentor who has, say, specific experience in the academic field you are targeting?

A: It definitely helps to have a mentor who aligns with your professional goals, but I’ve found that it’s not critical to choose a mentor with specific experience in the field you are targeting.

That being said, choosing a mentor in the field you are currently in or would like to pursue does help because he or she can help you prepare your CV properly, introduce you to key people and contacts and explain nuances of the field such as language, culture, expectations, etc. One of my mentors was in the same field as I am (higher education), so she knew about the experiences I was having and she could relate. There was a moment, however, when I decided to leave higher education and pursue an opportunity in the private sector. I asked my mentor what she thought about the move. She couldn’t really advise me about the private sector because she had always worked in higher education. She told me not to be risk averse and follow my instincts. If the fit wasn’t right for me, the experience would be valuable if I returned to higher education. It turned out that she was right. I use the insights I gained from my experience working in the private industry every day.

Q: Considering an example, if the goal was to transition from teaching to an administrative position, what type of mentor should a person seek out?

A: I would suggest that person seek someone who has made the transition herself or himself and can help that person navigate the differences and challenges.

Q: How do people in academia actually go about finding a mentor?

A: Some people find a mentor by working closely with someone and this can happen in a variety of ways such as through a faculty or teaching assistant relationship, a former supervisor, collaborating on a research endeavor or grant opportunity, or asking a professor to read an article and provide feedback and suggestions. I have found two of my most influential mentors by working closely with someone – they were former supervisors of mine.

My first supervisor and I became friends through work and then colleagues after I moved on from that job, yet we managed to stay in touch. A lot of advice was actually given to me on the tennis court because we both liked to play tennis. We would also see each other at conferences, make a point to have breakfast together or lunch, and I would just call her up when I needed to talk to her. I think that goes to an important point that having a mentor requires some work – you have to cultivate the relationship and you need to stay in touch. It doesn’t really work if you go two to three years without talking to each other; it really works best if you stay in touch on a regular basis.

This person mentored me for seven to eight years, but unfortunately passed away about 10 years ago. After that there was a long time when I didn’t have a mentor. I started to realize that something was missing – like my compass wasn’t working – and someone pointed out that I hadn’t had a mentor in about five years, and suggested I find another. I ended up getting a job at Brown University and my current supervisor at the time evolved into a mentor/friendship relationship.

I’ve found my mentors through close professional relationships, but for others it can also happen by chance. Conferences are a great way to meet colleagues and professionals. Additionally, if you are presenting at a conference, you may be approached by someone who has feedback on your topic of expertise, and an initial conversation can flourish into a mentorship.

Q: What are some of the best resources for finding a mentor?

A: I would start by looking beyond the obvious. If you’re only looking within your department to find a mentor, expand your search. Consider groups and organizations you’re a member of, or even reach out to individuals you are affiliated with through LinkedIn. You can approach someone in a leadership role in your organization to see if he or she can help you find a mentor, especially if you are looking to grow in a specific area within your organization or would like guidance in your field or even in another field you are interested in pursuing.

I believe finding a mentor is more often an individual experience; you need to be willing and able to seek out a mentor. No one is going to walk up to you and kindly offer to be your mentor. Therefore, it’s important that you take initiative to seek out the help and guidance that you need.

Right now I’m working with a consultant and over time I’ve found that he’s really become more of a mentor to me. I can imagine that when our consulting relationship ends, I will continue to seek him out as a mentor because we’ve just clicked. And that brings me to an important point: you know when you’ve found the right person when you both click. And if you find that you don’t have that click you should keep looking because sometimes it doesn’t work out.

Q: Have you found that some institutions actively cultivate mentorship and if so, how? What are some of the more effective strategies?

A: I have heard or have worked at companies or institutions in a consulting role where they have programs in place where you can request to shadow someone in a different department, or you can be paired with someone at a senior level to talk about career advice and aspirations.

Colleges and universities or companies that are intentional about this, especially for entry-level and even sometimes mid-level employees, can create a structure or pathway for their employees that can be enormously helpful.

Q: What advice would you give about utilizing a mentor relationship? What are some of the best ways to make use of this type of relationship in higher education?

A: It’s great if you can find a mentor who you trust and who stays with you throughout your professional career. Some people have more than one mentor, like I’ve had, to help them navigate different aspects of their personal and professional life.

