Keene State Team to Attend Institute on High-Impact Practices

From Becca Hickam, CELT:

This summer Vice Presidents Mel Netzhammer (Academic Affairs) and Andy Robinson (Student Affairs) are supporting a team of Keene State faculty and staff in attending an institute sponsored by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) on High-Impact Practices. In the fall 2011, the core team will be looking to include people from across campus in the implementation of the goals and strategies developed at the institute. Toward this end, we wanted to get the word out about our attendance and solicit any initial interest people might have in participating.

The Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success — formerly the Greater Expectations Institute — is designed to help campuses develop high-impact practices, activities, and strategies that are engaging to students and effective at improving both persistence and achievement of essential learning outcomes. Foregrounding the success of students who have historically been underserved, the program is attentive to the nation’s evolving demographic, to diversity, equity, and quality of learning. The curriculum reflects the latest research on practices that help all students to complete their degrees — connecting high-impact learning intentionally to student success. It builds on research suggesting that underserved students benefit even more than do traditionally advantaged students when they participate in high-impact practices.

The institute is designed for campus practitioners — faculty, student affairs professionals, institutional leaders — addressing the challenge of leading for change in an era of austerity. It offers innovative models for program implementation and assessment. The program will be of particular interest to campus-wide, cross-functional teams working on institution-wide curricular or programmatic change, assessment of new or existing programs or practices, or development of effective institutional collaborations. The institute is also ideal for teams working on accreditation or for state-wide, state-system, or regional collaborative teams.

Keene State College core team members (a subset of whom are attending the institute) are:

• Carissa Barillaro, Residential Life
• Jeff Halford, Communications
• Mike Hanrahan, Computer Science
• Becca Hickam, CELT
• Jamie Landau, Communications
• Tiffany Mathews, Health Services- Wellness Education
• Mary McEntee, Student Center- Community Service

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact any member of the core team or myself (rhickam@keene.edu), as I am serving as the team leader.

For more information on AAC&U’s Summer Institutes, read the full release.