A Deep Dive into Student Success

In this episode of the podcast we're joined by UW Tacoma Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success, Bonnie Becker, and Senior Director, Student Transitions and Success, Amanda Figueroa. You may have already guessed (judging by their titles) that Becker and Figueroa do a lot of work around student success. We'll talk about what we mean when we say "student success." We'll also get into why college is important to individuals and to society. Research suggests that having a college degree impacts everything from social mobility to health. Becker and Figueroa will also outline UW Tacoma's revamped approach to student success including the importance of HIPs (no, not the thing connect to your torso).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We want you to be at UW Tacoma, but we really
genuinely care about the successof all of our students and
understand that that looksdifferent for different students
.
There are times where steppingaway from college for a little
while is probably the best pathfor an individual student, and
that is something that we willhelp with and encourage and

(00:24):
cheer lead and all of the thingsthat we would do for a student
who is staying at UW Tacoma.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
From UW Tacoma.
This is Paw'd Defiance.
Welcome to Paw'd Defiance,where we don't lecture but we do
educate.
I'm Eric Wilson-Edge Today onthe pod a conversation about
student success with AssociateVice Chancellor for Student
Success, Bonnie Becker, andSenior Director of Student

(00:56):
Transitions and Success, AmandaFigueroa.
We'll start with the why ofcollege, specifically why
college is important and whatimpact it has on both
individuals and society.
From there, we'll talk aboutwho goes to college and why, and
perhaps more importantly, whysome students leave college.
Finally, Becker and Figueroadiscuss the importance of

(01:21):
belonging and purpose to successin college and how they're
creating a culture of belongingand purpose at UW Tacoma.
Amanda Figueroa Bonnie Becker,welcome to Pod Defiance.
It's good to have you back.
Both of you have been herebefore.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's great to be here .
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, thanks for inviting ushere today.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
So we are going to talk about student success and
lots of things within studentsuccess.
So my first question, Amanda,I'm going to throw it to you
first.
Here's a weird one for apodcast from a university why is
college important, both to anindividual and to society in
general?

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah well, thanks for the question.
I actually do think it's afundamental question that we
should always be askingourselves as practitioners what
is the point of higher education, what do we think it is, what
do students think it is?
But some of the things that weknow are a benefit to both
individuals and society fromhigher education degrees is
definitely around socialmobility, and so there's tons of

(02:29):
studies out there that showthat when you earn a four-year
degree or a post-secondarycredential, that it's one of the
most accessible routes tosocioeconomic mobility.
In the United States there'sstill access issues, there's
still equity issues, but acrossboth racial and gender
demographics, we know that ifyou are a college graduate,

(02:50):
you're going to earn more inyour lifetime, you're going to
experience less unemployment,you're going to be more likely
to have health insurance, have alonger life expectancy, better
health outcomes, and by all ofthese objective measures, we
know that a college degree hasan impact on individuals in that
way and that that benefitssociety.

(03:12):
Now I also, really, when I'mthinking about this work, one of
the things I like to focus onis the idea of economic security
, and this is some new framingand new thinking that's come to
me based on a publication fromlast year from Mathematica, and
they define economic security aswhen individuals have the
income and assets needed toattain and preserve their

(03:33):
economic independence, that theypossess power and autonomy or
over their lives and they feelthe respect, dignity and sense
of belonging that comes fromcontributing to one's community.
And I think that I like thisdefinition so much because it
helps to capture another part ofhigher education that really
matters again, both toindividuals and to society,

(03:55):
which is that it's a space thatcan nurture critical thinking
and a critical consciousness,that empower students to say
like they can identify problemsin society and then also help to
solve those problems.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
One thing that we often get questions about when
we talk about this is aroundother types of post-secondary
credentials, like trade schools,and I think something that
Amanda and I talk about a lot isthat this is not the only
pathway to social mobility,socioeconomic mobility, but it's

(04:29):
a really important one.
It's important one for ourculture.
It's one of the most obviousand accessible ones for most
folks.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, especially if we look at folks who receive
Pell grants the GeorgetownCenter for Workforce I'm going
to mess up the name.
Anyway, there have been studiesthat have called the Pell Grant
the workhorse of socioeconomicmobility in the United States,
because we have mechanisms forstudents who come from lower
earning families to gain aneducation and to really gain

(05:00):
access to being middle and upperclass income households.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I'm going to ask maybe two cerebral of a question
we may not have a clear answerfor, but what is it about
college then?
Is it just the process oflearning, of being pushed to
explore or see thingsdifferently?
Do we know what it is about thecollege going process and

(05:24):
obtaining a degree thatinfluences your life so much?

Speaker 3 (05:31):
I don't know that.
We know I think I have apartial answer, and some of that
has to do with the changes inthe American economy.
So we used to be an agricultureand manufacturing based economy
and we've really switched overto research and development and
services, which does require adifferent level of training and
education, and so as theproportion of those jobs have

(05:52):
increased in our workforce, thenthe required credentials to
obtain those jobs has changedover time, and so when you get a
higher education degree, youhave more access to more of
those kinds of jobs which tendto pay better, have health
insurance and be more stable andalso be sectors that are
growing.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
I've also heard people talk about some specific
skills.
They used to call them softskills, but I think the framing
around essential skills is alittle bit more positive in the
way of thinking about it.
But things like criticalthinking, cooperation and
communication are things that wesometimes explicitly, but often

(06:35):
implicitly, are developingwhile we're in college, and a
lot of interviews that have beendone in different contexts,
with employers, for example,will often say you know, I can
do this, I can teach a specificskill on the job, a specific
program or a specific procedure,whatever.
The thing that's harder toteach are things like critical

