The
Human Messiness of Implementing the “Guided Pathways” Model
In
my last
blog, I summarized the “Guided Pathways” model of curriculum redesign
presented in Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins’ Redesigning America’s Community
College. This model is attracting a lot of attention and to varying degrees
is stimulating reform efforts at community colleges across the country. As I
stated in the last post, I generally agree with the authors’ criticisms of the
typical community college’s structure and practices and see much that is good
in their recommendations for reform. But I also have some concerns—maybe
cautions in a better word—and in this blog will sketch out some that have to do
with the social and political dynamics of establishing their Guided Pathways
model.
In
a nutshell, the authors seek a restructuring of curriculum and of both instructional
and student services practices that will require collaborative engagement on
the part of faculty and staff, both within departments and across them. The
authors realize the challenges of effecting such engagement and devote a
chapter to the topic. They wisely begin the chapter by noting some of the
difficulties: the possible lack of trust between administration and faculty and
staff; the divide between faculty and student services; the disruptive role
played by dissenters; etc. The authors then proceed to suggest strategies to
work through these problems and present individual cases to illustrate the
effective use of their strategies. For example, include dissenters in program
planning, create planning teams that combine faculty with student services
personnel, use data to question current practices, etc. This is a legitimate
way to structure such a chapter.
But
such a structure implies that the barriers to change listed at the beginning of
the chapter can be overcome with the management and group facilitation
techniques presented in the remainder of the chapter—an impression reinforced
by the lack of any examples or discussion of what to do when the techniques
fail.
The
authors have a wealth of experience studying two- and four-year colleges, so
they surely know how messy and unpredictable the process of reform can be.
Perhaps they (or their editor) decided that it was best to present their model
and a process to achieve it, and not to overly complicate things with extended
discussion of potential pitfalls and blunders. Fair enough. And perhaps the
authors’ disciplinary backgrounds in economics, policy analysis, and quantitative
methodologies limit their treatment of the tangled day-to-day dynamics of
status, power, and turf—which, depending on the institution, can include
everything from budgets to racial tensions to contentious personal histories.
To limit treatment of all this is a legitimate choice, but should be stated and
underscored, for my worry is that individual colleges attempting the reforms
suggested by Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins will encounter more of a minefield
than anticipated and possibly scrap or significantly weaken the implementation
of ideas that have real merit.
Let
me illustrate my concerns with three examples.
***
Turf, power, status, and
ideology
The
organizational compartmentalizing and the administrative hierarchies that exist
in the community college are not only structural features; they are electric
with power and status. The various methods suggested by Bailey, et al. to bring
people together to work through these dynamics toward the common goal of
creating Guided Pathways are good ones, tried and true in the toolkit of
management theory. They can yield results. But they also can be foiled by
genuine ideological differences about the purpose of a particular area of study
or of education in general. They can also be foiled by turf protection,
administrative power struggles, and pure and simple personal animosity. As one
administrative staff person I know said in exasperation, “It’s incredibly
difficult to do anything outside of your own classroom.”
To
be sure, change happens. I’ve witnessed several successful programs take shape
over the past few years as a core of energetic and creative faculty are given
the resources to run with their ideas. But during that same time I’ve also seen
such groups—inspired, seemingly tireless people—be stonewalled or shut down by
larger groups of faculty within their subject area, or by their department heads,
or by middle managers who want to protect turf or avoid the distribution of
power.
Working from shared values
Bailey,
et al. suggest arriving at shared values as a starting place for examining
current practices and changing them. For example, the authors write “In our
experience, faculty and staff choose to work at community colleges because they
believe in the open-access mission and are passionate about improving students’
lives.” This is generally true in my experience, but with two qualifications—which
illustrate how arriving at shared values can be more complicated than it seems.
First,
regarding the embrace of the open-access mission of the community college, a
percentage of faculty at most institutions believe that some of the students
they teach should not be in college, and certainly not in their classrooms.
These faculty align themselves with the universities that educated them, want
to teach students who have some affinity for their discipline, and are not at
all trained to work with students who are academically underprepared. In some
cases, these faculty are younger and are at the community college because that
was the only position available in a tight job market. In other cases, these
are older faculty who have been at the college for decades and lived through a
significant shift in student demographics. They look back nostalgically at a
golden age—one that most likely did not exist as they remember it.
My
second qualification is this: faculty can have quite different beliefs about
concepts like “improving students’ lives.” And some of these differing beliefs
can present resilient barriers to change. One faculty member believes that to
change methods of instruction will compromise standards and lead to sub-par
education. Another believes that students—particularly those with poor academic
backgrounds—need to have positive experiences in school, so avoids challenging
them intellectually. And yet another operates with racial, class, or gender
biases that limit what he or she thinks is realistic for some students in
school or career.
Using data to facilitate program
development
We
live in an age of “data-driven” decision-making. The assumption is that when
faced with data about student or instructor or program performance, faculty and
staff with guidance will engage in reflection and behavioral change. But we
read data through multiple interpretive lenses. Bailey, et al. quote a faculty
member who, upon reviewing “data from a series of student focused groups”
exclaims “Oh my god, I’ve been misadvising my students all these years!” Some
people will respond thus—and thank goodness for them. But other responses are
also possible, and I’ve heard them directly or had them reported to me. People
don’t believe the data—especially in institutions where there is a high level
of distrust between faculty and administrators. People question the way the
data were obtained. People blame the students. This last response is a big one
where test data or pass/fail rates are concerned. When faced with data
demonstrating the low pass rates in remedial English or math, some faculty
respond by stating that those students don’t belong here. As one community
college staff member said to me, “It’s hard to admit we’ve been doing something
wrong.” To admit that one’s practice over the years has been ineffective is a
blow to one’s professional identity.
***
Again
I want to make clear that I generally agree with Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins’
analysis of the problems with the traditional community college’s structure and
mode of operation. The issues I raise in Back to School, though
expressed differently, are in line with their analysis. I also think the Guided
Pathways Model has many virtues. My goal in this blog is to note the kinds of
entanglements community college personnel are likely to encounter as they
attempt to follow Bailey’s implementation plan, which I find to be thin on the
political and social dynamics of institutional change. The management and group
facilitation techniques suggested in Redesigning America’s Community
Colleges are good and useful, but play out on a complex human landscape, so
might well need to be combined with savvy, possibly Machiavellian leadership;
with horse-trading; with both symbolic and financial incentives; with the
strategic use of personal relationships; and, unfortunately, at times, with
reassignment or marginalization of obstructionist personnel. Change can be difficult
and bruising.
In
my next blog, I’ll consider the diverse realities of community college
students’ lives in relation to the key features of the Guided Pathways model.
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