Academic Master Plan 2016-2021

JUST AS WE HAVE IDENTIFIED seven Institutional Learning Outcomes to articulate our expectations for
student learning at Montgomery College, we in Academic Affairs hold ourselves to a comparable standard
by establishing seven parallel Academic Affairs Division Goals. These seven goals are both descriptive and
prescriptive, serving as guiding principles for our work with students and identifying specific strategies and
projects that must be undertaken in order to accomplish our goals.

A. THINK: Use qualitative and quantitative information to make informed decisions that promote student success and ensure academic excellence.

• Strategy 1: Identify and implement agile software system(s) that provide real-time, easily accessible data for use by students, faculty, staff, and administrators. 
• Strategy 2: Identify and implement comprehensive student success applications that facilitate and advance scheduling, planning, and recognition for progress and excellence.

When we think about student success, we must have adequate information and adequate time to reflect on that information in order to make good decisions.

B. COMMUNICATE: Initiate, deepen, or expand conversations with internal and external partners to help students succeed.

• Strategy 1: Institutionalize a support structure to provide assistance, training, and modeling for advisory groups to increase their effectiveness and to establish a system of accountability.
• Strategy 2: Establish a Developmental Studies Roundtable which includes faculty representatives from English, reading, and math, the leadership of which rotates on an annual basis among disciplines.

Our commitment to communication will be evident in the increased time that we spend discussing student success with each other and with the broader community, including industry leaders and surrounding academic institutions. For example, CCRCCA has spurred us to organize meetings between MC and MCPS faculty in English and math; now those conversations should be expanded to include other disciplines. Montgomery College has also committed to establishing advisory councils for all programs, with the goal that transfer disciplines will now engage in community collaborations similar to those established by the Career and Technical Education programs; for these new councils to be successful, conveners and council members must be provided with training, support, and a clear understanding of purpose. Internally, a proposal to create a Development Studies Roundtable recommends regular meetings of English, reading, and math faculty so that we are working together to help our students succeed.

C. CREATE: Foster and celebrate innovation at all levels of the institution.

• Strategy 1: Collaborate with MC Innovation Works to teach principles and strategies for innovation, to facilitate implementation, and to identify and address systemic barriers to innovation.
• Strategy 2: Enhance pathways, processes, opportunities, and incentives to innovate and to scale innovations.
• Strategy 3: Identify and work synergistically with partner institutions on academic innovation.

College employees are frequently exhorted to “innovate” and to “think creatively,” but evidence suggests that we sometimes lack a common understanding of those terms and that we often lack the time, tools, and space to be innovative and creative. Montgomery College has made a commitment to innovation in the establishment of MC Innovation Works, Innovation Grants, and other initiatives. For the Academic Affairs division to take full advantage of these opportunities, we must partner with internal and external drivers of creativity and innovation and provide faculty and staff with training, guidance, and opportunities to actualize innovation.

D. ENGAGE: Interact with students beyond the classroom, individually and in small groups, to
support academic success.

• Strategy 1: Collaborate with Student Affairs to support and expand existing mentoring programs, create new ones, and provide a mechanism for the distribution of resources, coordination of efforts, and a clearinghouse to share and discuss effective methods and strategies.
• Strategy 2: Create an electronic discussion forum to collect, discuss, test, and disseminate “micro-intervention” techniques. Provide incentives for faculty and staff participation.

Study after study demonstrates that one-on-one or small-group advising, mentoring, coaching, or other personalized interventions have significant impact on students’ persistence and success. Montgomery College already has many fine programs that meet this description, including but not limited to, Boys to Men, Trio, Raptor Navigator, International Buddy Program, Women’s Mentoring Project, and the newly launched Achieving the Promise Academy; as an institution, we must find ways to fund and expand these efforts Collegewide and to offer new options for students who don’t currently fit a targeted profile but who could benefit from individualized attention. We can also use these strategies to help students who are average performers to reach the next level of excellence, and we can supplement these more structured programs with micro-interventions: brief, focused, and potentially high-impact exchanges between students and College personnel. As a large institution with thousands of students, we must develop a culture in which ALL employees routinely engage in intentional ways with students to foster their success. Our goal is to highlight “community” in community college.

