NEBHE was awarded a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a New England-wide project titled Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Advanced Manufacturing: Transforming 21st Century Technician Education. Funding is provided through the NSF’s Advanced Technological Education ...]]> NEBHE has published the first edition of its new Advanced Manufacturing Problem Based Learning (PBL) newsletter.

NEBHE was awarded a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a New England-wide project titled Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Advanced Manufacturing: Transforming 21st Century Technician Education. Funding is provided through the NSF’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

Please follow NEBHE's Advanced Manufacturing PBL project at www.ampbl.org.

Each year, NEBHE presents Regional Excellence Awards to individuals and organizations that have shown exceptional leadership on behalf of higher education and the ...]]> Despite a late-winter snowstorm, hundreds of New Englanders braved the snow to attend NEBHE's 11th New England Higher Education Excellence Awards celebration on Friday, March 8, at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel.

Each year, NEBHE presents Regional Excellence Awards to individuals and organizations that have shown exceptional leadership on behalf of higher education and the advancement of educational opportunity, and State Merit Awards to honor the innovative work of organizations, institutions or individuals in each New England state.

NEBHE awarded its Special Award for Lifetime Achievement to University of Rhode Island oceanography professor Robert D. Ballard. In addition to being a National Geographic Society Explorer-In-Residence and a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, Ballard is the president of the Ocean Exploration Center at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn. Attendees were glued to a video of Ballard's underwater adventures, and a slideshow that brought his work back to the down-to-earth goal of spreading educational excellence—as he put it, paraphrasing Captain Kirk, “To Go where no one has gone before on Planet Earth."

Best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic, Ballard also succeeded in tracking down numerous other significant shipwrecks, including the German battleship Bismark, the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown (sunk in the World War II Battle of Midway), and John F. Kennedy’s PT-109.

Though these expeditions captured the public imagination, Ballard believes his most important discoveries were of hydrothermal vents and “black smokers” in the Galapagos Rift and East Pacific Rise in 1977 and 1979 along with their exotic life forms living off Earth’s energy through a process now called chemosynthesis.

And the ones still to come ... by which he means, preparing future adventurers and scientists. Ballard spent 30 years at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he helped develop technology to create “tele-presence” for his JASON Learning foundation, which allows schoolchildren from afar to accompany him undersea. In 2001, he returned to URI, his alma mater, to join the Graduate School of Oceanography as a tenured professor.

NEBHE's 2013 Governor Walter R. Peterson Award for Leadership went to Thomas D. Ritter, former Connecticut House Speaker (D-Hartford) and University of Connecticut trustee. Because of his commitment to improving higher education and spirit of bipartisanship, Ritter worked with then-newly elected Republican Gov. John Rowland to make 1995 a key year for the University of Connecticut. Working together, they passed the landmark UConn 2000 program which provided $1 billion in funds to rebuild the school's campuses. The legislation also provided a one-on-one match up to $50 million in donations to increase UConn's endowment. In 2002, he worked to pass "Century 21," which provided UConn with another $1 billion in funding, beginning in 2005,

NEBHE’s Robert J. McKenna Award for Program Achievement went to the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Scholarship Program. The foundation distributes more than $5 million annually to nearly 2,000 New Hampshire students. Because of the increasing debt load among New Hampshire students—the highest in the nation—the foundation has increased the average size of its scholarships to $3,500, while increasing the number of students served each year. In addition to scholarships, the foundation has granted more than $3.8 million to community colleges and state universities to launch programs that foster economic and community development, and made numerous grants to increase access to education for the neediest students. In 2013, the foundation plans to bring greater awareness to the urgent need for workforce readiness in science, technology engineering and math (STEM).

NEBHE awarded its 2013 Eleanor McMahon Award for Lifetime Achievement to two recipients.

Ray M. Di Pasquale began serving as president of the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) in July 2006. In January 2010, he assumed a dual role when he was named commissioner of higher education for the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, which became the Rhode Island Board of Education in January 2013. Since Di Pasquale arrived at CCRI, the college has enjoyed near-record enrollments and graduated its largest-ever class in May 2012. CCRI is the largest community college in New England, serving nearly 18,000 students, and its noncredit arm trains more than 30,000 Rhode Islanders annually, making it an important player in the state's workforce development efforts.