(06:57):
thinking, communication andcooperation, and college is
really well set up for teachingthose things, often when you're
not paying attention.
There are some efforts to makethat more explicit, but a lot of
it happens in a very sort ofnatural and organic way.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
And I think there's some interesting work at UW
across all three campuseshappening around the impacts of
higher education on civicengagement, and so I know
there's a concerted effortacross the three campuses to
really elevate and expandopportunities for students to
get civically involved, which weknow the more that our students
are participating in civic life, the better we all are.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
So, amanda, let's stay with you for a second.
So what does the typical andI'm using air quotes here
college student look like?
And let's start maybe bigpicture in the United States and
then maybe zero in at UW Tacoma.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, well, we know that overall college enrollment
has declined over the lastdecade or so, and especially
since the COVID-19 pandemic.
So I think that's an importanttrend that we all need to be
paying attention to.
And last fall there were about8.3 million students in the
United States seeking anundergraduate degree, and there

(08:18):
were far more women enrolledthan men.
So if you're a college studentin the United States, you're
more likely to be a woman.
That's been true since 1979.
And I should also note, when Icite that statistic, that those
data come from the NationalStudent Clearinghouse Research
Center, which, at this time,does not capture any data on

(08:39):
non-binary students.
And so when we think about whostudents are, who college
undergraduates are in the UnitedStates, white students are the
largest demographic group byrace, and that's followed by
Latinae students at 17.5%, andthen black students at 10.6% of

(09:02):
enrolled students.
If you're going to have afull-time as an undergraduate,
your average age, or your medianage, is 20, and if you're
part-time, your median age is 23.
So skewing a little older.
And then we also serve a lot offirst gen students at UW Tacoma
.
So the best data availableabout enrollment of first gen

(09:24):
students goes back to 2016, butat that time, 37% of
undergraduate students werefirst in their family to earn a
four-year degree and, as notedearlier, if your family is
either middle or higher income,you're more likely to enroll in
college.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
A couple of things that I think often surprises
people is that the vast vastmajority of college students are
not living on campus, they'recommuting to college, and that
the majority of I don't know ifit's the majority, but a big
chunk of college students aregoing to two-year schools.
So when we talk about collegestudents we're really talking

(10:04):
about.
I often like to use the examplemovies you think about, like
Animal House, or there's so manymovies about the college
experience and very few of themare capturing what the average
college-going experience is liketoday for the average student.
There's no average student.
They're all above average, butespecially ours.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
How does that big picture hold true compared to
what the student demographic isat UDEPT-Tacoma?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah, so the UDEPT-Tacoma student does not
look like a typical collegestudent in the United States,
and so one of the things that issimilar is that, among our
students, white students are thelargest racial demographic
group, but they only comprise34% of undergraduates, compared

(10:54):
to 42% of students nationally,and I think that our student
body really reflects our accessto admission, because when we
look at gender representation,we had a really interesting
phenomenon last fall where weactually had more men than women
enrolled for the first time.
In that I can remember.
I looked back at data back to2014 and it was the first time

(11:16):
that that had been true.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's also the first time the male retention rate is
higher than first time I've everseen that.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, so we're enrolling more men, which is
great.
Our average age of ourundergraduate students is 23
years old, so we're a littleolder than the national average.
Over 55% of our undergraduatesare first to earn a four-year
degree in their family and tocome from lower income families,

(11:45):
so that's a big percentage ofstudents that are really bucking
national trends.
And also, since we've joinedthe National NASPA First
Scholars Initiative a few yearsago, I've really been taking to
the saying that we are afirst-gen campus in a first-gen
community, because when you lookat Pierce County, 28% of adults

(12:06):
24 years or older have afour-year degree or higher, and
so really first-gen is a pridepoint for our campus and it is a
hallmark of our community atthis point.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
I think another thing that makes our campus very
unique is our history startingas only for transfer students.
So I started at UW Tacoma in2006 and that was the first year
that we admitted first-yearstudents, freshman students, and
so that history is still sortof reflected in our students in
that the numbers have shiftedover time.

(12:37):
But you can think about likehalf and half we about half of
our students are coming straightfrom high school.
Half our students aretransferring from another school
, which is sort of a uniquestudent body, not unusual across
the country, but sort of uniquein just how many transfer
students we serve and how sortof again, naturally and

(12:59):
organically we work withtransfer students because it's
sort of part of our long-termhistory.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
But certainly unique in the percentage of
undergraduates that arefirst-gen compared to other
four-year schools, I would sayso.
So Bonnie and I had anopportunity this past March to
go to Boston and be part of thefirst ever NASPA First Scholars
Leadership Academy, where we gotto meet with colleagues across
the country who havedemonstrated success in serving
students who are first-gen, andwe didn't have a lot of peers

(13:28):
who had the same percentage offirst-gen students who comprised
their student body.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, it's another thing that we do sort of
organically.
We're really used to workingwith more than used to working.
We love working with our groupof students, and so sometimes
when Amanda and I get to goelsewhere, we're sort of
reminded that it's kind ofunique.
The student body of Udip toComa are unique in this way and

(13:54):
just a wonderful group ofstudents to work with.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
And maybe this isn't a question that can be answered,
but I'm going to ask it anywaybecause we have the magic of
editing.
So I've worked here almosteight years, which is not as
long as the two of you, but longenough to be surprised by the
fact that I've never thoughtabout this myself.
You know, I know that we have alarge first-generation

(14:18):
population and I guess untillistening to the two of you,
I've never really stopped to askmyself why that might be.
Is it a reflection of thepopulation, like you were saying
, amanda, in Pierce County?
But I imagine that couldexplain some of it.
But there are, you know, tonsof schools in the up and down
I-5 in Washington and thousandsof schools around the world.

