Tag: Process

  • Statement: Trump restores crucial due process rights for America’s college students

    Statement: Trump restores crucial due process rights for America’s college students

    The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced today it agrees with a federal court ruling that appropriately found the Biden-era Title IX rules to unconstitutionally restrict student First Amendment rights.  

    Those rules, effective in August 2024, infringed on constitutionally protected speech related to sex and gender. They also rolled back crucial due process rights for those accused of sexual misconduct on campus, increasing the likelihood that colleges would arrive at unreliable conclusions during those proceedings. OCR announced it will instead enforce the 2020 rules adopted during the first Trump administration which carefully considered the rights of complainants and respondents alike, while providing robust free speech and due process protections. 

    The following can be attributed to Tyler Coward, FIRE lead counsel for government affairs:

    The return to the 2020 rules ensures that all students — whether they are the accused or the accuser — will receive fair treatment and important procedural safeguards. That includes the right of both parties to have lawyers present during hearings, the right for both attorneys to cross-examine the other party and witnesses, and the right to receive all of the evidence in the institution’s possession. Colleges are also required to adopt a speech-protective definition of sexual harassment that enables schools to punish genuine harassment instead of merely unpopular speech. 

    Restoring the Trump administration’s rules means that students can once again feel secure that their rights to due process and free speech will be respected while ensuring administrators have the tools they need to punish those who engage in sexual misconduct and harassment.

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  • How Community Colleges Can Simplify the Student Enrollment Process

    How Community Colleges Can Simplify the Student Enrollment Process

    Key Takeaways:

    • Community colleges play a vital role in addressing enrollment barriers, offering tailored support to first-generation and working students.
    • Proactive strategies, such as early communication, community outreach, and wraparound services like food assistance and mental health support, help students navigate challenges and stay engaged.
    • Leveraging technology like CRM systems and AI tools simplifies the student enrollment process and enhances conversion rates.
    • Measuring success through metrics such as conversion rates, re-enrollment, and first-semester engagement lets colleges refine their strategies and better support student persistence and retention.

    The enrollment journey at community colleges can be far from straightforward, as many students face barriers beyond academics—from concerns over affordability to balancing family and work responsibilities and navigating financial aid. For example, nearly 75% of public two-year college students work while enrolled, including 46% working full time, and two-thirds of people enrolled in community colleges are first-generation students, who often do not receive the guidance and support that other students might receive from within their support systems.

    Community colleges are uniquely positioned to open doors for these students who might otherwise never step foot into higher education. By breaking down enrollment barriers, fostering early communication, and utilizing technology, community colleges can create an enrollment experience that meets students where they are. In turn, they can build pathways that lead to success, one student at a time.

    Identifying Enrollment Barriers

    For students new to the world of higher education, the student enrollment process can feel daunting. While community colleges are open-access institutions, this does not always translate to an easy path. Many students come from communities where attending college is not the norm, and some face resistance from family members or struggle with time constraints due to family responsibilities. Financial aid is also a common sticking point. Some students worry about taking on debt, while others have families unwilling to fill out the FAFSA due to privacy concerns, which adds to the complexity of obtaining financial assistance.

    Community colleges that proactively identify these barriers can uncover solutions tailored to each student’s situation. For instance, understanding the unique financial, familial, or community pressures facing students can inform how colleges offer support. Identifying opportunities to become more transparent, such as having standardized institutional aid packages that allow students to see how much aid they would receive, exemplifies this shift toward recognizing and removing institutional barriers. By locating obstacles early, colleges can guide students more effectively throughout the enrollment process, keeping them on track and engaged.

    Strategies for Eliminating Barriers in the Student Enrollment Process

    Addressing these challenges often requires creative solutions that reach beyond academic support. A critical strategy lies in educating students—and, when possible, their communities—on the value of a college education. Many students find themselves questioning the worth of a degree, particularly in communities where traditional college education may be seen as unnecessary. To address this, some colleges have begun integrating community outreach programs that outline the tangible benefits of a college education, from career advancement to personal growth. Tracking college enrollment trends also offers insight into where additional guidance might be needed, ensuring that community colleges can adapt and refine their programs.