The second McMahon award went to Donald R. Vickers, president and CEO of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. Vickers was appointed president and CEO of VSAC in 1990 and oversaw growth that turned it into a comprehensive agency serving thousands of Vermonters annually and employing hundreds of people. Among his accomplishments, Vickers advanced outreach programs and career development resources for students of all ages, creating the award-winning Start Where You Are college access program and supporting mentoring initiatives. He helped high school students and parents plan for postsecondary education through the College Pathways program, Paying for College workshops and assistance with financial aid forms.

NEBHE's 2013 David C. Knapp Award for Trusteeship also had two winners.

Louise S. Berry was appointed to the Board of Trustees for Community Colleges in 1991 and became its chair in 2004. She represented the board on numerous presidential search committees as both chair and co-chair to select leaders for the 12-college Connecticut Community College System. At the same time, she served on the board of the University of Connecticut. A former state senator, Berry is currently the superintendent of schools in Brooklyn, Conn. She has been an advocate for early childhood education throughout her career and, in 2006, the Early Childhood Center at the Brooklyn School was named in her honor. She and her late husband  Richard were instrumental in the founding of Quinebaug Valley Community College in Danielson, Conn.

James J. Karam is the former chair of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees and president and founder of First Bristol Corp., a 35-year-old regional real estate development and management company focused on developing retail shopping centers, office buildings and hotels throughout Southern New England. He also is co-owner of WSAR and WHTB radio stations, serving the Massachusetts Southcoast region. During his 10 years as a trustee and four as chair, the UMass system experienced strong student population growth and more than $2 billion in capital improvements, as well as the founding of the state's public law school at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Karam's alma mater.

NEBHE presented two special Regional Awards to specifically recognize business collaboration with New England higher education institutions to address New England workforce needs and provide students with enhanced education, training or research opportunities.

The Employee Scholar Program (ESP) at United Technologies Corp. (UTC) was awarded NEBHE's 2013 Connecticut State Merit Award as well as a special Regional Award for Business Contribution to Higher Education. UTC's commitment to learning is embodied in the ESP, which has enabled employees to earn more than 34,000 college degrees. ESP is the premier corporate-sponsored employee education program. It pays for tuition, books and fees for employees enrolled in accredited programs. In addition to prepayment of expenses, employees also receive paid time off each week to study. Unlike more typical tuition-reimbursement programs, ESP places no restrictions on the course of study an employee may pursue, and there is no requirement that coursework pertain to an employee's current job. UTC  has invested more than $1 billion in ESP since the program was established in 1996.

NEBHE presented its other Regional Award for Business Contribution to Higher Education—as well as the 2013 Maine State Merit Award— to Unum, a leader in disability insurance. In Maine, Unum executives were instrumental in establishing both the Maine Compact for Higher Education and the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education. Among the compact's innovative programs are the College Transition Initiative, which works with adult education programs to encourage people to complete their GEDs and transition directly into college courses, and the Employer Initiative, which encourages companies to provide incentives to their employees to further their education. The compact also helped establish the Harold Alfond College Challenge, which gives a $500 scholarship to any baby born in Maine. Unum also supports programs for underserved and minority students. Other Maine beneficiaries of Unum's support of higher education include the University of Maine (student retention program and Maine NEW Leadership institute for undergraduate women from across Maine), the Maine Community College System (Accelerate ME program), the University of New England Dental School, and the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute.

NEBHE presented its 2013 Massachusetts State Merit Award to the Massachusetts Community Colleges Experiential Education Committee. With support from the Massachusetts Community Colleges Executive Office, professionals in cooperative education, internship and career service programs at the 15 Massachusetts community colleges worked together in 2011 and 2012 to develop formal guidelines for experiential education, with a focus on cooperative education and internship programs. The handbook they published, called MCC Experiential Education: Internships and Cooperative Education, A Handbook for Practitioners and Administrators, outlines best practices, success factors, federal regulations and legal implications critical for practitioners and program administrators to understand in designing, implementing, supervising and assessing internships and co-ops on each of the Commonwealth's community college campuses.

