From Solos to Symphonies: Orchestrating Learning through Collaboration

Boyer (1997) stated "the most fundamental challenge confronting American higher learning is to move from fragmentation to coherence. He spoke of the need for connection, "connections between teaching and research, connections between students, faculty, and staff, connections across the disciplines, and connections from the campus to the larger world." Like the pause between symphonic movements, higher education appears to be signaling a critical turning point. The Information Age has forever altered our work, and changing the tempo of this new knowledge network requires our institutions to think, organize, and act differently. 21st century higher education has been transposed into business?big business?and this shift in reality demands the full attention of our leadership. New and compelling research on the learning process illuminates the need for changes in the way higher education performs its mission. A successful response to this powerful rhythm of change confronting academe necessitates commitment, courage, and creative collaboration. Composing organizational cultures committed to civic engagement requires a concerted shift in organizational practice and requires transformational change working in what Ramaley (2002) describes as "a complex three-dimensional mental space: learn about culture of organization and work in ways that respect it, embody qualities that are associated with a true democratically guided learning community, and have a clear and compelling model for change that guides actions." This essay describes the philosophical and practical impetus for organizational change and the critical role community colleges play in educating students as participatory citizens. Surprising to many in the general public, more than half of the undergraduate students in public colleges and universities in the United States are now enrolled in community colleges Further, community colleges serve the majority of all of the minority undergraduates in the United States (American Association of Community Colleges, 2006). Forecasters project community college enrollment to increase by 13 percent over 2000 levels by 2015 and to approach an increase of up to 46 percent if community colleges model enrollment strategies of the highest-performing states (Martinez, 2004). Why is community college enrollment relevant? Because an individual's educational attainment level is powerfully correlated with gainful employment, ability to provide for education and health of children, propensity to pay taxes, participation in civic life and democratic processes, and voting behavior (Carnevale & Desrochers, 2004). Therefore, the opportunity to attain a college education has major implications for the quality, strength, and spirit of our democracy. Given these significant statistics and the projected continuation in enrollment growth, community colleges represent a gateway of diversity in America?a symphonic tapestry of thoughts, actions, cultures, experiences, and values, each unique and each enriching the whole of the higher education experience. This richness in the learning process serves to strengthen citizens, communities and nations and provides an ideal setting for educating students about the importance and value of civic engagement.

Organizing for Harmony

A best practice demonstrated by institutions of higher education committed to the work of civic engagement is the presence of a visible and accessible center or office responsible for coordinating civic engagement opportunities. This is an important first step in creating a culture of civic engagement. At Collin College, we established the Center for Scholarly & Civic Engagement, a common administrative structure that orchestrates the management and accountability of several existing programs and activities directed towards scholarship, leadership, and engagement and serves as a catalyst for innovative compositions of organizational engagement. We moved forward bolstered in part by a joint report entitled, "Powerful Partnerships: A Shared Responsibility for Learning" by the American Association for Higher Education, American College Personnel Association, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, which claimed that "most colleges do not use collective wisdom as well as they should?It is only by acting cooperatively in the context of common goals, as the most innovative institutions have done, that our accumulated understanding about learning is best put to use"(1998). The impetus for organizing for collaboration is grounded in both the practical and philosophical. Practical reasons include the development of a harmonious system that results in reduced duplication of resources and programming, decreased competition among programs and departments, increased effective communication, and alignment of common goals for enriched learning. The philosophical rationale embraces the move from a culture of solos to a symphony of collaboration, creating a culture of common goals while giving credence to the mission and values of individual institutions.

