College completion rates are rising in all industrialized countries, except the United States.  The U.S. is now ranked 10th of all developed nations in degree attainment amongst 18-24 year olds.  How can the use of social networking and other online technologies into a college culture facilitate an increase in degree attainment?  Community colleges are hot on the trail of understanding how online technologies can help.  The global use of social networking has entered the mainstream more quickly than any other form of technology in history.  Facebook, which launched in 2004, currently boasts 500 million active global users, outnumbering the total US population.  In fact, if Facebook were a country it would rank third in population, behind only China and India.  The trend stretches across all generations, with the 35-49 year olds representing the largest growing age group since 2008.  And recent Nielsen ratings demonstrate that the use of social networking is now more popular than email.  The infusion of social networking innovations into our lives has transformed the nature of relationships, allowing them to co-exist in both physical and virtual form and enabling a sense of connectedness to one’s personal network from anywhere at any time.

 

Tectonic Shifts in Faculty Demographics

As technology continues to resculpt our social landscape, we’ve seen significant shifts in the demographics of higher education faculty as well.  A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, reflected on the downward spiral of tenured faculty in higher education, noting that the number of tenure track professors decreased significantly from 57% in 1975 to 31% in 2007.  The article also anticipates that a new report from the Department of Education expected this fall, will reveal that the rate has fallen even lower in recent years.  This data offers a compelling portrait of faculty demographics on colleges and universities across our nation.The option for students to visit their professors during office hours between classes becomes less of a reality, as our colleges and universities rely more heavily on part-time instructors who are on campus less and frequently teaching at multiple institutions.  Part-time instructors spend less time on a campus than their full-time counterparts, yet they now teach the majority of college students.

 

Within this context, we see college students and faculty around the nation struggling to stay connected to academic cultures that are still predominantly anchored in face-to-face services and relationships.  The reality is that more students and more faculty are spending more time away from physical campuses and innovative college leaders around the nation are realizing the potential for online technologies to make it easier for both staff and students to learn, stay informed, receive training or tutoring, partner with peers, and access college services. 

 

Increasing Academic Success through Engagement

The 2009 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), based on a survey of more than 400,000 students from 663 institutions, illuminates the potential of online connections to increase student engagement.  Community college students are a diverse population and this diversity complicates a college’s ability to support their academic needs through physical resources alone.  According to the report 60% of community college students are enrolled part-time, 21% of full-time students work more than 30 hours a week, 29% take evening classes and 28% have taken at least one online class.  Additionally, community college students arrive on campus with a dramatic range of academic preparation, academic goals — ranging from transferring to a 4-year university, returning from the workforce to update skills, personal enrichment, and many are first-generation college students, stepping foot for the first time on a college campus.  The CCSSE survey notes a correlation between engagement and degree attainment — the less engaged a student is, the greater the risk of dropping out — and the least engaged students are those who attend part-time and students age 24 and younger, representing a significant population of community college students and the early adopters of social networking.

 

Outside of college, 95% of students age 18-24 use social networking sites for personal use, signaling a tremendous opportunity for institutions to foster relevant relationships with students that keep them connected to coursework, college services, and events when they are away from campus (Smith, Salaway, Borreson Caruso. ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and IT, 2009).  In fact, student engagement levels increase when social networking is used for “academically purposeful activities.”  (CCCSE survey)

 

Central Community College in Grand Island in Nebraska, is an example of one community college that acting on the opportunity to increase student success through social networking.  The college is one of many higher education institutions that has established a Facebook presence, extending virtual community to its current and prospective students and staff.  Their Facebook page presents visitors with dynamic status updates showcasing student and staff honors, upcoming events, important deadlines — all of which students, staff, and community may comment on, “like,” or share.  The page also includes an “events” tab that provides further details about upcoming campus-related activities for which community members can RSVP and view the names of those who are attending. The “videos” and “photos” tabs offer a visual portrait of the campus community and the “discussions” tab is a resource for students to congregrate and ask questions.  The college has also tackled some of the common and difficult administrative questions about integrating social media into an academic context through their Social Networking Policy.  For a list of some other community colleges on Facebook, click here.

 

Beyond the explicit use of social networking, colleges are also exploring the use of rich online communication tools to extend student services beyond the face-to-face experience.  For example, Sierra College in California has implemented an Online Writing Center (SCOWC) that offers students one-on-one, live feedback from a campus writing center representative.  The live 30-minute sessions are scheduled in advance and held synchronously in Elluminate, which is provided free to all CA community college employees and students through a grant from the CCC Chancellor’s office (rebranded: CCC Confer). The one-on-one virtual sessions provide flexibility and extended services to the college’s growing online student population.  The results demonstrate a compelling impact — in a recent study, more than 90% of students who used SCOWC passed their class with a grade of a C or higher.

 

The following are additional case studies that are showcased in the CCSSE survey for their efforts to increase student engagement through online technologies.

  • The Chancellor of Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, Steven Murray, participates in fostering a culture that embraces social networking.  Murray shares, “We’re always fighting the tendency of students to go from the parking lot to the classroom and back to the parking lot and into their jobs and homes and their other life. A lot of our students do not have computers at home, broadband Internet access, but they all have cellphones with the capacity to text, and … access Twitter and Facebook.”  At in-service activities he actively encourages faculty to use Facebook.  In August 2009, the college surveyed faculty members and learned that about one-third (32%) were using or planned to use Facebook with students, 19% use Facebook as a student recruitment tool, 21% use Twitter, and 71% use texting.  Almost two-thirds (62%) of full-time faculty reported that they have a Facebook account and when asked how long they had been using Facebook, 74% of faculty members reported “one year or less,” indicating that the college’s motivational efforts during this time frame were successful. Phillips recently assessed whether the increased use of social networking tools improved student engagement, results yet to be shared.
  • Virtual Interest Groups (VIGs) at LaGuardia Community College in New York, are asynchronous online advising seminars that are organized by students’ majors. VIGs are supported by an online academic community that includes students, faculty, mentors, advisors, and professionals in the field, offering career and transfer advising. Each VIG includes online discussion boards that are full of diverse and rich dialogue and also function as assessments of of the seminar content. The discussions also prompt use of campus services. When VIG assignments directed students to take advantage of the college’s transfer services, the college saw a 140% increase in use of the Transfer Office.
  • Lone Star College System, Texas has created a learning community that links an online student success course with traditional, hybrid, and online content courses. The student success course presents topics relating to career, college, and lifelong success in an interactive online experience that incorporates journaling, quizzes, and a student ePortfolio. The students’ learning experiences are personalized to their own learning styles.  The ePortfolio used by the  program provides a “digital backpack” for students to store work that is seamlessly monitored by faculty.
  • The Industrial Maintenance Technician program at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College offers practical, hands-on experience in welding, hydraulics, electricity, and mechanical maintenance.  The curriculum incorporates virtual trainers, which look and act just like real trainers in a lab, reflect the college’s hands-on approach to learning. Students can hook up hoses and components in a virtual environment, as if they were working on real equipment. The virtual trainers also allow students to learn at their own speed, at times convenient to their schedules, facilitating increased connection to learning without relying explicitly on face-to-face experiences

The examples above are only a small sampling of the ways community colleges are integrating social networking and web-based technologies into their campus support structure.  In today’s networked world, the possibilities are endless.  How is your college harnessing the potential of social networking to increase engagement and degree attainment?  What are you doing as a leader to engage your campus in a culture that embraces online technologies to extend engagement beyond your physical campus?