Core Principles
The statement includes five core principles to guide board members in advancing completion efforts, as well as potential strategies boards can encourage to support student completion, such as:
1.Boards should declare college completion among their priorities, regularly reviewing metrics about student enrollment, retention, and completion, and using these data for related decision-making.
2.Boards should hold the president and senior administrators accountable for progress toward mutually agreed-upon goals for college completion. They should also acknowledge the role of faculty and staff in advancing the completion agenda.
3.Boards should ensure that their institutions’ mission is clear and that efforts to support college completion are aligned with mission.
4.Boards should ensure that institutional resources are aligned with affordability, retention, and education quality as they relate to completion.
5.Because college readiness and the application of transfer credits affect college completion, boards should ensure that institutional policies reflect a commitment to collaborations with community partners such as K-12 leaders, high school counselors, and other colleges from or to which students transfer.
[For a much more detailed breakdown of each principle, including specific examples of how each principle can be met, read the full statement here.]
Recommendations
The statement also lists a summary of recommendations moving forward for specific leadership. A sample of the recommendations for presidents and chancellors to boost completion rates includes:
- Engaging the board in discussions of the mission and values of the institution, the student body the institution serves, and the institution’s commitment to completion
- Collaborating with the senior staff and board to establish clear goals for college completion efforts that serve as benchmarks for the institution, and as targets for performance assessments and accountability
- Ensure that orientation programs for new board members highlight the board’s responsibility for the oversight of educational quality and college completion among the full set of responsibilities.
A sample of recommendations for board members:
- Ensure that completion goals are set in the context of institutional mission. Monitor progress toward goals regularly. Boards should not manage the processes for implementation of goals, but they should evaluate the results.
- Ask questions about the institution’s strategies to help ensure that students complete their degrees or credentials in a timely fashion. Ask whether institutional resources—people and funding—are being appropriately deployed to support completion goals.
- Include progress on completion goals in the president’s or chancellor’s annual assessment. Hold the president and senior administrators accountable for established goals related to completion and for implementation of effective policies and practices to enhance completion efforts.
AGB will conduct a follow-up survey in 18 to 24 months to measure any progress on this issue.
For more recommendations and more information on the core principles, go to AGB’s website or read the full statement here.
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