The 2013 New Hampshire State Merit Award went to Northeast Delta Dental, which administers dental benefits of more than 730,000 people in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Its group customers include individuals and families with no access to employer-sponsored dental insurance. Northeast Delta Dental has many long-term relationships with education institutions and programs. In the past year, its giving included supporting Bow High School, the Community Colleges of NH Foundation, the Concord Community Music School, Early Learning NH, the Manchester Community Music School, the Manchester School System (City Year), New England League of Middle Schools, the New Hampshire Institute of Art, New Hampshire State Scholars, NHTI, Concord's Community College, Plymouth State University, and Southern New Hampshire Services (B.R.I.N.G. I.T.!!! program). In keeping with its oral health mission, its largest investment in higher education was a $2.3 million gift to the University of New England in Maine, which will open its College of Dental Medicine, the first in northern New England, in fall 2013.

NEBHE's 2013 Rhode Island State Merit Award recognized the Rhode Island Foundation and its CEO Neil D. Steinberg. The foundation granted a record-breaking $30 million to more than 1,300 community organizations in 2012. In education, the foundation has supported: efforts focused on middle school and high school retention programs that motivate kids to learn, reach graduation and seek further education opportunities; investments in charter schools and specialty schools where best practices can be learned and shared with larger schools and districts; and programs addressing professional development and peer support for education leaders

The Vermont State Merit Award went to the External Degree Program (EDP) of Johnson State College, Vermont's largest bachelor's degree-completion program. The EDP helps students finish their degrees close to home and in ways that are convenient, affordable and designed to fit with their busy lives. Open to students with 60 or more college credits, the program offers a variety of learning options, making it ideal for those who need to juggle work and family responsibilities with their studies. Because of its flexibility and statewide reach, it's a popular option for veterans. Students can earn credits online or in their own community through a combination of weekend and evening courses taught at various locations in Vermont, including Burlington, Montpelier, St. Albans and Rutland.

The 2013 Guide to New England Colleges and Universities, produced by NEBHE in association with Boston magazine, lists key data for each college, such as: admissions application deadlines and acceptance rates; faculty-student ratio; enrollment totals and breakdowns for part-time, commuting, female, international and minority students; cost ...]]> Announcing the 2013 Guide to New England Colleges and Universities!

The 2013 Guide to New England Colleges and Universities, produced by NEBHE in association with Boston magazine, lists key data for each college, such as: admissions application deadlines and acceptance rates; faculty-student ratio; enrollment totals and breakdowns for part-time, commuting, female, international and minority students; cost of attendance; and degrees offered.

NEBHE gathered the information for the listings through a 2012 online survey of the colleges and universities.

In addition to the college listings and profiles, the 2013 Guide includes a brief overview of New England as a higher education destination, the college admissions process, steps for seeking student financial aid and using NEBHE’s Tuition Break program.

Boston magazine published the 2013 Guide to New England Colleges and Universities as a companion publication to its December 2012 edition. NEBHE has distributed copies of the 2013 Guide throughout New England, including to all high school guidance offices and public libraries, and is distributing the Guide for free online here.

NEBHE published its Annual Directory of New England Colleges and Universities for a half-century, ending with the New England Journal of Higher Education ’s 2009 edition. In 2010, NEBHE moved its NEJHE publication entirely online. The partnership with Boston magazine allows us to again produce a printed directory for the convenience of our high school guidance and higher education colleagues.

Underscoring the changing higher education landscape, the 2013 Guide shows that at least 117 of 259 nonprofit two- and four-year institutions in New England offer some sort of “prior learning assessment,” to determine whether students’ education and professional experience warrant advance standing through course placement and/or college credit. These assessments range from the high school-based Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs to the American Council on Education-evaluated corporate or military training programs and portfolio reviews.

Wendy A. Lindsay is senior director of NEBHE’s Tuition Break Regional Student Program and NEBHE managing editor of the 2013 Guide.