I would suggest that once someone finds his or her mentor that they be flexible with that person; because many mentors are executives, they are by nature, very busy.

I would also recommend to be grateful. Your mentor is giving his or her time to you in exchange for the pleasure of watching your career unfold. He or she has no ulterior motive, make this person glad he or she signed on. Don’t just reach out to your mentor when things are not going well. Share your positive stories with your mentor as well.

For the most part, a good mentor knows you really well and that person will be honest and supportive. I trusted the feedback that one of my mentors gave me because she could give it to me in a way I could hear it. It was honest but supportive, but wasn’t harsh. It allowed me to reflect on our conversation and really contemplate her advice and recommendations.

And if you don’t find someone that you click with, keep looking. Eventually you will find someone that you not only click with, but who will offer you invaluable advice and guidance through hopefully many different career paths and changes as you navigate higher education. And as your relationship grows, you might even find that your roles may reverse and that you will become a mentor to that person!

My thanks to Dr. Caron. This concludes our interview.

Recognizing the trends of higher education is important for those of us who are involved in it on a professional level. But what are the trends? What’s next for higher education?

Today, I’m speaking with Ryan Evely Gildersleeve who is Associate Professor of Higher Education at Morgridge College of Education at University of Denver.

Q: First off, let’s talk about some of the general trends. How would you describe the trends of higher education now?

A: Money, money, money. Colleges and universities are now commodities and trades. As such, questions need to change and any or all trends must be understood not only in how they might fit within and reinforce this conception of higher education but also how they challenge it. It’s a strange relationship, certainly. To marketize knowledge and commodify education are in many ways at odds with how we’ve understood the role of the university over time, but it’s here. And with it, new forms of accountability, new demands on performance, and new measures of quality. These three trends form a trifecta of imperatives in public and political interest in higher education today. But it also presents new opportunities – and refocuses attentions on some opportunities that have always been there, but were perhaps neglected. In refashioning institutions, we have the chance to determine new purposes and modes of operations. These are values decisions. Our colleges and universities reflect and produce our values as a society. With big data, rapid technology shifts, and globalized capitalism, it’s radical change now. It’s subjecting the university to the market, wholesale – not piecemeal.

It would be a mistake, however, to equate higher education with business. Colleges and universities are not businesses. They are social institutions that perform a social good, as well as bestow private goods onto individuals. The marketization and commodification trend seeks to make money for various people through these social and private goods. But the thing that makes a college or university the powerful and inspiring institution that it is – that’s knowledge. And while capitalist society can find a way to capitalize pretty much anything, that doesn’t necessarily mean the generative activities of knowledge production and dissemination need to be organized as a business. To do so would more than likely truncate knowledge – it would minimize its impact and standardize its form. Part of what makes knowledge such an attractive commodity is its expansiveness, its diversity, its plurality and all the possibilities that follow suit. Rather, the activities of knowledge production and dissemination probably need something less linear, more dynamic, and dare I say, more democratic than business.

Q: Of these trends, which, do you think, is the most important? The one that people should principally pay attention to?

A: Accountability captures most of the sub-trends through which everyday people in academe have the most opportunity to shape their futures – and the future of higher education. Accountability as an imperative is already here, but what it looks like and how it gets operationalized is still up for grabs. Various states have some tentative plans that are starting to make in-roads, although these accountability regimes tend to be short-term and tied to specific temporal goals of enrollment or attainment. For example, Colorado’s master plan sets forward a college completion goal of having 66% of Coloradans with a degree or certificate by 2025. This is in-line with some of the federal government’s ideas around accountability, such as President Obama’s 2020 goal for being the most credentialed country in the world.

Still, no one is really sure what performance measures are best or most appropriate for higher education. That probably has something to do with the moment of higher education’s history we are crafting right now. It took a long time, but then all of a sudden it was made dramatically clear – higher education is the number one way to populate the workforce with knowledge-focused jobs and fuel the economy with consumers. It’s easy to abscond or at least obscure the knowledge imperative of higher education when we think about it only in relation to the knowledge economy. Today, most universities operationalize the knowledge imperative into research, teaching, and service – three distinct yet overlapping modes of scholarship. The knowledge imperative requires resources too easily hidden from the strict production of degrees. And yet, degrees are the most obvious commodity that colleges and universities can sell.