(14:39):
We know why so many first-genstudents come here.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
So there definitely has been some research in
Washington State that shows thatmore students are choosing to
stay local.
So I think that geography is abig component of the reason why
Everything else is conjecture.
But I'm happy to conject, do itso I?
What I have observed in my 11years of working at UW Tacoma is

(15:10):
that our first-gen students aremasters of the friend referral
Right.
So when you start to gain areputation with communities that
have been historicallymarginalized and harmed by
higher education and yougraduate them and they get out
and they're getting careers andthey're experiencing that
socioeconomic mobility, thenthey start to tell their friends

(15:33):
and their cousins and theiraunties tell their friends.
I mean, I really there's somuch word-of-mouth referral that
happens that I've observed atUW Tacoma.
That's my conjecture as toanother reason about why is
folks know that they're going tohave a good experience here,
and I've talked to other serviceproviders who are brokers
within different K-12educational spaces and they

(15:56):
specifically say I want to sendmy first-gen students to UW
Tacoma because I know they'regoing to have a good experience.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Okay, bonnie, your turn.
Yeah, so what does the researchsay about why students leave
college?
And I imagine that could becomplicated.
A lot of reasons, but you know,same, same, maybe idea that
when Amanda talking about whostudents are, maybe start big
picture and then work down to UWTacoma.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
For sure.
So I think the word you usedwas complicated, I would say is
a good way of describing Any oneindividual student we talk to
often has multiple intertwinedparts of their stories.
But, that said, there has beenquite a bit of research done
about this.
So the biggest study that'sbeen done is talking to 30,000

(16:50):
Americans who left collegethrough Gallup.
So it was a real big, big study, and the most common thing that
they heard was around balancingschool and work.
So to Amanda's point, you know,when we talk about the typical
college student, it's there are18-year-olds going straight from
high school living on campusfrom upper middle class families

(17:15):
.
But the typical college studentis coming from a range of
different experiences and sothey might have family that
they're caring for, they mighthave their own health issues.
So balancing school and work,financial pressures, life events
and personal challenges allsort of rose to the top.
And then a common theme thatGallup heard, which you'll hear

(17:38):
in our story when we talk aboutUW Tacoma, was seeing the
connection between why they'rein college, the connection
between college and futurecareer, or just the return on
investment what was the purposeof being in college?
So when we ask this question atUW, tacoma.
We get some very similaranswers and again, one student

(17:58):
might have multiple sort ofintertwined parts of their story
.
But we hear things aboutfinancial, mental and physical
health, family and personalcircumstances, especially since
COVID.
We hear a lot about flexibility.
It's like this balance betweenwanting flexibility of online

(18:21):
learning with the need for thatin-person connection and sort of
how do we balance those thingsfor our students.
But then there are some sort ofdeeper parts of stories that we
often hear about.
So we hear about belonging andthat can be socially or
academically or both.

(18:42):
Do I feel like this is a placewhere I belong?
Back to Amanda's point aboutreally feeling like a place that
, as a first-gen student, you'regoing to be well taken care of
but also able to interact with alot of students with a similar
background to you, a lot offaculty and staff with the same
background as you.
So belonging comes up quite abit.

(19:04):
We also hear from students whomight not be doing as well as
they would like academically.
I mean, it lets the reality.
It is college and there arecertain threshold.
Students need to stay above tostay in college and again these
things are intertwined.
Often we find when a student isstruggling academically.

(19:24):
When we take some time to talkwith them, some of these other
factors are often coming intoplay, so really being able to
show up and bring their wholeselves.
And then again we get to thisquestion of why, this question
of purpose, why am I in schoolin the first place?
So it's challenging.
It's challenging to be inschool.
We know that, sadly, a largenumber of our students struggle

(19:50):
with food insecurity or housinginsecurity, mental health issues
.
And when you've got thesechallenges, resilience can often
come from purpose right, likeyes, I've hit some challenges,
but here is why I'm here, whichI wanna be really careful.

(20:11):
It's not.
We feel UW Tacoma works reallyhard to work with students
through some of those more sortof non-academic life challenges
and we can talk about that ifyou're interested.
And fundamentally, this questionof why often ends up coming up.

(20:32):
Fundamentally, why am I here?
Why am I in college?
Why am I taking time away frommy family?
Why am I pushing through?
So those are the kinds ofthings that we hear.
It's sort of similar on anational level and on a local
level, but every story is unique.
Every story is sometimes can bereally heartbreaking, sometimes

(20:55):
can actually be reallyinspiring that balance of
thinking about looking for thesesort of big picture patterns
and then focusing on theindividual and that individual's
story and their individualcircumstances.
["the Story of the Man"].

Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's interesting, as I was listening to you, bonnie,
I thinking back to when I was,because I graduated high school
and then I went to communitycollege and then I quit.
And I think about that and Idefinitely think that my
rationale was I couldn't reallysee why I was going.
I think there was also a littlebit like I've been in school

(21:36):
since I was like five years oldand I just wanna take a break
and then so I quit, and then Iwas still living at home and I
was working full time and thenmy mom started charging me rent
and I was like, well, I'd rather, I'm gonna go back to school.
But I think the point here isthat I started thinking about.
I think we tend to think ofcolleges as college and we tend

(21:58):
to throw them as altogether, andI can't help but think of an
experience.
Like you say, you go into atarget.
Target wants you to have theexact same experience, no matter
where you go, right.
Stores are laid out prettysimilarly.
Here's this handbook on how totalk to customers, but I think
the light bulb that went off inmy head is that you don't

