On most college campuses today, you will find offices that rarely existed at the start of this century. Rather than being a symptom of administrative bloat, these offices reflect an increasingly student-centric approach to higher education addressing historically marginalized needs as well as those of a changing student population. Many campuses now have positions or entire offices devoted to supporting needs such as mental health and well-being; accessibility; student entrepreneurship; diversity, equity and inclusion; and food insecurity.
Across the higher education landscape, what are some essential ways to ensure colleges and universities can adopt a student-first approach to the educational experience, not just in name but in practice?
Holistic Student Support
By adopting a more holistic lens to student success, higher education professionals recognize that students often have both basic and more complex needs that are unmet and prove to be a barrier to crossing the graduation stage. Institutions that are successful using a more holistic approach are addressing issues as diverse as food and housing insecurity, employment, depression and anxiety, childcare, transportation, virtual access to services, college affordability and access to technology.
When institutions meet these needs with an integrated or one-stop approach, they can address the root causes more than the symptoms of barriers to success. Cross-training team members to recognize and help address the complexity of students’ needs—and documenting these needs and making them accessible to the appropriate staff—avoids students being referred to multiple offices and having to share their concerns multiple times.
In their strategic planning, institutions will need to assess how artificial intelligence (AI) ed tech tools can both support and hinder student-centricity. When AI resumé tools, for example, help students develop stronger resumés, it leaves more time for career counselors to discuss career goals with students; however, student-centricity is compromised if the tool is used as a substitute for dynamic career counseling. While AI tools can make services more accessible, campuses will need to make sure not to sacrifice human-centric support in the name of convenience.
Learning Outcomes: Measuring What Matters
Largely driven by accreditation standards and a public call for greater transparency and accountability, student learning outcomes for both courses and cocurricular experiences have become largely institutionalized in higher education. However, quality and consistency when measuring learning outcomes varies both across and within institutions. Institutions have an opportunity to move from a compliance mindset to a student-centric mindset when it comes to student learning outcomes, by responding to the following questions:
- How are learning outcomes developed? Do faculty engage regularly with industry and consider the knowledge and skills new graduates will need to be successful as they enter the workforce or graduate programs?
- Do students, alumni and industry professionals have an opportunity to provide feedback on course content and outcomes? How is outcomes data used to improve the student experience?
- To what extent are learning outcomes transparent and communicated clearly? How closely are assignments and experiences aligned with the knowledge and skills students need to be successful both during and after college?
- Are curricula designed and aligned developmentally, so students are gaining appropriate opportunities to apply their learning and achieve mastery?
Individualized Learning
Institutions that recognize one pathway or one pedagogy does not fit all have allowed students to pursue more individualized learning to meet their needs. Providing experiential learning opportunities—whether through for-credit internships, service learning, study abroad or project-based learning—engages students in more real-world, hands-on learning experiences and provides them with opportunities to refine their career direction.
As more students complete internships before graduating, they gain insights into skills they need in the workplace that they may not be learning in the classroom. Providing access to on-demand learning platforms and stackable, microcredentials helps students fill that gap and improve career readiness with a more individualized pathway.
Increased Flexibility
Providing choice in course delivery enhances an individualized learning path as students can decide whether online, in-person or hybrid courses align with their learning preferences, their commutes and their schedules. Competency-based learning is another option that allows students to pursue education at their own pace.
The postpandemic resurgence of community college enrollment and pressure on public higher education systems to improve transfer rates means more students are aiming to transfer to a four-year institution to complete their degrees. A transfer-friendly admissions process is based on transparent transfer policies, timely transfer credit evaluations and flexibility in meeting requirements. Providing dedicated transfer advisors or engaging in joint advising with community colleges provides students with a clearer pathway to both matriculation and graduation and enhances their overall student experience and satisfaction.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI)
Despite the current contested terrain of DEI programs and initiatives across the United States, it’s important to remember that at the heart of student-centricity is recognizing the rich diversity students bring to our campuses, developing policies and practices with an equity lens and making sure to validate and celebrate students’ intersectional identities.
As institutions assess how to ensure student-centricity using a DEI lens, they should ask themselves the following questions:
- Do students from historically marginalized groups see and engage with faculty and staff from similar backgrounds around campus? To what extent do they see their identities represented in the curriculum and even in the institution’s admissions materials?
- What is the institution doing to remove barriers to participation in high-impact practices (HIPs), especially for first-generation and low-income students? How does the institution know which students are and are not participating in internships, service learning, undergraduate research, study abroad and other HIPs?
- What campus policies and practices might inadvertently create barriers for certain student populations such as commuter students, students who are parents or students with accessibility needs?
- What are first-time and transfer students experiencing when they first arrive on campus? To what extent do they feel welcome and free to bring their whole selves to the educational experience, whether it’s in the classroom, the residence hall or the athletic field?
As offices from student affairs to facilities identify ways to become more student-centric, perhaps the most important office to engage in this process is the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. An institutional effectiveness team can play a key role in measuring what matters when it comes to student satisfaction, student needs and student outcomes.
They also play a critical role in ensuring the right stakeholders on campus have access to data that provides insights into the student experience for continuous improvement, strategic planning and resource allocation. Institutional commitment to understanding student needs, meeting students where they are and providing the appropriate resources for student success are all essential to fulfilling the vision of student-centricity in higher education.
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