It’s tricky, because degrees are different than most commodities. They are symbolic of student and faculty labor that hopefully generated a broad (in the case of the liberal arts) or specific (in the case of professional programs) expertise. That labor constitutes knowledge. And knowledge isn’t fixed. It’s malleable. But the market seeks to make it static and standardized. Moreover, knowledge has as much to do with process as it does with content – knowledge involves synthesis, analysis, and creativity, regardless of the field of study.

Put plainly, a degree is not like a baseball bat. Sports stores can sell a baseball bat to anyone. A college degree must be earned through the generative activity of a higher education. Whereas, sports stores would never say you must obtain a 300 batting average before they’d sell you a baseball bat, colleges require students to perform above average over a period of about four years before they will bestow a degree.

Beyond this simple accounting of how a college degree is a tough thing to commodify and measure/assess productively (i.e., without absconding the knowledge imperative), it’s important to recognize our systems of higher education in the U.S. are so diverse that a single nationalized version of accountability won’t make much sense. It would be like having one regulating body for the minor leagues of baseball, the apprentice programs in dance, and keeping track of the number of moons orbiting Jupiter. How does one group take responsibility for holding each activity accountable? It can’t. But a small collection of dynamic accountability efforts might provide a whole new venue for talking about and documenting the significance of our systems of higher education in society. It might look more like various portfolios of assessment rather than a scorecard or ranking system.

Any accountability systems we might adopt should incorporate group, organizational, and social metrics, in addition to more traditional individual measurements (e.g., graduation rates). The problem with individual measurements alone is that a college education, being based on knowledge, is not solely an individual endeavor. Knowledge, requires learning, which requires collaboration. Doing so could potentially help revive focus on the knowledge imperative of higher education – moving beyond the linear interpretation of what colleges and universities “produce.”

Cue the faculty and administration.

Q: Why is it important for higher education professionals to pay attention to these trends? What benefits do we derive from being attentive?

A: If faculty and administrators don’t take seats at the table where these decisions are being made and the problems are being figured out, then we really are claiming space as cogs in a machine – and that’s not what most faculty came to the profession desiring. Most of us, I believe, want to take the knowledge imperative of our profession seriously. To do so, we need to configure systems of accountability that help illustrate the importance of our work.

Q: How can we use these trends, then? What strategies do you recommend for not only staying up to date with trends but making sure that they work for you, that you are prepared for them?

A: Faculty can demand seats at the accountability table (as should the public!). This can be difficult, because the commodification of education means we should all be spending most of our time on revenue generating activities – enrollments, external funding for research, etc. But I think engaging in active governance is something we can’t resign to managers and external voices alone. And right now – in this historical moment for higher education – shared governance still has some political cache. Faculty can still bring an institution to a stand still, without fear of losing their livelihoods. Shared governance also means staying up to date on what’s happening within and across our fields – fields of study, fields of education, fields of public investment. We need to think deeply about the ways that our labor – the labor of the knowledge imperative – is unique compared to other labor.

Q: Finally, what do you think is likely to happen in higher education in the future? Do you think the current trends are likely to sustain themselves?

A: I see no end to the commodification of education or the marketization of knowledge. Too many and too powerful economies now rely on it. The relationship between higher education and the economy has changed fundamentally, and with that change comes new questions that the public are expecting higher education to be able to answer. Accountability regimes are expanding in scope and scale. Now is the time to seize the opportunity to use these trends in order to configure the kind of social institution we want our colleges and universities to constitute.

Academics and higher education professionals don’t need to agree with the new economic imperatives of higher education or with the maturation of accountability regimes. But we certainly need to accept the responsibility of sustaining the knowledge imperative that undergirds our generative activity. And we need to recognize the weight of that responsibility as we choose how to engage with the design, adoption, execution, and critique of the accountability systems that will help define what the institution stands for and what it can produce as values of a democratic society.

We would like to thank Ryan for taking the time to sit down and talk with us.

Diversity is immensely valuable to any higher education institution. Not all universities and colleges, though, are successful or even aware of how to go about recruiting a diverse student population. Fortunately, this is an area in which John LaBrie, dean and vice president for Professional Education, Northeastern University College of Professional Studies, is a veritable expert. I recently sat down with him to find out about the types of strategies that are helping universities ensure that they recruit diverse student populations.

Q: First, we agree that diversity is a very valuable thing for any higher education institution but would you say that there are particular reasons that it is especially important in today’s modern world?