(22:18):
actually initially want that forcollege right?
It has to reflect the needs ofthe people you're serving.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Absolutely.
It goes back to that feeling ofbelonging.
Right, If something feels toocookie cutter, it's often harder
to find that feeling ofbelonging.
So it's, I think, important asa region that we have a
diversity of schools with adiversity of feels and

(22:47):
specialties and a range ofdifferent things I would say
that would be true of anycollege, not just UDip, Tacoma
is that you wanna be unique andyou wanna have things about your
campus that are special, thatare well matched to the students
who are coming to your school.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
I also often reflect on the fact that teaching is, at
its very heart, a relationalendeavor.
Right, people are built tolearn.
We learn all the time.
We have teachers from all overthe place, whether that's a
professor in a classroom or mymom or my friend right, and at

(23:22):
the end of the day, it comesdown to the relationship that
you have, and that's one of thetensions I think we have to
navigate in higher education istrying to create systems that
serve all people and yet havingpeople who are so diverse it's
one of the things I love aboutworking at UDip Tacoma is that
it's this constant challenge ofunderstanding.

(23:43):
There's a diversity of story anda diversity of needs, and how
do we best adapt to meet everystudent where they are?
It's not easy, but it'sexciting, it's engaging and I
love all.
I have so many stories and I'msure all of my colleagues do as
well about students that they'vegotten to know the individual
pieces that those students puttogether to help themselves

(24:05):
persist, and then alwaysthinking about who are the
students that didn't get toconnect and what could we have
done differently in order tosupport them.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Okay, amanda, let's stay with you.
So, the two of you, you do alot of work around student
success and in higher ed there'sa lot of like words that have
like a sound fancy, or are youlike.
I don't know what that means.
So I'm curious what studentsuccess means for the work that

(24:35):
you're doing and in your minds,and as for the campus as well,
because I can't.
If it's just getting people tograduation to get a degree, you
can have an absolutely miserableexperience and still get your
degree.
But I suspect that's not what wemean by student success is just
the degree graduation component.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
That's absolutely right, and whenever we start to
define terms like this, I alwaysthink it's important that we go
back to the individual students, and part of what I think our
obligation is to createopportunities for them to tell
us what does success mean?
Because every answer is gonnabe a little different, and part

(25:17):
of our job is to help createlearning and development
experiences that support them inengaging in that question
themselves critically andthinking about it through
different lenses, because thatanswer is so highly
individualized and if we do ourjob well, they are able to ask
themselves and reflect on thatquestion over their entire
lifetime, which is my hope forthe purpose of education as well

(25:40):
.
But we do have an institutionaldefinition, as you may imagine.
Well, at least I would sayactually not even an
institutional definition, we dohave a working definition that
is going to guide some newefforts moving forward, and
we're launching a new effortthat is going to help nurture
alignment in student successwork in ways that emphasize

(26:03):
equity and inclusion, thedevelopment of students' sense
of belonging and sense ofpurpose, and a dedicated focus
on the needs of first genstudents.
And so that's what some newefforts that we're launching,
that we've been working reallyhard on and are excited about,
and we're gonna work with a newgroup of colleagues across the

(26:24):
campus who represent faculty andstaff and advisors, and we're
gonna be focusing on studentsgraduating at higher rates with
engaged and meaningfulexperiences both in and out of
the classroom that help preparethem for next steps.
So, as a campus, we're going tobe focusing on collaborative
programming and campusstructures that encourage

(26:45):
academic excellence, degreecompletion and career readiness
in equitable ways for allstudents.
So we're really excited toengage in this question, working
with this working definition,with colleagues from across the
campus to have perspectives froma lot of different faculty
members and colleagues.
So I certainly have aperspective about what that

(27:08):
might mean, based on theprograms and services that I
lead within Student Affairs, theresearch and the reading that
I've done, the discussions thatI've had with students and my
own journey through highereducation.
But it's really going to takeeveryone, including students, to
do this in a way that closesequity gaps in a sustainable way
, and so I'm really lookingforward to engaging in this

(27:30):
process and I'm excited aboutthe innovation potential that
can happen from engaging in thiswork in this way, and my motto
this year is faster learning andfaster change.
That's what we're going for, Ithink one thing.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
When we talk about the definition of student
success, some of us that havebeen working in this for a while
If I'm being really honestwhich is always a good thing to
do, and you've got a mic in yourface might roll our eyes a
little bit, and that I have been, I feel, on a number of
different initiatives that havespent a lot of time really

(28:06):
trying to nail down a definitionof student success.
When I talk to some of mycolleagues from other schools,
you know we'll have sort of asimilar experience.
In the end, student success isabout allowing students, or
providing opportunity forstudents, to achieve their
dreams.
There's a few different waysthat we can measure that, to

(28:27):
hold ourselves accountable, andthen let's sit down and get to
work, because you can spend alot of time, you need to define
it and you need to be measuringsomething, because what you
measure is what you will be heldaccountable to, and so that's
it's really important that wespend some time on this, but in

(28:48):
the end, it's time to get thework done.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, I would say we're moving from defining to
doing.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yes, thank you Be a nice t-shirt.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yeah, you should make t-shirts.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I mean I'll take a little cut of it.
Well, I have an important andperhaps controversial follow up
for you, bonnie and Amanda.
So if we, is it possible thento define student success as
maybe that student feeling likethey could have more success
elsewhere, and not necessarilyat UW Tacoma which would be