Institutions use student results on prior learning assessments to determine whether students’ education and professional experience warrant advance standing ...]]> At least 117 of 259 nonprofit two- and four-year institutions in New England offer some sort of “prior learning assessment,” according to data collected by NEBHE for the 2013 Annual Guide to New England Colleges and Universities.

Institutions use student results on prior learning assessments to determine whether students’ education and professional experience warrant advance standing through course placement and/or college credit. These assessments range from the high school-based Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs to the American Council on Education (ACE)-evaluated corporate or military training programs and portfolio reviews.

The national Center of Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) recently partnered with HCM Strategists to further states and institutions’ ability to serve students through A Resource Guide for State Leaders: State Policy Approaches to Support Prior Learning Assessment. Among examples, the Vermont State Colleges (VSC) system created its Office of External Programs to administer all assessment of prior learning for the system’s two- and four-year institutions in 1975. As of August 2012, more than 7,000 Vermonters have earned credit through prior learning assessment, earning an average of 30 credits—for the cost of one three-credit class and a $300 administration fee. 

In addition, the data collected by NEBHE for the 2013 Annual Guide reveals that 105 New England institutions offer distance learning options, 22 offer degree programs with classes only offered on weekends; and 10 offer external degree programs that allow students to earn credits toward a degree with minimal or no classroom attendance.  To be sure, these increasingly flexible delivery and experiential learning options are not completely "disruptive"—they still aim to meticulously match the learning experience with currently offered courses and exams.

Each year, NEBHE presents ...]]> University of Rhode Island oceanography professor Robert Ballard, known for the discovery of the wreck of the RMS Titanic, will be among luminaries recognized by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) in March 2013 at the regional organization's 11th annual New England Higher Education Excellence Awards.

Each year, NEBHE presents Regional Excellence Awards to individuals and organizations that have shown exceptional leadership on behalf of higher education and the advancement of educational opportunity, and State Merit Awards to honor the innovative work of organizations, institutions or individuals in each New England state.

The 2013 awardees are:

Special Lifetime Achievement Award

• Robert D. Ballard, Professor of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, and Director, Institute for Archaeological Oceanography

Regional Awards:

• Thomas D. Ritter, Former Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives, and Trustee, University of Connecticut (The Governor Walter R. Peterson Award for Leadership)
• Ray M. Di Pasquale, Commissioner, Rhode Island Board of Governors of Higher Education and President, Community College of Rhode Island; and Donald R. Vickers, President and CEO, Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (The Eleanor M. McMahon Award for Lifetime Achievement)
• New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Scholarship Program (The Robert J. McKenna Award for Program Achievement)
• Louise S. Berry, Former Chair, Board of Trustees, Connecticut Community College System; and James Karam, Former Chair, Board of Trustees, University of Massachusetts (The David C. Knapp Award for Trusteeship)

State Merit Awards:

• Employee Scholar Program, United Technologies Corp. (Connecticut State Merit Award and Regional Award for Business Contribution to Higher Education)
• Unum (Maine State Merit Award and Regional Award for Business Contribution to Higher Education)
• Massachusetts Community Colleges Experiential Education Committee (Massachusetts State Merit Award)
• Northeast Delta Dental (New Hampshire State Merit Award)
• Neil Steinberg and The Rhode Island Foundation (Rhode Island State Merit Award)
• Johnson State College External Degree Program (Vermont State Merit Award)

NEBHE will present the awards at its New England Higher Education Excellence Awards dinner on Friday, March 8, 2013, at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel in Boston.

NEBHE has begun focusing the attention of New England institutions on the MOOC movement, which will affect them ...]]> In the days since NEBHE convened hundreds of educators and opinion leaders in Boston for the University Unbound conference, we've received a surge of reactions including this one from George McCully, founder of the Catalogue for Philanthropy.

NEBHE has begun focusing the attention of New England institutions on the MOOC movement, which will affect them all. Already, within months of their public debut, MOOCs and related "disruptive" models are widely considered to be global game-changers in higher education. The urgency signaled by the NEBHE conference title, “The University Unbound: Can Higher Education Compete and Survive the Age of Free and Open Learning?” is fully merited. Some have seen this revolutionary transformation as comparable to the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries, or the introduction of printing in the 15th-16th centuries, producing what may be the most rapid, powerful and profound paradigm-shift in the history of Western thought, especially as it relates to the rest of the world.