Colleagues as Collaborative Composers

Engagement must be an organizational priority and collective effort. The often deep chasms between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs administrators must be bridged with student learning and engagement at the center. "Top administrators at many institutions have recognized that treating student academic work and general student development as largely discrete areas is neither economical nor effective" (Zlotkowski, Longo, & Williams, 2006). Strategic plans and programming efforts should involve collaboration and ongoing communication between titular faculty members, both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs program administrators, active student leaders, and community partners. Successful implementation includes adhering to a set of guidelines:

1. holistic, systems thinking;
2. creation of enabling mechanisms supported by administrative leadership;
3. shared leadership with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross-department collaborations and context-centered learning;
4. persistence, perspective, patience;
5. building on small successes;
6. effective communication;
7. keen awareness of the environment and developing a base of common knowledge;
8. flexibility, creativity, and a healthy appreciation for chaos theory.

The collaborative efforts catalyzed through multi-stakeholder planning emphasize deep learning that works to develop lasting competencies for college graduates: intellectual inquiry through active, critical thinking, principled ethical reasoning and real world problem-solving, along with creativity, adaptability, acceptance of human difference, and effective teamwork skills. Since establishing the Center for Scholarly & Civic Engagement, a culture of collaboration has emerged at Collin with notable increases in attendance, participation, and innovative partnerships college-wide./p>

Opportunities for Creative Compositions

The future of civic engagement in higher education presents many thought-provoking opportunities: an increase in the number of organizations focusing their energies on facilitating and organizing for effective dialogue offer great promise for community coalition-building; the recognition of the leadership potential of our students and creating an infrastructure intended to cultivate these student leaders; and consideration of how our undervalued colleagues in Institutional Research can be our allies.

Wind, Strings, Percussion, Keyboards, et al: Celebrating Our Differences, Honoring Our Voices

In honoring the values and mission of higher education in the United States, the depth and breadth of a holistic educational experience not only includes developing students cognitively and normatively for the world in which we live, but must also include references to our transnational identities and responsibilities. We can enhance our civic engagement work and infuse intentional, scholarly, and cross-disciplinary perspectives through democratic dialogue as illustrated through models such as the World Café, Study Circles, and National Issues Forums, to name a few. Frank and scholarly dialogue on subjects often characterized as "sensitive," "difficult," or "off-limits" are infrequent, and social and educational programs are often implemented that appear to run counter to their intended outcomes. Many lessons on how to approach difficult dialogues with sensitivity are drawn from diverse voices of the past, from the ancient African concept of Ubuntu, meaning "I am what I am because of who we all are" to the words of Albert Einstein: "Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population." In order to arrive at dialogue, an environment of trust and safety is critical — a place where participants feel free to express ideas without fear of retribution. Further, the diversity of participants involved serves to enrich the dialogue. Many institutions of higher education represent this richness of diversity, particularly community colleges. Outcomes that can be expected from such dialogue include: depth and breadth of knowledge of challenging issues impacting our society and thus, public policy; greater understanding and respect for multiple viewpoints; the acquisition of dialogue skills, and the development of students as global/transnational citizens. Institutions should strive to create an environment of free and thoughtful expression where challenges are illuminated as opportunities for growth and to learn and appreciate the value of perspective where freedom of expression converges with intellectual inquiry.

The Student as Composer

Dr. Ed Zlotkowski, a respected scholar of civic engagement practices is currently leading the way in highlighting an oft-missed, yet exciting opportunity inherent in civic engagement work, that of developing students as leaders, students as colleagues. As noted in the recently published, "Students as Colleagues: Expanding the Circle of Service-Learning Leadership", well trained undergraduates can play a decisive role in making academic-community collaborations powerful, successful experiences for all involved. (Zlotkowski, Longo, & Williams, 2006). Students are often more familiar with pressing community issues and local organizations than many faculty and these students bring their own set of experiences and understanding to service-learning projects. Leadership opportunities are abundant: site supervisors, peer mentors, program facilitators, and faculty assistants all lend themselves to powerful leadership learning experiences. And further emphasizing the importance of organizing for collaboration, Zlotkowski and his colleagues suggest that "the willingness and ability of undergraduates to assume substantive service-learning responsibilities both in the classroom and in the community represents an excellent opportunity to bring student affairs and faculty affairs into better alignment." (Zlotkowski, et al. 2006). Recognizing and honoring students as knowledge producers while integrating student voice into our work serves to enrich the learning experience for all of us.