E. CONNECT: Embrace integrative learning through interdisciplinary and collaboration among disciplines, programs, and faculty.

• Strategy 1: Validate and support current “across the disciplines” programs, such as Writing in the Disciplines, Quantitative Reasoning in the Disciplines, and others, and add additional interdisciplinary projects as appropriate including credit and non-credit curricula. (Additional projects might include a statistics network, global/ international education, or innovations in health care education.)
• Strategy 2: Create a clearinghouse for modular high-impact, low-stress collaborations among faculty from different disciplines to share assignments, lectures, pedagogical practices, and expertise.
• Strategy 3: Implement a portfolio system that recognizes, tracks, and validates student participation in academic programs and co-curricular activities.

Stark delineation among disciplines has never been a feature of business, industry, government, or the community, and academia is quickly realizing the need to cross boundaries and make connections in order to provide students with the most relevant education possible. While we have offered a successful Writing in the Disciplines program for many years and made significant progress in offering learning communities of various types and complexity, we must now find ways to extend these benefits to more students by helping them make connections that deepen their understanding of their own discipline and others. Knowing that faculty participation is the key to expanded integrative learning, we must make ease of implementation a priority for any new programs. For example, we may decide to infuse statistics into a wide variety of STEM and non-STEM disciplines by designing assignments that are modular and adaptable to any subject matter. Likewise, a centralized and easily accessible clearinghouse would allow faculty to connect for just one or two class periods to share expertise, assignments, or lectures. In order to help our students transfer skills and see big-picture connections, we must model that behavior and teach by example.

F. GROW: Offer meaningful professional development for all employees by embracing broadened perspectives in scholarship.

• Strategy 1: Develop a focused professional development pathway for faculty and instructional staff to enhance their pedagogical practices in light of new outcomes for courses that teach essential skills alongside discipline content.
• Strategy 2: Create professional development opportunities for faculty and instructional staff to develop and enhance currency in discipline content, scholarship, pedagogy, and workforce alignment.
• Strategy 3: Provide relevant professional development opportunities for all academic support staff in the Academic Affairs division.

While content expertise is still the most important qualification for the professoriate, to be effective in today’s higher education environment, content expertise among faculty must be coupled with expertise on pedagogical strategies proven to improve student success. Today’s faculty are routinely asked to incorporate new technologies and pedagogies, to restructure their courses to focus on broader learning outcomes (such as oral communication or information literacy), and to incorporate interdisciplinary content and high-impact learning practices. Through clear communication, meaningful self-assessments, and readily accessible training, we can help faculty meet continually changing expectations. Moreover, even faculty who are teaching primarily “content-based” courses might welcome opportunities, such as industry externships, scholarship support, and courses in topics such as, “teaching professional practice” to remain current in their disciplines. Likewise, staff and administrators in the Academic Affairs division, regardless of function, will benefit from professional development that focuses on student learning and engagement. If we truly care about student success, we must invest in faculty, staff, and administrator success as well.

G. ACHIEVE: Foster a culture of empowerment and accountability whereby all employees in the Academic Affairs unit have both agency and responsibility to make positive changes for students.

• Strategy 1: Review curriculum approval processes to improve efficiency and responsiveness.
• Strategy 2: Revise faculty evaluation process to reflect institutional goals, our new organizational structure, and the dynamic role of 21st century faculty.

The most enthusiastic and innovative faculty, staff, and administrators can become discouraged if internal processes impede their efforts to make improvements. Two systems at Montgomery College that have not undergone thorough scrutiny in ten years or more are the curriculum approval and faculty evaluation processes. The implementation of the Academic Master Plan is an opportune time to examine both and potentially revise them to align with current and evolving expectations for faculty, programs, and curricula.