The key to this striking vision is that MOOCs (massive open online courses) promote modern STEM culture electronically and instantaneously, free of charge, in English, to every corner of the globe, to everyone on Earth with access to the Internet and the desire, will and capacity to utilize it. Nothing like this has ever happened before in cultural history, and its effects—in empowering hundreds of millions of people with useful knowledge and skills to become more fully productive—are incalculable but certainly world-changing. Everyone in, or interested in, higher education, would do well to give that at least a moment’s thought.

As for the NEBHE conference itself, one take-away for me was how it demonstrated our need to articulate more precisely what is happening, so that we might more effectively understand, strategize and evaluate this transformation and its parts as they proceed.

What MOOCs demonstrably do best is knowledge-development and skills-development—that is, technical training, certification and accreditation. No other system has shown greater power and promise in these areas than MOOCs.

But that is not the same as self-development, which is to say, education. To be sure, self-development necessarily includes knowledge- and skills-development, but beyond those it focuses on character-development—of personal values, life-experience, qualities of feeling (empathy, sympathy) sensitivity and insight, inspiration and aspiration, interest and concern, love and commitment, inter alia.

We do not yet know how, or how much, MOOCs will accomplish these. EdX is committed to researching the limits and competencies of MOOCs in “education,” but I did not hear at this conference a clear articulation of precisely what that means, and in particular whether the traditional distinction between training (at which MOOCs are unquestionably superior) and education (at which MOOC competency is unknown) is informing that inquiry.

One handle on this challenge is that whereas knowledge- and skills-development (training) can be (with modern IT) a mechanical process, self-development (education) must be a substantially social and intensely personal process. Centuries of residential “higher education” have taught us that the myriad personal and social experiences to which college and university communities are conspicuously conducive, are essential in education. Does this mean that MOOCs cannot educate? Not at all—where computers and the Internet may be engaged in education is in their capacities for communication, and especially interpersonal communication between students, and between students and faculty (as distinct from publishing or broadcasting).

If so, where MOOC research might initially focus is on the kinds and intensities of personal communication that are and can be achieved in these courses and their various modalities (chat rooms, etc.). MOOC courses might be considered “educational” insofar as they promote interpersonal experiences in their requisite knowledge- and skills-development.

What about specifically liberal education? While MOOC experiences in STEM disciplines may certainly be self-developing as well as knowledge- and skill-developing, liberal education must include more than token exposure to, and training in, the humanities—already identified as a field of special interest for MOOC pedagogical research. In Professor Anant Agarwal’s course, intercontinental chatrooms spontaneously arose as students volunteered to answer one anothers’ questions; the distance between these and seminars seems easily traversable, especially with audio-visual teleconferencing. Evaluating students’ written work will be challenging, but only temporarily.

There are many unanswered questions about MOOCs, but none so far that seem unanswerable. Since any institution, not just colleges and universities, might offer MOOCs, and job-qualifying accreditation might occur through course-completion certifications, is the dominance of college and university degrees in accreditation about to be diluted, or to evaporate entirely? What will this “unbinding” of universities mean for the departmental system, as well as for the future of academic disciplines?

Paradigm-shifts are serious processes. The stakes are huge, and they have winners and losers. NEBHE, whose constituents are all stakeholders in the MOOC movement, has with this conference demonstrated its excellent suitability as a leading forum—perhaps annually—for monitoring and measuring MOOC progress.

"I will have served in this role for more than nine years, a long time by national standards," he said. "I ...]]> Former NEBHE President and U.S. Congressman Robert A. Weygand will leave his position as the University of Rhode Island's vice president for administration and finance at the end of the fiscal year in June 2013.

"I will have served in this role for more than nine years, a long time by national standards," he said. "I must admit, it seems like it was yesterday that I started."

Since taking the URI position in 2004, the university has invested nearly $500 million in physical improvements for students, faculty and staff, and streamlined its business practices, including improving its  financial systems, paperless forms, travel services, purchasing, auditing and internal controls.