A: The first thing we need to understand is the reality that we live in a more diverse world. Given that, it’s important that our classrooms reflect this. Students, as part of their educational experience, need to understand how to navigate the cultural and diverse aspects of a modern classroom which is also reflective of the larger society.

One of the fundamental cores of education is to encourage students to be critical thinkers. In order to understand critical thinking, you need to understand different perspectives. Cultural diversity inherently brings into the classroom a cultural perspective that is fundamentally diverse and thus forces students to understand issues from different points of view.

Secondly, as a learning model, a culturally diverse classroom is a great pedagogical tool that allows students to understand critical thinking regardless of the discipline.

So for those two reasons, from a cultural and pedagogical standpoint, it’s highly important for us to pay attention to this and it’s exciting that the classroom is, in fact, becoming more diverse in student opinions and backgrounds.

Q: As a starting point, what would you say are the features most common to higher education institutions that are successful at engaging a diverse population?

A: The institutions that have been the most successful in engaging diverse student populations have been urban institutions. These institutions have the proximity of different cultural institutions and populations that come together and inform the curriculum, the faculty and even the institution itself.

Institutions that have struggled to identify what that means from a pedagogical perspective are those who have little exposure to diverse communities; urban institutions have done considerably better in this regard than more rural institutions.

The second attribute is that institutions that are financially more secure have been able to understand the importance of diversity and have had the privilege of engaging with a diverse student population. Many students from diverse backgrounds and so-called “non-traditional” backgrounds are new to higher education and need financial incentives and financial support. So, affluent institutions have had greater capacity in identifying those students and recruiting has been easier for them.

At the other end of the spectrum, community colleges, because of their price point, have been a phenomenal resource for incorporating students from diverse backgrounds into higher education. Again, many of the students from underrepresented communities don’t have the financial resources to afford high tuition institutions and so community colleges have really been an effective entry point for them.

The irony here is that the lower-price institutions, the community colleges, and the higher- price institutions, have been the two types of institutions that have been successful in engaging diverse populations. Those schools caught in the middle have really struggled in being able to recruit and maintain a diverse student population.

Q: Northeastern University College of Professional Studies has been very successful at not only developing but maintaining a diverse student population. What are some of the strategies that the College has used in particular?

A: First and foremost, Northeastern University has always seen itself as an urban institution and the very nature of an urban institution is that it has access to a diverse community. But beyond that, Northeastern University College of Professional Studies has a number of attributes that have made access more attractive to students from diverse backgrounds.

While we are a nationally recognized research institution, and are considered to be a selective institution, the price point that our College has been able to use for our education model has made our type of higher education affordable to many diverse student populations.

Additionally, our College offers special programs like Foundation Year, a first-year intensive program that prepares high school graduates from the City of Boston for university studies regardless of family income or ability to pay. In 2013, 96 students enrolled in Foundation Year. And, Balfour Academy provides students, starting in the 7th grade, the necessary skills, individual growth and confidence to prepare for and succeed in college through after-school tutoring and summer enrichment programs.

And finally, the emergence of online technologies and the capacity for us to deliver education to working adults means that students, who otherwise would not have had access to an institution like Northeastern, can now participate in our form of education. Students who find themselves in a geographic area where no other institution can meet their educational needs, and who may also be coming from a culturally diverse background, are afforded access because of our quality online programs. In 2013 alone 7,272 students were enrolled in our online courses. We offered 1,787 online courses in over 70 areas of study at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral level.

We recently launched a new online experiential learning pilot project that provides an opportunity for online students who are working professionals to do a so-called “internship” with their current employer, bringing what they learn in their studies into a valuable and needed project in their current workplace. This program will be expanded in 2014.

All of these approaches add up to a different way of thinking about access to higher education that addresses what students need from multiple perspectives.

Q: For institutions that have not been particularly active about recruiting a diverse student population, what are some of the most important steps to get the process started, to actually change their image in this area and start appealing to a more diverse population of students?

A: One of the more powerful ways of changing and becoming much more appealing to a diverse population is to reflect that population in the faculty as well as the staff who represent the institution. Students from underrepresented minorities will often look for mentors and colleagues that come from a common experience. They will see themselves within the institution if they see members of their community represented within the institution, and this has a snowball effect where a more diverse student population mandates a more diverse staff and faculty.

And, it’s important for an institution that is interested in recruiting a diverse student population to have an appreciation for the various communities it wishes to recruit in and to understand the role of the recruiter. The recruiter not only needs to have a deeper appreciation of the communities he or she is talking to, but often needs to be a member of that community.