(29:26):
great if they do, but they wouldif they could.
But maybe that's not whatsuccess looks like for that
student 100%.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Actually, I don't find that question controversial
at all Did.
I just get myself fired?
No, not at all.
We're very explicit about thisin the various academic success
programs and I'm sure Amandadecided the house as well that
fundamentally we are concernedabout the success of all of our
students and we hope that thatinvolves getting a four year

(29:55):
degree from UW Tacoma, but it isnot always the case that that
is the best pathway for astudent and there's a range of
really good reasons why thatwould be, and so I've heard the
language of we get the assist.
One thing I've tried to do iswhen we look at things like our
graduation rate which is like ifthe new Tribune were to ask

(30:15):
about student success, they'dwant to know the graduation rate
like that's, the classicmeasure is to try and get some
information about students wholeft and then graduated from
elsewhere because we get theassist right, like, yeah, we
want you to be at UW Tacoma, butwe really genuinely care about

(30:35):
the success of all of ourstudents and understand that
that looks different fordifferent students.
There are times where steppingaway from college for a little
while is probably the best pathfor an individual student and
that is something that we willhelp with and encourage and
cheer, lead and all of thethings that we would do for a

(30:57):
student who was staying at UWTacoma.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
We also have 16% of our student body who are
connected to the military, andone thing that we know from our
work with career development andPierce College and military
connected students is thatmilitary spouses we have a lot
of military spouses enrolled atUW Tacoma and they don't always
have a choice in where they areand what they're doing.
And so, to Bonnie's point,having that assist of being a

(31:22):
place where they can continue toearn credits, get credit for
what they've already done andhelp set them on a good
trajectory for what they want toaccomplish is an important path
.
I can also think of examplesnot to out myself and get myself
fired as well where we hadstudents who came into a career
development office and said atthat time they wanted to do

(31:43):
something that was not anavailable major at UW Tacoma,
that was not a career path wherethey were best situated to do
that on our campus, and one ofour ethical guidelines is to
make sure that we're givingstudents the best advice
possible to accomplish theirfuture.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I think any academic advisor, if they were sitting at
this chair, would be adamantthat Absolutely, absolutely,
it's not a controversialquestion, that fundamentally we
are concerned about the successof the individual student more
than we are having them be at UWTacoma.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Now, that being said, part of what I'm interested in
is measuring what happens aftergraduation.
This is an area that our campuswill hopefully be investing in
more, which is to understand notonly what happens six months
after you graduate, but fiveyears, ten years, not only your
employment rate, but did youearn other advanced degrees?

(32:44):
How happy are you?
Are you satisfied in your job?
Do you attribute some of yoursuccess to higher education?
And there are some excitingtools out there that have been
tested and are well developedthat could help us to do that,
and I know that's one of thethings that I aspire to help our
campus to do.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think fundamentally, when we're
talking about student success,we had this line in the old
strategic plan aboutfundamentally, how successful we
are as measured by the successof our alumni, and in a lot of
cases that looks like employment.
In many cases it's aboutemployment.
It is about intergenerationalmobility, economic mobility, and

(33:27):
I really like that.
Amanda mentioned that.
It's broader than that.
It's employment plus.
Did your college education setyou on a pathway to thrive,
whatever that looks like for you?
And that's hard to measure.
It's really hard to measure.
It's something we aspire to do.
I think some of the careerstuff is a little bit easier to

(33:48):
measure than some of the morethriving elements of this,
especially because we are such ayoung campus.
But now that we're coming intoour, what are we?
We're not teenagers anymore,we're young adults.
I don't know.
We do have a lot more alumniand a lot more opportunity to

(34:08):
think about post-graduationsuccess as really what's driving
the work that we do.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
And there are instruments out there that ask
students about are you employedand are you happy?
Do you feel fulfilled by thework that you're doing?
Is it meaningful to you?
And I would say, if someone isemployed and they're making a
lot of money and they'remiserable, we probably haven't
done our job very well, notprobably we haven't done our job
well.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I mean maybe let's not commit to an answer.
I mean I would just.
I just can't help to think.
What I'm hearing from the twoof you is that we want, we treat
, we don't view our students asproduct.
We view them as people, whichfeels like kind of how it should
be.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Yeah, 100%, of course , and that goes back to my
comment about education beingfundamentally a relational
endeavor.
It's a human endeavor.
Learning and teaching andgrowing is something we have
done since forever.
Right, it's a part of all ofour what's the word I'm looking
for?
It's a part of all of ourheritage.

(35:13):
We're all learners and we allfundamentally want to grow, and
higher education, in my opinion,should be a space that helps
nurture that, whatever thatlooks like.
Now, if it's someone whodoesn't make a lot of money but
is doing something personallymeaningful to them, that's a
success.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
So let's, bonnie, let's talk for a second.
I think you explained purposepretty well, so I want to focus
on belonging, which I kind ofget in a general sense like do
you feel like you belong at thisplace?
But let's unpack this idea ofbelonging and then, as we unpack
it, we'll bring Amanda in totalk about how do we create this

(35:53):
sense of belonging and purposeat UW Tacoma.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Sure, if you don't mind, I want to.
I'd like to just take a stepback, just do a little shout out
, because you had asked meearlier about what do we know
about why UW Tacoma studentsleave.
Some of what I said came fromsome internal work that we have
done, but I want to do a hugeshout out to the Student Voices
Report, which we are a part of agroup called Tacoma Complets,

(36:22):
which comes out of the GraduateTacoma Movement, and Amanda and
I have been serving on theTacoma Complets Board for a
number of years now, along withcolleagues from Tacoma Community
College, staff from GraduateTacoma, the Foundation for
Tacoma Students and folks from agroup called Degrees of Change,
which is another communitygroup that's focused on college