    Community colleges can better aid students by offering wraparound services, such as food assistance, mental health counseling, transportation services, and financial literacy courses. Food insecurity, for example, is a widespread problem affecting 23% of community college students. Liaison’s IMPACT Grant, which champions initiatives such as on-campus food pantries, is an excellent example of how colleges can tackle this barrier head-on. By promoting awareness of available resources, colleges make sure students know where to find the support they need, allowing them to focus on their studies rather than their next meal or car troubles.

    Free community college programs, now offered in 36 states, also alleviate the financial strain of pursuing a credential by removing student debt as a barrier to entry. As more colleges promote these programs, the cost of higher education becomes less intimidating, particularly for first-generation and low-income students who might otherwise forgo college due to cost concerns.

    The Critical Role of Early Communication

    Community colleges often enter the higher education conversation with prospective students later than four-year institutions, missing critical opportunities to provide guidance. While some universities engage students as early as their freshman year of high school, community colleges might not start outreach until a student’s senior year. This timing can make a significant difference: earlier communication lets students weigh all their options without feeling pressured by high tuition at traditional four-year colleges. It also opens up time to explore scholarships, grants, and other options.

    Reaching students sooner can reduce enrollment anxiety, allowing them to explore programs that align with their financial needs and career goals. By actively promoting programs and resources through social media, local events, and high school partnerships, community colleges can position themselves as accessible, affordable, and valuable options for higher education.

    Leveraging Technology to Support Enrollment Journeys

    Innovative technology, such as CRM systems and AI-driven tools, plays a transformative role in simplifying the enrollment process. Liaison’s TargetX and Outcomes CRMs, for example, provide tailored platforms for managing student engagement and application processing. With tools for omnichannel marketing, application management, and progress tracking, these platforms allow students to communicate with advisors and gain clear guidance throughout the admissions process. As a result, institutions are able to improve conversion rates and enroll more best-fit students.

    AI-powered chatbots, now integrated into these CRMs, also assist students in navigating questions and concerns in real-time. This technology offers immediate, practical support that keeps students on track toward enrollment and reduces logistical barriers.

    Measuring Enrollment Success

    To understand the impact of their enrollment strategies, community colleges must look at specific metrics that reflect student progress and satisfaction. Identifying conversion rates at each enrollment stage offers insight into where students might drop off and allows administrators to refine support systems accordingly. Once students are on campus, tracking their first-semester engagement—particularly through the crucial first four weeks—can highlight early challenges and help colleges design interventions to boost retention as well as persistence after the first year.

    Examining re-enrollment rates from semester to semester is another key indicator of success. Demonstrating steady improvements in these areas reflects well on the effectiveness of a school’s holistic support and technology. Such data can also indicate how effectively institutions are offsetting the rate of community college enrollment decline, a pressing issue for those seeking to sustain their missions.

    Community colleges serve as the best opportunity to access higher education for many students. By removing enrollment barriers, actively communicating early and often, and leveraging technology to simplify the admissions process, community colleges can create pathways that lead students to fulfilling educational journeys. The more colleges embrace these strategies, the more efficient and successful the enrollment journey becomes for all students, leading to an increasingly inclusive and accessible higher education landscape.

    Liaison is committed to helping community colleges streamline admissions and improve student outcomes. Contact us today to learn more about our products and services.


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  • CLASS BIAS AND RANDOM THINGS LAW REVIEW: DRAFT Excerpt from “In the Company of Thieves”: The Tenure Process

    CLASS BIAS AND RANDOM THINGS LAW REVIEW: DRAFT Excerpt from “In the Company of Thieves”: The Tenure Process

     

    Law professors are evaluated to determine if they should be tenured. Supposedly you must excel in scholarship, teaching, and service. You would think that if someone actually excelled at all three, he or she would be hired away by better law schools. Very few are. Why? Because in actuality there are three requirements:

    1.
    write something – anything would do,

    2.
    be politically correct, (or very quiet),

    3,
    be acceptable socially.

    (4.
    I have also heard isolated inane standards like “she is a good mother.” but these usually do not count.)

    As noted, decent teaching is supposed to count but I have seen many instances in which awful
    teaching was explained away as actually an indication of good teaching. 
    To
    determine
      a candidate’s teaching there
    are class visitations by 2 or 3 professors and the students fill out anonymous
    evaluation forms at the end of the semester. Not wanting to offend someone who
    may get life time employment if they meet the above “standards” the visitors
    uniformly say the teacher was brilliant, engaging, showed respect for the
    students and so on. One has to keep in mind that the professor knows in advance
    who is coming and when. Not to be well prepared and energetic those days would
    mean you are an idiot. Still, there are some who go one step beyond. For
    example, at one point several students asked me why their professor gave the
    same lecture day after day. As it turns out these were the days when there were class visitation, and I suppose he had the one lecture down perfectly.