Q: What, in particular, would you say that diverse students are looking for in a higher education institution? There is inevitably a particular vibe or brand of higher education institutions that appeal to a diverse population of students? Can you pinpoint what it might be?

A: Students from underrepresented minorities are looking for the same thing as everyone else in higher education: a better life. That is why it’s quite important to make sure our academic programs are, first and foremost, relevant to students from an employability perspective. Students absolutely need to be able to enter the workforce with the confidence that the education program that they participated in has prepared them well for a promising career path.

Beyond that principle, however, there are a number of attributes that institutions can bring to the table academically that will help make students see themselves in the program. One strategy is making sure that courses, assignments and assessments are designed in a way that allow students to use their cultural background. This will help them begin to translate the academic principles in a way that is relevant to their cultural context, allowing them to see themselves from an employability perspective. It will also allow them to see themselves giving back to their community through their assignments and their overall educational experience.

Institutions also need to be clear about their interest in serving all students. For example, some students who come from diverse backgrounds may not have a tradition of writing in a particular fashion; therefore student support systems need to be put into place. Other communities may have de-emphasized mathematics, so becoming accessible to these communities means that the educational enterprise needs to support students through math and the sciences. This is not so much a factor in cultural diversity, but certainly is a factor in economic diversity, which is important to higher education.

Q: Finally, what are some of the trends we are likely to see going forward when it comes to recruiting diverse student populations? Students are consumers, after all, and their wants and needs change. What is your advice to institutions looking to sustain their diverse student populations?

A: Simple demographics tell us that a homogenous population that existed, at least in our minds, 50 years ago, is gone forever in the United States. The trend is clear that the classroom will become increasingly more diverse – the emergence of African-American, Latino and Asian students require institutions to understand these populations better than they have historically.

But the emergence of international student mobility means that this is not only an American phenomenon, but a global phenomenon. The international student mobility rates continue to grow at an astounding pace and although the United States is very well positioned to understand a diverse cultural and ethnic classroom, the diversity of the classroom, globally speaking, will continue to change and will become much more dynamic.

Here at the College of Professional Studies, we teach thousands of international students every year. In 2013, our students came from all 50 states and from 90 countries. We also offer programs to international undergraduates and graduate students abroad, such as learning or improving English language skills and taking academic courses in preparation for undergraduate or graduate studies at a U.S. university, while they live and learn in Boston.

For those institutions that would like to understand this phenomenon better, I would encourage a strategy for engagement, exploration and celebration of those populations rather than a stance that you see in many institutions: a very conservative and apprehensive approach to these student populations.

In the end, these will be our students and we have always done our best work with students when we have celebrated all of their facets, all of their accomplishments, and all of their backgrounds.

Thank you very much for your time, John. That concludes our interview.

For those who aspire to become a college/university president, one of the biggest decisions that you will make is whether a large or small college/university presidency is the right choice. For this installment of “Diverse Conversations,” I decided to interview Dr. Debra Townsley, president of Williams Peace University, to find out what it’s like to lead a small liberal arts university. Inaugurated as the 10th president of William Peace University in August 2010, Dr. Townsley oversees a student body of nearly 800 full and part-time students enrolled in WPU’s undergraduate day, evening, online and Saturday programs, and an alumni body of more than 9,000.

Q: What attracted you to a small liberal arts university?

A: Small, private institutions are connected learning communities. Faculty directly teach all students. Co-curricular programming is intentional and an integral part of the learning. Students make life-long friends and are part of a connected alumni network. I appreciate these connections and believe they lead to strong learning opportunities for everyone in the community.

Q: What do you like most about leading a liberal arts university?

A: We do make a difference in the lives of our students. I have the good fortune of hearing this when I meet alumni, who have had a chance to experience what their education has afforded them and meant to them.

Q: Has your impression of William Peace University changed since the first time you were on campus?

A: I have learned more about Peace since my first visit, but my view of WPU has not changed since my first visit. On my first visit, Peace seemed like a community with dedicated faculty and staff who cared about students’ success and a community with students and alumni who had a love for the school. These first impressions have been and continue to be true.

Q: You’ve been president of William Peace University for three years. During that time, you have been able to witness, study, and assess the trends in higher education. What trends do you see emerging in higher education?