(36:44):
student success, and we did acommunity-driven interview of 56
students who had left either UWTacoma or Tacoma Community
College.
This was done in 2020, likeright at the beginning of COVID,
which was interesting timing,and, since I'm in the shout out
business right now, kellyBaymeyer, natissia McNamara and

(37:08):
Kamal Yusuf were the sort ofmain interviewers for that, for
that work, and so I hadmentioned things like financial
and basic needs, family care,life events, mental and physical
health.
We also heard a bit aboutclassroom experience and just
sort of navigating the collegeexperience, but the thing that
really rose to the top was thisnotion of sense of purpose and

(37:29):
sense of belonging, and so wetalked a little bit about
purpose and how purpose can beits career, but it's bigger than
career.
It's things of importance tothe self and beyond the self,
and that is really intertwinedwith this notion of belonging.
I have this quote that I lovefrom a guy who wrote a book

(37:52):
about purpose, william Damon, in2009.
The closest thing to aprerequisite for a culture of
purpose is a sense of community.
So this idea that these thingsare not independent of each
other, that a sense of belongingreally comes down to feeling
like you are a part of acommunity, that you are seen as

(38:13):
you are, for who you are, andthat that community is behind
you.
That community wants what'sbest for you and you want what's
best for that community.
So when we talk to studentsabout some of these issues we've
done a couple of focus groupsor like public roundtables we
often hear this narrative.

(38:34):
When we talk about like, whyare you in college?
And there are certain themesthat seem to rise to the top
Almost always the first thing wewill hear is family.
I am here because my auntieinspired me.
I am here because of everythingmy mother sacrificed to get me
here.
Almost always it starts withfamily, local community,

(38:56):
identity, equity, in some cases,faith and making a difference
in the world, and so we find itkind of hard to separate this
notion of belonging and purposeand we don't really want to
separate them.
So there are things that we cando that help inspire both in
students, that can help developboth in students, and that's

(39:19):
really been the framework that,since we got the student voices
report from this group, we'vebeen working with that.
Amanda and I really tried toshape our approach to student
success around the notions ofpurpose and belonging, these
sort of intertwined ideas.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
And we've been really grateful to do that as well
with Dr Sharon Lang from NewDucks to become a nursing and
healthcare leadership.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Thank you.
Yes, sharon and I are workingon a paper that we're hoping to
get out Amanda's a co-author anda range of folks from this
group about this study aroundsense of purpose.
There isn't as much researcharound purpose and belonging and
how those intertwine, and sowe're hoping to the group of us
to do some deeper work aroundthat and perhaps, to Amanda's

(40:05):
point about innovation, perhapscontribute something new to the
field.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Well, I have a few ideas on this.
I actually think I could talkfor a couple weeks about things
we might be able to do, but someof the things that I certainly
think about from where I'msitting in the institution is
developing a greater fluency inusing student-centered
approaches and how we developand improve and assess programs

(40:37):
and services.
I think that's really important.
I also think about expandingthe spaces and the ways that we
engage students in reflectiveactivities about their why in
seeking their degrees.
I think it's also aroundexpanding access and engagement
and high quality and high impactpractices like paid internships

(40:59):
, expanding our collectivecapacities to use trauma aware
practices in our spaces andworking with our employers to
know who our students are andhow they can successfully
recruit and retain them.
And I think we use a phrase alot in Tacoma completes about
employment ready students andstudent ready employers, and so

(41:21):
it really we're so lucky to livein a community that has
embraced collective impactaround cradle to career,
workforce development andeducation, because it takes so
many stakeholders to really movethe needle.
And while those are some of myinitial thoughts, I also know I
don't have all the answers.
From where I'm sitting, I don'tknow all the things that will

(41:45):
work for all of the students,and that is partly why we're
putting together this studentsuccess steering committee.
I don't think we have a formalname yet, but we've invited our
co-chairs and they've all saidyes, which is very exciting, and
it's really going to take acollaborative effort that is
also not just those co-chairsbut staff and faculty from all

(42:07):
across the campus to reallyinnovate in ways to do this that
is innovative within our meansfor the resources we have, but
also helps us to understand whatresources should we be focused
on attaining so that we canfurther the work.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So to amplify something Amanda was talking
about around high impactpractices, sometimes called hips
in our jargon.
When I was on my way here tocome talk to you, my son said
are you going to go and talkabout hips?
Of course I am.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
He's maybe heard it once or twice.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, but things like paid internships, study abroad,
undergraduate research, studentemployment.
These are opportunities forstudents to work really closely
with faculty staff and otherstudents on questions that
matter to them, and so there's avery rich literature around the

(43:07):
positive benefits of highimpact practices, not just in
college but at sort of alllevels of learning.
So often it's called somethingelse, like active learning or
project-based learning, butthere's all sorts of evidence
that these are the kinds ofpractices that lead to deeper

(43:27):
learning and student retentionand a range of other benefits
being more career ready.
The thing that's really coolabout high impact practices is
that they have been shown toimprove a range of different
things in all students, but theyalso reduce equity gaps between

(43:48):
students who are, say, firstgen or students of color.
You tend to see less of a gapin whatever you're measuring,
the more high impact practicesthat students are able to
participate in.
But here's the rub high impactpractices are not particularly

(44:09):
equitably distributed, so accessto high-impact practices often
involves money.
It's pretty hard to work in alab.
You know many hours a week whenyou're also working 40 hours a
week or you have to get home totake care of children and family
.
There's often a lot of barriersthat are invisible, so the

(44:33):
pathways into some of thesepractices are not always as
clear as we would like them tobe.
It's often the students who arethe most sort of upfront and or
have a lot of agency that cansort of hunt down some of these
experiences, and so one of thethings that is important at any

(44:54):
school but that we are trying toimprove at UW Tacoma is to make
those pathways into high-impactpractices more clear, more
transparent, more fair, tounderstand that our students
will often need some externalsupport in order to participate
in those types of activities.
But that that's kind of like thepoint.

