Over the last several years, the guided pathways approach to whole-college redesign has become a national movement in community colleges. Approximately 300 colleges are implementing guided pathways reforms as part of formal state or national initiatives, and many more are doing so on their own. Some of the earliest colleges to implement guided…

Researchers examined the potential of Presidents' Councils on Diversity (PCDs) to position advancing diversity and inclusion agendas at 11 higher education institutions. Researchers investigated strategies and the degree that PCDs set up agendas through the mobilization (i.e., creating vision and setting priorities), implementation (i.e., creating…

Guided pathways reforms require colleges to rethink how they teach and support students. The case studies in Part 2 of this practitioner packet examine how colleges at the forefront of these reforms are transforming their programs and support services by implementing three key guided pathways practices: (1) meta-majors (clusters of programs in…

States are taking several distinct approaches to implement reverse transfer policies. Although contextualized by state-specific factors, approaches to policy implementation commonly include determination of a group or regulatory body responsible for policy oversight, technology, funding and identification of students eligible to participate in…

Hitching a ride on an automotive metaphor comes easily when Michigan is at the center of the story. After the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) spent a couple years noodling in the design shop about the optimum drivers of school improvement, its education engineers were convinced that the local school district was positioned to shift the…

Early education has been a growing priority for the Obama administration, and its competitive funding is spurring innovation in this field around the country. In 2013, early education journalist Paul Nyhan, author of this report, conducted case studies of four competitive grant programs that are triggering changes in early education: "Race to…

Making Connections was the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based, community-change initiative of the 2000s. It sought to build on previous work and launch an effort focused firmly on the framework of family strengthening. The Foundation started Making Connections in 22 places, focusing eventually on first 10, then seven sites. It…

The National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) has a mission to build district and school capacity to implement intensive intervention that will improve reading, mathematics, and behavioral outcomes for students with disabilities in Grades K-12 who have severe and persistent learning and/or behavioral problems. The purpose of this document…

The Division of Student Affairs at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor engaged in an iterative strategic process to create and implement a set of long-range goals. This strategic journey continues to evolve, uniting a guiding framework of strategic planning steps, a reflective process with an assessment component within each step, and a group…

The internships and cooperative education experiences offered at Michigan's 15 public universities were examined. The study focused on the following items: the organization of internships and cooperative education experiences on university campuses; ways employers and students access such work-based learning opportunities; the numbers of students…