A summary and infographic reveal key outcomes and next steps for innovating solutions to improve postsecondary student success across the US.
The NMC hosted the Personalized Learning & Student Success Summit at SXSWedu on March 7-9 in Austin Texas. The summit convened grantees and partners of the Postsecondary Strategy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and served as a call-to-action for education leaders to first imagine if and then commit to trying new evidence-driven to bolster student success for first generation and low-income students in higher education. With the imagine if theme continuing as the underpinning philosophy this report summarizes the conversations and ideas that unfolded emphasizing the need for collective action at scale and setting the stage for the NMC's Personalized Learning Initiative.
At the heart of the series of events was the notion that in the next ten years the US is going to need to grow the number of college graduates to 40 million. Unfortunately at the current success rates and capacity nation's postsecondary institutions will fall short of that need by some 11 million graduates. Nearly half of students who most aspire to filling that need end up dropping out -- students disproportionally from low income minority immigrant or single parent families and other disadvantaged groups. Imagine if the network of leading institutions organizations and companies could catalyze solutions to address this shortage increasing access and equity all over the nation.
http://youtu.be/i3NLVZM7CT0?list=PLVwavmSEaasGSwROfU_Z8TabS_ANkIKAr
The summary report explores how the event provoked thinking and dialog about how to do that. More than 100 organizations committed to expanding student success 177 individuals representing those organizations and 79 outstanding presenters came together for three days of conversations and workshops in the middle of one of the fastest growing educational events in the country. All of them were devoted to exploring innovative and proven ideas and engaged in crafting solutions for widespread implementation. Over 1 600 people -- almost a quarter of the entire SXSWedu audience -- joined them by taking part in one or more of the 11 sessions that were part of this event.
"We are so energized by the thinking of the grantees and partners at the summit " said Courtney Hall the Director of the NMC Personalized Learning Initiative. "We will continue to share stories of scaling higher education innovation help devise solutions for surmounting obstacles that stand in the way and collect more data to better depict what success looks like. Imagine if we could change students' lives and give them -- and our country -- a brighter future. This is just the beginning and we invite all education leaders to watch this space and commit to this change with the network."
A documentary video was also produced at the event to capture the big ideas and the essence of the foundation's postsecondary success network and is viewable on the NMC's YouTube channel.