(45:17):
I mean that's, that's whatwe're here to do.
Right, we're here to develop.
Amanda keeps talking about howthis is relational.
That's a that's a key tool fordeveloping those relationships
is working really closely withstudents.
So I've had over a hundredstudents that I've worked with
an independent study in my timeat UW Tacoma.
I still keep in touch with mostof them.

(45:40):
The relationships that wedevelop in that research
experience or I would say, bethe same for study abroad,
student employment they tend tobe deeper, they tend to be
longer lasting.
When I sit down to write arecommendation for a student
who's been in my lab for twoyears.
I've got some real concretethings that I can recommend

(46:01):
about that student right.
So there's a whole range ofbenefits that come from HIPPS,
but the reality is that theythey have costs and that those
costs are not equallydistributed, and so we need to
be really intentional andmindful about how that
experience is made accessible toour students.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
One of the things I find interesting is that the
approach to creating belonginghere is, you know, because UW
Tacoma is often labeled acommunity campus, which can be a
difficult thing to establishlike a sense of community and
maybe belonging.
But from what I'm hearing it,you know, paid internships and
that sort of thing is notsomething you need to quote,

(46:43):
unquote traditional collegeexperience for Like it's, not
like a dorm or the things thatwe tend to think of as creating
community it's.
You don't need those things tomake that happen.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
I think it's I, so I'm wrong.
No, no, no, that's.
I'm not saying that at all.
What I have seen in my time atUW Tacoma is I used to ask
myself questions like dostudents want to get an email or
do they want a text message?
And I no longer ask myself isit or it is?

(47:20):
And the answer is always andthat's one of the most beautiful
things about our student bodyis that they all come from
different walks of life withdifferent experiences.
I think my hypothesis is thatour success is going to be in
creating enough modular pathwaysthat students can pick and
choose what works for them atthat time.

(47:41):
The living learning communitiesthat we launched this year in
our housing was really powerfulfor the students that
participated and for thestudents that commute.
It might be the Smash Brothersgroup in the doghouse that which
, by the way.
If you want a good time, go tothe doghouse around the lunch
hour and the Husky hour andwatch some Smash Brothers being

(48:02):
played.
It is riveting.
For other students, it's goingto be being part of the Black
Student Union, or it's going tobe part of being part of a rise
cohort with the Center forEquity and Inclusion, or it's
going to be about being employedat the Student Activity Board
and then being able to use someof your coursework in finance

(48:24):
and how you're helping to managethat budget.
It really we need to create areally highly customizable,
modular way for students toengage, and when we look across
the country at how folks aredealing with this question of
equity, it's about taking makingsure that every student is
exposed, no matter what whichhas to do with curriculum.

(48:46):
So we can't rely on all ofthese experiences to happen
outside of the classroom.
We should have outside of theclassroom experiences because
you never know where studentsare going to develop that
community.
But the best way to get itequitably across all students is
to make sure that we'rethinking about what's happening
in those classrooms, becausethat students have to do to get
their degree.
Everything else they have tomake the time for.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Well said.
So we've come to the end of ourconversation.
I have one last question.
Well, maybe I might have afollow up.
I'm not just like that.
So what's in terms of studentsuccess?
We've talked about some thingsthat are coming down.
So what's next in terms ofstudent success?

(49:31):
And then the million dollarquestion is how are we going to
gauge whether that was thosethings are successful?
What metrics are we using?
How do we know if it worked?

Speaker 1 (49:46):
So Amanda already mentioned that we've got a group
that's going to be working nextyear on a student success
strategy, and when I say group,it's going to touch sort of all
parts of campus.
So we have co-chairs identifiedwho are going to be working on
five different strategies, butwithin those strategies there's

(50:07):
lots of opportunity for facultystaff, students, even community
members to get involved.
And so we are going to befocusing on five strategies,
with one that's sort ofintertwined among various
strategies.
So focusing on the first yearexperience, the experience of
our graduate students, which wedidn't really get a chance to

(50:29):
talk about today.
We were really, at least in mymind, often talking about the
undergraduate experience, butthe graduate student experience
needs some attention.
This should be familiar to youby now, but high impact
practices are one of thosestrategies, and then two that
are maybe not like super sexy totalk about during a podcast,
but that really are central todriving student success, and one

(50:53):
of those is removing curricularbarriers, things around
scheduling pathways into majors,class availability really
exciting, sexy things to talkabout.
And then the fifth is thecommon student data system.
So building some infrastructurethat we have sorely needed on
our campus to better worktogether in service of students.

(51:16):
So those are the fivestrategies, but sort of weaved
among them is the theme ofcommunication how important
communication with students andwith each other is and is a
space that needs a significantamount of attention.
But we decided to sort of applythat communication to specific

(51:41):
elements of this student successstrategy and then overall,
we're really trying to take thisespecially in the first year
experience, but I think thisapplies across multiple groups.
We've talked quite a bit abouthow many of our students are
first generation students.
So thinking about applying afirst gen lens to our work and

(52:02):
thinking about ways that we can.
I was talking earlier about,like all these hidden pathways
to success, that one of the bestpractices when we talk about
working with first gen studentsis making those hidden things
more explicit.
And if we did that foreverything that we did, if we
made the navigation process ofbeing at UW Tacoma clear, it

(52:23):
will help all students.
So we're really trying to keepthat first generation lens on
all of the work that we doacross all of these groups.
Do you want to add anything?