Institutional Research Chimes In

Assessment and evaluation are keys to improving our collective work. Offices of Institutional Research represent a relatively untapped resource for assessing and evaluating the levels of learning currently taking place in the context of civic engagement. Recently, the Carnegie Foundation brought together a focus group of community college institutional research administrators to explore the role of institutional research in the improvement of teaching and learning. "Traditionally, institutional research has been treated as a kind of company audit, sitting outside the organization's inner workings but keeping track of important trends and facts-about enrollment patterns, student credit hours, graduation rates, peer institutions, and so forth-requested by both internal and external constituencies."(Hutchings & Schulman, 2006). In the future, questions that get to the heart of student learning may explore, "What do our students know, and what can they do? What do they understand deeply? What kinds of human beings are they becoming-intellectually, morally, in terms of civic responsibility? How does our teaching shape their experience as learners, and how might it do so more effectively?"

Our Collective Opus

Orchestrating dramatic change with the ultimate goal of enriched student learning proves to be both exciting and challenging; while the work may seem familiar, the players, instruments, and music requires a new set of guidelines and a whole lot of practice. Further, community colleges are in a unique position for establishing a seamless culture of civic engagement from K-12 to university experiences and beyond. Workforce development and life-long learning are tenets of the community college mission and offer opportunities for revitalizing the civic-consciousness in students of all ages, positions, ethnicities, religions, and stations in life. The lessons intrinsic to dramatic change are numerous:

1. a compelling case for transformational change must be made as collaboration of this magnitude requires the conductor to trust the players and vice versa;
2. understand and be sensitive to the stages of team development?be prepared for significant resistance;
3. stay focused and intentional on student learning goals;
4. propose and share resources to reinforce buy-in and stewardship;
5. be aware of curricular calendar to allow for mega-level strategic planning;
6. sustain ongoing, effective campus and community communication; 7) maintain continuous environmental scanning and evaluation;
7. engender trust by empowering individuals, disagree with respect, and capitalize on vast array of internal talents and scholarly expertise;
8. realize that in the end, it is about the collective; and 10) understand that even with the guidelines in practice, one can never fully reach "it" — interpretation of success is fluid.

Organizational change created through collective wisdom as proposed herein may resemble a symphonic work that begins as a few notes, struggles with discord, finds and looses its melody (more than once); then, after countless rewrites and rehearsals — finds its melody, audience, and benefactors. The beat goes on; performances run daily.

References

American Association of Community Colleges (2006). Fast Facts Sheet.

American Association for Higher Education, American College Personnel Association, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (1998). Powerful partnerships: A shared responsibility for learning. Washington, DC: Author.

Carnevale, A.P., & Desrochers, D.M. (2004). Why Learning? The Value of Higher Education to Society and the Individual. Keeping America's Promise. A joint publication of Education Commission of the States and League for Innovation in the Community College. Denver: Education Commission of the States.

Hutchings, P., & Shulman, L. S. (March, 2006). Carnegie Foundation Perspectives: Learning About Student Learning From Community Colleges. Stanford, CA: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Martinez, M. (2004). High and Rising: How Much Higher Will College Enrollments Go? Keeping America's Promise. A joint publication of Education Commission of the States and League for Innovation in the Community College. Denver: Education Commission of the States.

Ramaley, J. A. (2002). Field Guide to Academic Leadership. Moving Mountains: Institutional Culture and Transformational Change. — A Publication of the National Academy for Academic Leadership; Robert M. Diamond, Editor. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Zlotkowski, E., Longo, N.V., & Williams, J.R. (Eds.) (2006). Students as Colleagues: Expanding the Circle of Service-Learning Leadership. Providence, RI: Campus Compact.