A: Higher education is changing because of multiple external forces, such as the economy, demographics, student learning needs, technology and regulations, just to name a few. Current trends indicate that students (and families) want to know there are job opportunities upon graduation, have limited resources for higher education, and learn through new methods like hands-on learning, experiential learning, use of technology, cases, discussion and/or multiple evaluative tools, to name a few.

One trend getting much attention is the massive open online course (MOOC). There is a debate over MOOCs – their usefulness in student learning, their replacement of the classroom, their long-term costs, etc. However, this was a similar conversation several decades ago when distance or online learning options were developing. I remember a faculty member telling me 15 years ago that it was a waste to invest in online education because it would not last. Now, we know that online is here to stay and that online learning can be very successful. MOOCs are likely to further develop and take learning in new directions that we may or may not be able to imagine today.

There will likely always be a place for classroom learning, but other ways of teaching and learning have emerged and will continue to emerge. This is what makes the industry challenging, but rewarding, as we seek the best way for students to reach their potentials.

Q: What are some of the challenges facing you and William Peace University in this upcoming year?

A: Small privates are similar in our challenges. We provide a quality education with limited resources, and we are always seeking new ways to do this. We complete the matriculation of a class, while starting the process all over again. We are finalizing our admission for Fall 2013 with the largest-ever incoming class and total enrollment, but have also started receiving students for tours, inquiries and applications for the Fall of 2014. It is a continuous cycle. I do believe higher education and the expectation for higher education is continual improvement, thus continual change; and change is hard for some people. This is an increasing challenge to resolve in higher education – the conflict between status quo and change.

Q: What are you most looking forward to at William Peace University in this upcoming year?

A: I am most looking forward to the students being back on campus. The students at WPU are engaged and fun to be with. At the same time, I always look forward to graduation. It is my favorite day of the year – not because the students are leaving, but because it is gratifying to see students arrive on campus and graduate four years later with confidence and hope for their futures. Graduation is a proud day for students and families, but it is also a proud day for us as educators to believe that we made a difference in each student’s life in some small way.

Q: Do you have any parting messages for our readers, many of whom are our current and future college/university presidents?

A: I believe the presidency of a college or university is the best job. We are in a challenging, changing industry. We work with students of all ages, which keeps us young in thought. We can feel a sense of accomplishment in our daily and strategic initiatives but, more importantly, in knowing that we have truly made a difference in some way – small or large – in an individual’s life. How many jobs give you this chance?

Well, that concludes my interview with Dr. Townsley. I would like to thank her for consenting to this interview.

For young scholars at the undergraduate, and graduate levels, sometimes it’s hard for them to learn how “navigate the academy” – learning to take advantage of resources and making the right decisions. You know, figuring it out.

I recently reviewed this issue with Executive Director of Student Success Meghan Harte Weyant of Rollins College and talked about some of the strategies that young scholars can use, some of the resources they can use, to start navigating effectively as early as possible in their academic careers.

Q: Students really do have a hard time navigating the academy, as we call it. Why do you think that is?

A: Because it’s confusing Colleges and universities are unlike primary and secondary school in a number of ways. There are a lot of options in college from navigating systems like financial aid and housing to choosing course offerings and majors. On top of this, students are typically experiencing it all the first time in their life. Because of this, we’ve found that for some students, support systems may be unclear…the path to graduation may be unclear…and for others their ultimate goal may even be unclear.

Also, a certain amount of amnesia sets in for those of us who have been through the academy or in our roles for a number of years. We forget how confusing it can be for our students. For example, students often have a hard time deciphering what their immediate priorities should be once they enter the academy, and they have an even harder time determining when and where to get help in executing those priorities.

Q: Learning to navigate the system is actually challenging, even for those students that are generally aware of the benefits. Would you say there are specific barriers that impede student success in this area?

A: Yes, I think the roadmap to graduation is often unclear. I also think we often don’t do the best job of making students aware of how social, financial, health and wellness and other factors outside of the academic can strongly influence academic success.

Q: In your experience, what are some of the best ways to, first, raise awareness about this process of actually navigating the academy – just helping students to be aware that this is actually something they can do.

A: I think we need to find ways to actively coach students through the process. Navigating the academy is a difficult process, and it’s certainly not intuitive. We need to find ways to move into a coaching mentality as it relates to succeeding in college.