A landscape architect by training, Weygand also noted: "I am personally and professionally proud of our work to 'green the campus' with new quadrangles and numerous green spaces for students, faculty, staff and visitors."

Weygand was president and CEO of NEBHE from 2001 to 2004, where he wrote the following "Message from the President" columns for Connection (NEJHE's predecessor)  ...

Higher Education Reorganization: To Move a Pachyderm, Robert A. Weygand, Spring 2003

Eleanor McMahon: Education Pioneer, Robert A. Weygand, Fall 2002

Is There a Future for Public Higher Education?, Robert A. Weygand, Spring 2002

The announcement of Weygand's departure also noted that Peter Alfonso, vice president for research and economic development, will leave his position at the end of this fiscal year.

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) explored solutions to the problem at a recent forum in Kennebunkport, Maine, called ...]]> Why is remedial or developmental education such a hot issue? Partly because it costs time and money and casts doubt on the elementary and secondary education systems that we assume will prepare students for college.

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) explored solutions to the problem at a recent forum in Kennebunkport, Maine, called “Ready for Real: Innovative Strategies for Improving Remedial Education and College Success.”

NEBHE staff briefed the audience of educators, legislators and policymakers on the recent Lumina Foundation for Education grant the regional organization received to support community colleges implementing Khan Academy materials in developmental math courses. NEBHE also released a policy brief outlining college placement policies across the region and models for boosting college readiness.

Rethinking developmental ed

Many colleges use the College Board’s Accuplacer test to determine whether students are ready for credit-bearing college courses or first need to take and pass one or more remedial classes.

In a session on “Rethinking Developmental Education: State and Institutional Perspectives,” Lara Couturier, program director at Jobs for the Future, offered a national context for remediation. She noted that 60% of community college students were referred into developmental education programs—Dev Ed as she called it. Once there, most never progressed into college-credit-bearing work, and only one-quarter earned a college degree within eight years.

A historian by training, Couturier spoke about different developmental education models, including some involving long sequences of courses with too many exit points where students are tempted to drop out—and too often do. Some call Dev Ed the place where college dreams go to die. Others, Couturier among them, believe it should be looked at in a more holistic way, as an “on-ramp to a structured pathway to graduation.” Virginia has been a leader in a wave of states redesigning developmental education, followed by North Carolina and Florida. Another promising model is the California Acceleration Project, which aims to reduce the number of exit points.

Some models involve partnering with local K-12 districts, so students’ skills can be assessed in their junior year of high school. If at the point, the students are deemed not college-ready, they can take remedial courses while still in high school. Others make developmental education a co-requisite—a formal course taken simultaneously with another as opposed to a prerequisite. The Community College of Baltimore County, for example, places developmental students into college-level English but also supports them with an hour-long companion course.

Couturier noted that the placement tests that have been relied upon historically may not be the good predictors of success we thought they were. She also urged aligning development education with the student’s major and career interest. The spotlight, she suggested, should shift to getting development education students into programs of study, which means more intentional and frequent advising.

Couturier also noted a dearth of efforts to help students who are severely underprepared.

Feed me data

Norwalk Community College President David Levinson, who is also vice president for Community Colleges with the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education, said he was amazed by how little Connecticut relied on data when he came aboard in 2004. Indeed, a self-study for the  New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) had not a single bit of data. Then Achieving the Dream came along and brought to bear the purpose of research, Levinson said.

Norwalk Community College has tried blending college-level courses and developmental courses in "learning communities" but that was with just over a dozen students. The question, said Levinson, is how do you bring that to scale?

Today, such issues are being overshadowed in Connecticut by legislation calling for all remediation to be confined to a one-semester, intensive course—not as a sequence. “We are faced with the really daunting task of not only a new structure that is not even a year old (the state's new Board of Regents for Higher Education) but also this humungous task of trying to implement a piece of legislation that doesn’t have a penny attached to it," said Levinson.

He noted that Connecticut acknowledges enrollment ‘swirling,’ and students starting at one school, taking some courses at another, and going on to get not only an associate degree but perhaps a bachelor’s and master’s. Levinson said that even at his college on Connecticut’s euphemistically named “Gold Coast,” 83% of students from Norwalk and Stamford need at least one precollege course. What politicians see in all this, he said, is the state paying for remedial education twice—in high school and college—and the students still are not succeeding.

