The Association of
American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced Salt Lake Community
College is among the twenty institutions selected to participate in
a new two-year project, Strengthening Guided
Pathways and Career Success by Ensuring Students Are Learning.
The Guided Pathways project is designed to build institutional
capacity to ensure students are learning.
“AAC&U is
thrilled to partner with the selected Guided Pathways institutions to promote
student success and demonstrate the ways in which community colleges are vital
to our nation’s strength—serving as engines of discovery, innovation, and
social mobility,” said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella.
The first step in
the grant process for SLCC was to send a team to the AAC&U Summer Institute
on High-Impact Practices, held this summer at Villanova University. SLCC’s
team consisted of Mark Jarvis (FHS faculty and Gen Ed Co-Chair), Mike Young
(Associate Dean and Gen Ed Co-Chair), Emily Dibble (ePortfolio Coordinator),
Melissa Hardy (Biology faculty) and Jessica Curran (Visual Arts faculty).
As the leading
national association focused on quality in undergraduate education, AAC&U,
in collaboration with the Center
for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas at
Austin, will work with the twenty institutional participants to strengthen
designs of project-based and applied learning experiences, and to assess
student achievement of learning outcomes to advance equity and student success
goals along guided pathways.
The Guided Pathways framework is composed of four main
practice areas: (1) mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) helping students
choose and enter a program pathway; (3) keeping students on path; and (4)
ensuring that students are learning.
“If we, as a
nation, are going to close equity gaps in student outcomes, we must engage in
collaborative and comprehensive efforts to help institutions that serve our
most diverse students enhance their existing structures and practices to fully
prepare students for success,” said Tia Brown McNair, AAC&U Vice President
for Diversity, Equity, and Student Success. “One goal of this effort is to
learn from the work of these twenty institutions to inform the learning
processes at many other institutions to ensure that learning and completion
remain equal priorities.”
AAC&U is
looking forward to partnering with the Pathways
Collaborative on this effort and will convene an advisory group of
leading experts to fully realize the project goals.
Strengthening Guided
Pathways and Career Success by Ensuring Students Are Learning is
supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Ascendium Education Group.
To learn more
about the Guided Pathways project, visit www.aacu.org/strengthening-guided-pathways.
AAC&U is the
leading national association dedicated to advancing the vitality and public
standing of liberal education by making quality and equity the foundations for
excellence in undergraduate education in service to democracy. Its members are
committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students,
regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915,
AAC&U now comprises 1,400 member institutions—including accredited public
and private colleges, community colleges, research universities, and
comprehensive universities of every type and size.