We often use the word advising, and I think it’s the wrong word because in order to successfully navigate, the academy students need more than just a person to offer academic advice or counsel. In some ways the concept of advising is a bit too transactional depending on student relationships with her/his advisor. The concept of coaching gets us headed a bit more in the right direction. This is strategically different than mentorship within a field of study (which is how we view academic advising in the liberal arts ethos). It is a focus on training, educating, and scaffolding students through the educational process. This is imperative because it is often the process and not the academic content that trips our students up and prevents them from finishing.

Q: Assuming awareness is not the issue, but rather, accessibility, what strategies have you found particularly useful to help students actually go about navigating the academy, getting comfortable with the institutional culture and making themselves a part of it– after they are aware that this is an option for them?

A: I think for a number of years we have been clinging to this idea that students should be responsible adults who are acting outside of the influence and control of their families, and while that is a nice idea in theory, it’s just not reality. Students are bringing their families to college, and when we fail to embrace families we lose a great deal of ability to enculturate students. I say this because I think we are beginning to realize that when students need help often times their families are the first to know. Creating support structures and then working with families to make sure they have knowledge of and access to support structures will be a critical step.

Q: Why, would you say, this issue of helping students to navigate the academy is so important for institutions? What do institutions benefit from having students that are aware of how their higher education institution operates on this level?

A: If students can’t navigate an institution, retention and graduation becomes an issue and institutions fail. There are really two answers to this question. The first one is centered on a moral/ethical imperative. Institutions should be asking and answering this question because they are deeply committed to students succeeding given their missions. Institutions are making promises and collecting tuition, and as a result, they should be providing a clear and consistent path for students to achieve their academic goals.

The second answer is more about the business side of higher education. It hurts institutions financially and lowers retention and graduation rates (national measures of institutional success) when we lose students for institutional reasons. Beyond the moral/ethical imperative, institutions should be doing everything they can to keep the student they recruit and enroll at an institution. That just makes the most financial sense.

Q: Finally, what strategies have you used at Rollins College specifically to make this process easier for students and to help faculty and administrators support students in this area.

A: We are currently in the process of reviewing our own institutional gaps in order to better serve students. Campus wide, we are looking at Career and Life Planning, Academic Advising, and Enrollment Management initiatives. As part of this work, we are creating deeper partnerships with faculty and campus colleagues to create seamless experiences for our students. Specifically, in Student Affairs we have re-envisioned stronger functional alignments and partnerships focused on enhancing the care, community, and career aspects of student life.

This concludes my interview with Meghan Harte Weyant. Thank you again for participating.

Historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs have an important tradition in the United States. It’s not necessarily a straightforward tradition, but it’s one we still grapple with.

One of the biggest struggles, perhaps, is the equalizing of values, of recognition, and importance. The problem addressed in this interview – my interview with George Johnson, Student Accounts Manager at Georgetown University, (former graduate of 2 HBCU’s) – is that of academic weight. Does a 4.0 at an HBCU have the same value as a 4.0 at a PWI?

Q: The first question, then, is one that seeks to generalize. Generally speaking, does a 4.0 at an HBCU have the same value as a 4.0 at a PWI? If not, why not?

A: Generally speaking a 4.0 at an HBCU does have the same value as a 4.0 at a PWI. I say this because a 4.0 simply means you were able to master the subject matter being studied with the highest grade possible for the requirements of the degree or course. If we use the old adage of “2+2 = 4”, then in general terms a 4.0 is a 4.0 is a 4.0. I say that because the true debate is not if it has the same value, but is the criteria required to receive a 4.0 more arduous at a PWI vs. an HBCU. To date, there is no real scientific evidence to prove or disprove this theory. Furthermore, this statement falls apart on the merits, as professors from PWI’s teach at HBCU’s and vice versa. In terms of value, what does getting a 4.0 really mean? There are students who graduated without honors who are millionaires. There are students with 4.0’s that are currently out of work. As I stated in a previous article, we should be commending anyone who is able to get a 4.0 regardless of the institution it was received from, for that truly takes hard work.

Q: In what contexts do you think there is the greatest gap in value between 4.0s from HBCUs and 4.0s at PWIs? Is there anything in particular that continues to perpetuate this gap?