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Nope, that was a lot of build up for.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
I'm best at drama.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Oh nice.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
I'll have you know, I am famous for being the numbers
person and I have withheld.
I have not gone too, too deepinto rabbit holes with
statistics, with y'all yet, butI could.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
She thought that wasn't too too deep.
Did I go too deep?
You did, I'm just kidding, Ihave more.
I told you I'm good at drama.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Hit me with some statistics.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
I have a whole folder .
Well, you had asked aboutmetrics, like how are we going
to know that we are beingsuccessful?
And I would say that we havesome guidance from the strategic
plan around some really commonindicators.
Right, we want to improve ourgraduation rate, we want to

(53:29):
improve our persistence andretention rates and we want to
decrease our equity gaps, and sowe have some very specific
numbers that we are pointedtowards in that way.
But I think, from Amanda and myperspective, those tend to be
what we would call a laggingindicator, right, like, if we do

(53:51):
everything right, then sixyears from now, we will see the
numbers going up in our six-yeargraduation rate, and that is
super important, but it'simportant because of what it
implies in that six-year period.
Right, so we are working withour groups to generate some
shorter-term metrics to helpkeep us on track, keep us

(54:12):
accountable.
We're using some tools that wegot from the NASPA first
scholars that Amanda hadmentioned earlier, using some
tools to help go with this fastchange, fast learning kind of
approach, to have some reallyclear milestones every quarter
that we're going to be hitting,to make short-term change but

(54:36):
also be moving towards theselonger-term strategy.
Overall, we're trying to.
Well, we're trying to decreaseour equity gaps in things like
one quarter of persistence andone-year retention.
We're trying to reduce those tozero.
That's the goal and that isalways our goal.
But we're also talking aboutimproving our six-year

(54:57):
graduation rate.
For our first time in collegestudents, so freshman students
We've been sort of bouncingaround in the mid-50s 50%, 55%,
58%, and we would like to bumpthat up to the mid-60s, and then
our transfer student graduationrate, which is always
considerably higher than ourfreshman graduation rate, from

(55:19):
the 82-ish low 80s to the high80s.
So we have some clearernumerical goals.
But again, it's really moreabout developing shorter-term
ways of measuring and, more thanmeasuring, inspiring change.
Right Like we're going to hitthis in 90 days, we're going to
make sure that we haveaccomplished X, y and Z and

(55:42):
that's how we get to thatsix-year.
Where do you start for tryingto change a six-year graduation
rate?

Speaker 3 (55:48):
I think there's another intangible piece that it
would be hard to measure in aquantitative sense, but I keep
talking about how we need tocontinue to nurture a culture of
interdependence at UW Tacoma,that often when I hear
colleagues talking aboutservices and programs, things

(56:10):
are coming very much from adepartmental structure
perspective, which makes sense.
My hope is that we shift thatlanguage and natural gravity to
thinking about holistically howstudents navigate our
institution and that there is agreater sense that what I'm

(56:30):
doing with orientation programsmatters to the Teaching and
Learning Center they're alreadygreat partners so I don't mean
to call them out but that we seemore of that kind of oh right,
what's happening in your majormatters to what's happening in
advising.
What's happening over withfacilities and how students are

(56:51):
using a common space actuallymatters to this professor and
this program.
That kind of interdependence, Ithink, is a feeling, a sense of
how we work together andcollaborate together, centering
students in our work.
That is another piece thatwe're going to need to move and
that we hope to provide some ofthe conditions, or help create

(57:15):
some of the conditions, thatthat kind of work can really
thrive on our campus.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
And to build on that, I mean one thing we have really
noted when we talk about senseof purpose, when we talk about
anything around student successstudents are humans, right, and
so are we, and so having a senseof purpose and a sense of
belonging is important forfaculty and staff as well.
Something that has been reallyheartening for me is as we
rolled out the student successstrategy and put out a call for

(57:42):
folks to join these groups is wewere I don't want to say
overwhelmed with response,because we weren't overwhelmed,
we were just thrilled by howmuch response there was from
folks who were really excited todig in and get going, like get
to work on some of this stuff.
Most of us are at UW Tacomafundamentally because we love

(58:03):
our students and we want ourstudents to be successful.
And providing opportunities forus to work together to Amanda's
point, sort of independent ofour separate groups, but to work
in a more interdependent waytowards a common goal I think is
important in the sort of postCOVID, coming back to work,
trying to sort of figure outyour own why, why do you come to

(58:24):
work every day?
That's an important basic humanneed that all of us need, and
just always remembering thatit's not just the work we're
doing around student success,it's the process of getting
there.
And the process of gettingthere I'm really excited about
and I'm with you.
It's a less tangible thing, butthat response to me has, just

(58:49):
like all summer I've just beenbouncing with excitement over
the response that we got ofpeople who were volunteering
their time.
We often heard I am so busy, Ishouldn't do this, but I'm going
to anyway because this is soimportant and this is why I'm
here and this is why I'm here,bonnie, as well.
So it just that's part of thesuccess of it to me is sort of

(59:14):
rebuilding that sense ofcommunity and sense of purpose
and sense of belonging amongstourselves in service of our
students.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Absolutely.
You can't see it on a podcast,but I am emphatically nodding.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
We could hear it though the wind created from
that.
It's like a gentle whooshingsound.
That's how you know you'rereally agreeing passionately.
The music you're hearing is byUW Tacoma Associate Teaching

(59:48):
Professor, Nicole Blair.
Be sure to like and subscribeto our podcast.
You will find us on Spotify,Google podcasts, Apple podcasts,
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