A New Academic Year Brings Opportunities to Deepen Student Learning

President Donald Guy Generals kicked off the College’s 50th year by posing a question to the faculty and staff assembled in the Winnet Student Life Building for Fall Professional Development Opening Session August 31.

“Do we want to be good?” Dr. Generals asked, “Or do we want to be great?”

The question is drawn from his listening tour, as he has tuned in on the conversations that will shape the direction of the College over the next 50 years.

His takeaways? The College is widely viewed as part of a vibrant and historical fabric of the city, and cited as one of the most important institutions in Philadelphia.

However, there are some who believe the College should stay the course and continue along the current lines of progress. Others believe the headwinds of change will batter higher education institutions, which will face an ambiguous future unless they change course.

“Over the course of the year, I am hoping we can address this and see what degree we need to change, if at all. Or whether or not we need to double down on the effort we are currently doing," Dr. Generals said.

What’s clear is the College needs to be more prominent in workforce and career development. “We need to be the go to institution,” he said. My vision is that it is more than workforce development. It really is about having an economic impact in this great city of ours and being at the table.“

At the end of his first year, Dr. Generals reorganized the College in an effort to blend academics with tools for student success. “I did not submerge academic affairs under student affairs,” he said, adding that student success and academic affairs have taken on added importance as they are creating stronger alliances and an environment that is beneficial to student learning.”

"It's not enough for students to know things. They have to apply it in purposeful ways to issues they care about,” said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American College and Universities who spoke at in-service.

For the coming academic year, the College will move into a new phase of collaboration as efforts get underway to hold an organized conversation regarding guided pathways and new ways to deepen student learning. Dr. Generals plans to establish a President’s Council to create a vehicle for organized conversation. Volunteers are being sought to help with this initiative.

“We shuffled the deck a little bit,” Dr. Generals said. “Do we aspire to be the best? And if we want to be the best, does that assume we continue to do what we’ve been doing?”

Dr. Generals emphasized that hat the College must continue to strengthen assessment of student learning outcomes and use data to reflect, make changes and improve the curriculum.

By Dec. 1, 2015 the College must report on its progress in meeting Standard 14 to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

“My appeal to everyone is to make sure we do whatever we can do to assess student learning outcomes,” Generals said. "The assessment process requires that we identify the type of assessment you want to do and, in a very direct way, determine if what you are teaching is benefiting the students acquiring that knowledge."

In other business, the president also provided additional updates:
The state budget still has not been passed, leaving the College and other nonprofits in limbo. The College must identify bold ways to sustain itself for the next 50 years and beyond, he said. The College intends to enrich civic engagement, which integrates community-based learning and reinforces the skills and knowledge acquired in the classrooms.