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Projects

Foundation for Student Success

Summary

The Foundation for Student Success (FSS) was founded in 2016 with funds from a for-profit company’s acquisition of the nonprofit Predictive Analytics Reporting (PAR) Framework. FSS was established as a not-for-profit organization with an independent board of directors. Since its founding, FSS has conducted extensive research with 28 colleges and universities to codify what leaders can do to reduce and/or eliminate equity gaps in graduation rates among Black, Hispanic and American Indian students. Part of that research also explored how those lessons could be shared effectively with other campuses.  

In 2023, the National Science Foundation awarded NCHEMS, which hosts FSS, the funding to produce tools to share the lessons that emerged from the FSS research. These self-assessment tools focus on four levers for campus culture transformation: 1) Data collection, analysis and use; 2) Effective institution-wide communication and engagement; 3) Hiring strategies and personnel policies; and 4) Audit of institution and state policies and practices to identify those that perpetuate lower student achievement. The tools were refined with the help of two groups of campus presidents from both community colleges and universities. These self-assessment tools are available as Open Education Resources in the resources section below. 

Topics Approach Impacts Resources

Topics

Graphic image of four different colored levers. Each lever is labeled differently, reading (left to right): Data, Communications, Personnel, Policy.

After two years of practical research with 28 public institutions of various types (urban, rural, research universities, community colleges, comprehensive universities, HSIs and HBCUs), NCHEMS identified the following as the most critical levers for starting and maintaining institutional culture change that results in equity gap reduction and better success for all students. 

  • Data collection, analysis, and use. 
    • How to find available data.
    • How to better use available data (e.g. disaggregate data, share data broadly and clearly).
    • Engaging Institutional Research (IR) offices as partners.
    • Developing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) on student success and using data to hold the campus community accountable. 
  • Effective campus-wide communication and engagement.
    • Campus-wide training for faculty (including adjuncts) and all non-academic staff (including campus facilities and services staff).
    • Communicating with entire campus community regarding institutional culture change and equity gap reduction strategies.
    • Sharing data campus-wide on student success.
    • Engaging all faculty and staff as partners in the goal of institutional culture change and equity gap reduction on their campus.
  • Hiring strategies and personnel policies.
    • Developing and implementing strategies for more diverse and equitable hiring that considers collective bargaining if needed.
    • Empowering a high-level person who leads the charge, has resources to ensure the campus is making progress on equity and diversity goals, has the authority to hold others accountable, and is accountable for meeting campus-level goals.
    • Implementing strategies that promote campus culture change (including activities such as revising job descriptions and interview questions, ensuring diverse search committees, and diversifying job posting locations/websites).
    • All campus community members are held responsible for student success.
  • Auditing campus and state policies and practices to identify those that perpetuate the status quo.
    • Identify alignment with institutional culture change and equity gap reduction strategies.
    • Evaluate those typical practices that can easily change and those that are mandated by institutional or state policies.
    • Work to modify practices and policies as needed. 

Approach

In 2016, FSS researchers began a project to identify how campuses transform their cultures to achieve better student success and eliminate equity gaps. Using publicly available data, NCHEMS analyzed institutional-level information to identify campuses across the country that were outperforming expectations in graduating Black, Hispanic, and American Indian students, based on factors like ACT/SAT scores and Pell eligibility, and where at least 25% of the student body belonged to these racial/ethnic groups.  FSS selected four universities and three community colleges from that list to act as mentor campuses based on findings from interviews with institutional leadership. Each mentor campus was paired with three similar campuses based on characteristics such as size and student body composition. Over a two-year period, FSS coordinated monthly conversations between the mentor and mentee campuses covering topics selected by the mentees. For each call appropriate campus staff would be involved — depending on the topic, those might be financial aid staff, deans, institutional researchers and the like. FSS surveyed mentee campus staff and received case studies from each mentor institution. They also shared lessons through webinars featuring leaders from participating institutions. 

Impacts

After two years of practical research with 28 public institutions — including urban and rural campuses, research universities, community colleges, comprehensive universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities — FSS identified the most critical levers for initiating and sustaining cultural transformation on campus that leads to closing equity gaps and improving success for all students. These levers are:

  1. Data collection, analysis and use.
  2. Effective institution-wide communication and engagement.
  3. Hiring strategies and personnel policies.
  4. Audit of institution and state policies and practices to identify those that perpetuate lower student achievement. 

Graphic image of four different colored levers. Each lever is labeled differently, reading (left to right): Data, Communications, Personnel, Policy.

In September 2024, the Foundation for Student Success (FSS) proudly announced the awarding of two grants totaling almost $1 million to two organizations. These grants will support the two organizations’ work in facilitating campus cultural transformation to eliminate equity gaps for Black, Hispanic and American Indian students and assure their access and success in US higher education institutions. FSS determined that the most effective way to advance its mission was to complete its work, sunset the Foundation and underwrite the powerful work of these two organizations. These organizations were chosen by the Board of Directors through an application and interview process.

The grants are awarded to the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program and Excelencia in Education.

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program works to advance the practices, policies and leadership of community colleges and four-year institutions across the United States so that more students succeed during college and after graduation.

Excelencia in Education works to tap the talents of the Latino community by promoting student achievement, advancing evidence-based practices and informing educational policies that can serve Latinos, and all, students more intentionally.

These organizations have the potential to reach millions of underrepresented students through their networks of higher education institutions, their innovative instructional materials and their training workshops and seminars for institutional leaders. Each of the grantees is committed to the success of underrepresented students. FSS’s mission is to support postsecondary institutions to achieve greater student success and reduce equity gaps through comprehensive campus culture transformation strategies. The Foundation for Student Success is proud to support these organizations in advancing FSS’s mission. 

Resources

  • Foundation for Student Success Initial Research Project Final Report – Over the course of the two-year project, the FSS participants had various opportunities to meet (both in person and virtually), engage by way of webinars, respond to surveys, and offer reflections—some of which resulted in case studies. As a culminating document, the final report is a compilation of not only a roadmap of the initial research project but of lessons learned and the identification of critical levers for starting and maintaining institutional culture change that results in equity gap reductions and better success for all students.
  • Engaging in Tough Conversations Toward Equitable Student Success Webinar Series – FSS featured a series of webinars moderated by NCHEMS staff and featuring FSS mentor and mentee institutions. The webinars cover topics that were frequently raised by mentor and mentee institutions throughout the project.
    • Shifting Student Demographics Matter — How to Start the Campus-Wide Conversation – Panelists share their institutions’ journeys toward an understanding of the shifting student demographics on their own campuses and the steps they took toward inclusive student success.
    • Who Owns Student Success On Your Campus? – Panelists talk about the intentional changes that have been made at their institutions to overcome barriers to Student Affairs/Academic Affairs partnerships and why this has been critical to better serving students.
    • Strategies for Engaging Leaders – Panelists discuss the challenges and opportunities they have faced relating to leadership buy-in and how leadership can push the equity and student success agenda forward, fostering innovation while managing expectations, and sustainability through leadership changes.
    • Hiring Strategies for Promoting Equity – The FSS mentor and mentee institutions all consider hiring as a critical lever for driving and sustaining culture change that supports efforts to close equity gaps and increase overall student success. Panelists from a variety of campus types will discuss the opportunities and challenges related to hiring they have faced as well as strategies they have used, both successful and less-than-successful.