Nashua Community College President Lucille Jordan said she was asked by the New Hampshire Legislature to identify which students needed developmental education and which high schools they came from. Problem was, she said, many have been out of high school for a long time.

Besides, what would have been a good enough score in math at one time no longer is. Nashua Community College uses Accuplacer Diagnostics, providing a detailed analysis of a student's strengths and weaknesses, so students can focus on the areas where they are weak. Jordan also called for embedding reading and study skills in 100-level courses. She acknowledged that many students may need tutors to stay with them through college-level coursework.

Community College of Vermont President Joyce Judy said the Vermont Legislature has chosen not to get involved in the developmental skills arena per se, focusing more on dual enrollment and multiple pathways.

“We have one shot with those students and if we’re not successful in helping them engage and feel like it’s relevant to them, we’ve lost them for another 10 or 15 years,” said Judy. Some students need a 15-week basic skills course; others need something different. We’re asking if Accuplacer is nuanced enough to see where strengths and weaknesses are, she said. She noted that the college is asking developmental English students to do a self-assessment, not of their skills, but of their practices, asking for example, if they read newspapers and magazines regularly.

“One size does not fit all,” said Judy. In developmental math, the Community College of Vermont is developing a one-credit, self-paced tutorial, which Judy says, “students could realistically move through in three weeks.” That’s a challenge, she noted, for institutions that like to go with 15-week courses that are easier to manage, but just don’t work for all students.

Several attendees said the Dev Ed conversation should not deal so much with repairing vs. preparing. Many believe the Common Core State Standards will help with preparation, but there will always be adult learners who need some kind of remediation perhaps via new models such as massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sharing strategies

Developmental education can be improved, but not eradicated, warned Rhode Island College President Nancy Carriuolo. For one thing, Dev Ed is not just remediation, but actually covers a wide range of learning needs exhibited by all learners. Thomas Edison today would have probably been placed in remediation, Carriuolo asserted, because of his deficiencies in reading and writing.

“Policymakers often don’t know firsthand the distractions low-income students have—families to support, drug or alcohol problems, low self-esteem and the cumulative effect that comes from not doing well in school," Carriuolo said, adding: "Notice in that brief list, I didn’t say anything about poor teaching.”

“We need to think carefully about what will happen to the most underprepared students who are turned away from community colleges," Carriuolo reflected. "Will they enter adult basic education to learn the basic skills they need … will they enter a training program someplace else or will they simply go home to their couches, a bag of potato chips and a life sustained by a welfare check?”

Solving the math problem?

At Housatonic Community College, students who went through developmental English passed the gatekeeper college English at a 20% higher rate than those who tested straight into the course without the detour, said President Anita Gliniecki. But math was completely opposite, she said. Even if you got through the developmental math, your potential to succeed was at least 10% lower than those who tested directly in.

Students noted that the developmental math moved too slowly over the topics they already knew and too quickly over those they didn’t know—and still don’t. So Housatonic started self-paced courses, in which students test out of items they know and focus on items they don’t, until they ultimately demonstrate all the competencies. Faculty also embed in the course measures of how much time students spend on the work to keep an eye not only on skills but also on affective behavior.

When Housatonic allowed students to take an online math refresher programs, then retake Accuplacer, 69% of students increased at least one course level.

Speaking more broadly, Gliniecki and Carriuolo both lamented students' failure to "estimate," urging that high school calculus courses have students put away their calculators.

A private option

Deborah Hirsch, vice president for development at the private, four-year Mount Ida College, said one-third of students there are “first-generation,” one-third are Pell Grant-eligible; and half of entering Mount Ida students place into developmental education courses, but are also enrolled in college-level courses.

Mount Ida, she said, has tried to create some linked courses, for example, offering students guided study skills linked with Introductory Psychology.

And because the sequence of developmental math was a Bermuda Triangle for students, Mount Ida decided to combine the two-level sequence of developmental math courses into one course. The college renovated the classroom with chairs and desks that move easily on wheels, laptops and smartboards. The class features three days of mini-lectures and one day of  lab. Mount Ida has also added a "financial literacy" component, so it’s more relevant to students who often don’t want to be taking high school math again.