    The
    students fill out evaluations at the end of each semester. These are pretty
    much ignored whether high or low if one passes the three part test above. On
    the other hand, if they are low to average, they become the hammer to justify
    getting rid of the candidate who fails the three part test. But even here, many
    professors do not want to leave student evaluations to chance. I have seen
    professors going into classes with the forms the students must fill out in one
    hand and platters of cookies or boxes of pizza in the other. Sometimes the
    bribes are so shameful that even the students know what is up but this does not
    discourage them accepting the bribe. One professor would sponsor a softball
    game in the afternoon for his class followed by cocktails at a local pub. The
    tab could run in excess of $1000 dollars. There are far more subtle bribes like
    not calling on students and appearing to be deeply concerned about their
    welfare when you could not care less. One very subtle effort involves handing out your own evaluations a day
    or two before the official ones. A colleague who does this says it takes the
    sting out of what the students may say on the official evaluations and illustrates how seriously he or she takes teaching.

    Faculty
    who are able to turn evaluations into popularity polls take high evaluations to
    mean they are good teachers. Yet, the vast majority of studies find that there
    is no correlation between student evaluations and student learning. In fact, some
    find students of the highly rated professors actually learn less than those who
    have professors rated lower. Actually no one knows what student evaluations
    indicate. One interesting study showed students very short silent movies of
    teacher and asked them to evaluate them. After the course, they also filled
    out evaluations and they were about the same as the first set. One
    interpretation was that the students were responding to body language and
    facial expressions as much as anything else.

    If
    the whole evaluation of teaching process is a joke it stands right beside the
    evaluation of scholarship. I am pretty sure if someone wrote nothing, not even
    doodles in napkins at Starbucks he or she would not get tenure. I am just as
    sure that a person who writes next to nothing but satisfies the three part test
    described above will be tenured. There are two things at work here. Letters are
    sent out to experts in the field. It’s a small honor or form of recognition to
    be asked to review someone’s scholarship. Like many things in the law professor
    world, it is something people want to be asked to do but pretend that it is
    burdensome. And, it is actually burdensome to those who are popular reviewers.
    Who are the popular reviewers? Typically, they are people who write positive
    reviews. Who are the unpopular reviewers? Reviewers who are honest. The popular
    ones use terms like “rising star,” “insightful,” “major contribution,” etc. The
    unpopular ones are not afraid to say unoriginal, not carefully researched, a
    repetition of his or her earlier work.

    It
    is not a stretch to say there is something of a market for letters. Tenure and
    promotion committees want positive reviews for those passing the three part test.
    If someone fails the three part test they would prefer negative reviews. But
    negative reviews are hard to come by. Why? Because if you write  negative reviews you may not be asked again
    and, remember, being asked is a feather in your cap.

    There
    s a second factor in this letter solicitation process. What happens if someone
    passes the three part test and a negative letter slips through. The negative
    letter is either ignored or is subject to scrutiny with the result being that is is rejected. Let’s take the case of a professor who I believe had the most expensive
    education available in American – Exeter, Princeton, Harvard — a nice
    enough guy who fits in the category discussed later of law professors who
    really do not want to be law professors so they change the job. He passed the
    three part test. In fact, one colleague noted  how upsetting it would be
    socially if he were denied tenured. His specialty was writing about meditation.  A negative letter came in observing that one of his articles was in large part the same as an earlier
    article the reviewer had been asked to review for promotion. In this case, the faculty ignored
    the letter. The recycling of an idea was not addressed. In some cases, the
    treachery is especially extreme. We call the collection of review letters a “packet.”
    I have seen packets that included quite negative reviews and the committee
    making a recommendation to the faculty has said “all the letters were positive”
    and no one uttered a word because the three part test was passed with flying
    colors. 

    Remember,
    these are law professors so they will often game the system. They may tell the
    committee doing the evaluations who not to ask for a letter and who to ask for
    a letter. It can get pretty extreme. One well know professor/politician was
    said to have mailed drafts of an article to possible reviewers before hand to make
    sure when the reviewer received the manuscript to review they would, in effect,
    be reviewing themselves.

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