Page 51 - International Journal of Process Educaiton (Special Issue)
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Culture of Success (2007) CT
An educational institution’s culture has a dramatic impact on the quality of the educational
experiences it provides students and the potential it creates for transformative learning experiences
for its students, faculty, and staff.
Recently, there has been increased interest in the role that for self-growth, self-assessment, and academic success
the culture of an academic institution plays in student (Apple, Duncan, & Ellis, 2016).
success, especially in light of the perceived decline in
academic standards and low student graduation rates. The theory and practice for creating an institutional
In response to these issues, many institutions have culture of success that fosters student empowerment and
increased their student support services and provided more self-growth is fundamental to Process Education and is
coaching and mentoring for students. Offering a different documented in Process Education: Past, Present, and
perspective, Hersh and Keely argue that what academic Future (Burke, Lawrence, El-Sayed, & Apple, 2009) and
institutions need to do is develop a culture that supports What is Special About Process Education? (Desjarlais
transformative education. & Morgan, 2013). A review of this work is also offered
in Work in Progress — Process Education: Growing
To say it plainly: in both quantity and quality, Performance Across Domains (Litynski & Apple, 2008).
college learning is inadequate. The root cause of
this learning crisis is that at most institutions the Pacific Crest began developing a process for training
campus culture itself does not prioritize and foster faculty to create a culture of success at their universities
transformative learning. and providing opportunities for these faculty to actively
engage in cultural change through the Learning to Learn
Without high academic expectations and standards Camps. Reflections on Student Success (Pacific Crest,
challenging students to exceed their own 2006) offers a list of 10 factors that bear consideration for
expectations, too much time is wasted, and peer any institution working to increase student success:
norms that are less demanding, less intellectual, and
less respectful become dominant. Students regulate There are pitfalls associated with having someone
their performance by the high or low expectations from within an institution try to facilitate institution-
of them. wide change. It is better to use an external facilitator.
The culture change we espouse includes significantly The change process at an institution must be
higher expectations and standards, far greater facilitated through the work of internal coordinators
student effort, an incentive and reward system and internal mentoring teams (while an external
focused on learning and, at its core, extensive facilitator can bring an objective perspective in
learning assessment that is timely, formative, coordinating and helping to facilitate change, the
summative, standard based and transparent. actual work must be done by individuals and teams
who are part of the institution).
(Occasional Paper 17: Changing Institutional Culture
to Promote Assessment in Higher Learning, 2013) Success begins with clearly described outcomes and
definable projects to attain them.
Process Education and Success
Key institutional events are crucial for building the
Process Education is transformative education. Since 1985, critical mass you need to support change processes
Pacific Crest has actively collaborated with a wide variety throughout your institution.
of academic institutions, working with faculty and staff
on projects and research, all of which seek to articulate The Learning-to-Learn Camp model has been a
what transformative education looks like in the classroom. cornerstone in many of the change processes.
The most recent scholarship, more than 30 years later, still
focuses on transformative education, phrased now in terms Courses and programs should be redesigned
of success and the educational culture that leads to success. according to quality design principles.
This scholarship describes the qualities of a successful
collegiate learner, the institutional cultural conditions that Continuous quality improvement begins with high
create and support student success, and those changes in quality program assessment practice.
institutional culture that promote student empowerment
Administrative support is critical throughout the
transformational change process.
International Journal of Process Education (February 2016, Volume 8 Issue 1) 49