A: The greatest gap in value comes from the refusal to change the hierarchy created within colleges and universities across the US. Even PWI’s are separated into “Ivy League” vs. everyone else. When you look at USA Today’s top college rankings, there is no HBCU listed in the top 20. This perpetuates the belief that the education at an HBCU is below the standards of our nation’s top universities which is simply untrue. The formula used to create the top 20 is based on various categories that have nothing to do with academic standards. They rely on stats like graduation rates, retention rates, the high school SAT scores of incoming students, and “education experts” to determine this ranking. There is no true academic valuing tool or method that is being used to determine this. Furthermore, many of the HBCU’s are accredited by the same governing body as the PWI’s. So they are good enough to be accredited by the same academic standards, but the academic standards are still unequal. A very flawed argument at best.

Q: How is the overall relationship between academic excellence at HBCUs versus PWIs determined and how, if at all, is that relationship changing?

A: Unfortunately, perception is reality when it comes to this question. As stated previously there is no scientific method to the determination of this statement. The overall standard is rooted in perceived ranking of Top PWI’s vs PWI’s. PWI’s vs HBCU’s, and the unfortunate ranking of HBCU’s vs HBCU’s. Although not used as frequently, during the civil rights era, the term “The Black Ivy League” was coined for certain HBCU’s that “pulled the best and most privileged black students”. Howard University, for years was deemed to be “The Black Harvard”. Although not heralded as it once was, this hierarchy has created a dissention in the African American community’s views on academic excellence amongst HBCU’s. If we are unable to agree that HBCU’s across the board have an equal standard of learning with each other, how can we debate that they are comparable to PWI’s? I do believe that in recent years, the views of the “hierarchy” of HBCU’s has significantly declined, but I feel that if we want to be perceived and recognized as equals with PWI’s, we must come to an agreement that we are equivalent to one another. The fact that many students that attended HBCU’s for undergrad were able get graduate degrees from PWI’s is under researched evidence of the relationship change.

Q: What have been some of the most significant strategies for equalizing the perceived values of academic excellence at HBCUs versus PWIs?

A: I am not sure if I would necessarily say it is a strategy, but the recent visibility of HBCU graduates, alumni, and dropouts have created a change in perceived values. The commencement speech at Howard University by Sean Combs, the celebrity appearances in commercials advertising HBCU’s have brought a new found attention to these colleges and universities. The addition of new degree programs, including masters and doctoral at many of the HBCU’s are also helping in equalizing this standard. Another strategy that has been utilized is the raising of the academic requirements to attend HBCU’s. Long lives the stigma that HBCU’s are “last resort” or “willing to accept everyone”. Although they do tend to have lower requirements for admission, it does not change the fact that the academic standard is one of high quality. I like to believe that HBCU’s are schools that give “second chances” and are more willing to put in the work to bring out the “diamonds in the ruff” compared to PWI’s. The continuing partnerships that many of the HBCU’s are creating with corporate America, study abroad programs, and STEM programs are also helping to decrease the perceived inequality of learning.

Q: What can administrators and educators at HBCUs do and what can their counterparts at PWIs do to try and overcome the remaining gaps, the remaining discrepancies in values?

A: I feel that administrators and educators need to re-instill that the value is in receiving the college education, and not where you receive it from. Perception is reality on this subject. If tomorrow, ten former HBCU graduates became the CEO’s of ten fortune 100 companies, people would begin claiming that there is something that HBCU’s are doing that PWI’s aren’t. Too much weight is being put on where you are getting educated based on what people are doing with their education. Educator’s need to remind students of the reasons they attended college. Making sure that students are engaged and not only able to repeat information, but also apply it. The 4.0 does not guarantee that you will be more successful in life, regardless of where it is received. It does not guarantee wealth, health, or how you will be able to apply your knowledge to life situations.

It also becomes the responsibility of the student’s that attend HBCU’s who are doing well in their respective fields to be visible. We have to push the message that we are equivalent to those who graduate from other institutions. We must be vigilant in reminding students at HBCU’s that their degrees have worth and value. That Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are excellent schools based on the academic, societal achievements of their alumni and professors, not based on the devaluation of other institutions.

I conclude by saying that the pursuit of knowledge is a valiant one. It brings together people from all walks of life, different shapes and sizes. It should not matter if you choose to attend an Ivy League, HBCU, PWI, or Community College. Your GPA should not be a topic of debate because you got it “here” instead of “there”. The fact that you chose higher education is to be applauded and respected. To devalue that choice in any way is simply unacceptable.

I would like to thank George Johnson for sitting down to talk with us.

Read all of our posts about HBCUs by clicking here.