Finally, Mount Ida formed partnership with Persistence Plus—the “Weight Watchers” of college completion. The system uses smartphones to give students personalized, real-time “nudges” to help them set and reach goals, manage their time, cope with setbacks and connect with campus services. The nudges include personalized motivators—such as "did you know a third of your class is in the library now studying for the exam?"

Janet Sortor, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Southern Maine Community College, where enrollment has quadrupled in 10 years, promoted an advising course called “My Maine Guide.” The program offers a personalized online portal for students, which provides quick access to student’s electronic portfolio, course schedule, important reminders and other tasks. And students are required to take Freshman Interest Groups—theme-based one-credit courses that combine college success skills, goal exploration and setting, and investigation of a topic aimed at capturing the interest of students.

National views

At an evening session, Bruce Vandal, vice president of Complete College America, and William Trueheart, president of Achieving the Dream, addressed a panel on national views on developmental education and improving graduation odds.

Vandal noted the urgency of addressing college readiness, particularly in light of the Common Core State Standards assessments coming online in 2014. A study by ACT suggests that in many states, fewer than half of students who take that test will be deemed “college ready.”

Vandal urged states to focus on developing strategies that effectively transition students from high school to postsecondary institutions, including early assessment in high school, perhaps 10^th grade. He also called for better pathways into academic programs by realizing that not all students need the same skills. Students in social sciences and humanities, for example, may not need the heavy algebra appropriate for STEM students. He suggested diversifying the placement tests used to predict success, including adding high school GPA.

Trueheart described the mission of Achieving the Dream to help students, many of them lower-income and students of color, to be college ready. He held out the example of El Paso Community College in Texas, where 98% of students in 2003-04 needed remedial education, partly because so many students at the border institution did not speak English as their first language. In 10 years, the community college closed achievement gaps in math and English and raised rates of completion significantly.

Legislative view

At a session of legislators and former legislators on the NEBHE board, Maine state Rep. Emily Cain began by citing the recent finding by economist Anthony Carnevale of Georgetown University that job growth is occurring for jobs that require a credential beyond high school, but is declining for jobs that require only a high school diploma.

Maine state Sen. Brian Langley, Senate chair of the Education Committee, took time from opening his restaurant in Ellsworth, Maine, to describe his path as a nontraditional learner through vocational school, community college, the University of Southern Maine, Syracuse University, and the online Capella University. But, he assured the audience, he understands the pressures of traditional higher education cost issues, having put his kids through Colby College and the University of Michigan. “I have a picture in my mind of good culinarians who are still working in the industry but left my programs because they didn’t have the math or writing skills to do college-level work.” said Langley. "A few have taken remediation courses and failed them; adult ed can be more supportive," he believes.

Rhode Island state Sen. Hanna M. Gallo, chair of Education Committee and a speech pathologist by training, said she is a big proponent of full-day kindergarten. If that were available, she said, the college readiness problem wouldn’t come down to high school failing or college remediation. We need to remediate not in college, but earlier, she said, adding, that we also need better teacher-training programs at colleges, professional development and accountability for parents and communities.

Former Massachusetts state Sen. Joan Menard, now vice president at Bristol Community College, said that being all things for all people has become a problem for community colleges. They admit everyone, including adults with 6^th grade educations, and help employers write workforce training grants, but they are judged on graduation rates. Menard argued that community colleges need to bring legislators to campus not only to ask for more money and when parents and students call with complaints, but to tell them the good things that are happening.

Among those good things, New Hampshire state Rep. Ralph Boehm, vice chair of the House Education Committee, told of Nashua Community College's relationships with Honda for car mechanics and Delta Dental's gift of equipment to New Hampshire Technical Institute to help train dental hygienists.

Middlesex Community College President Carole Cowan urged community colleges to partner with vocational-technical and high schools. But, she added, don't dismiss the academic mission" “Those technical workers are going to go for a baccalaureate degree some day because they will want to walk that pathway to greater success.”