Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) began offering associate degrees as Ohio’s first community college in 1963 and now serves more than 41,000 credit and noncredit students annually. The college encompasses four traditional campuses—Eastern, Western, Metropolitan, and Westshore—and numerous on-campus and off-campus innovative learning facilities and sites. Tri-C offers more than 1,000 credit courses in more than 200 career, technical, and liberal arts programs, and awards Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Science, Associate of Applied Business, and Associate of Technical Study degrees as well as short term and one-year professional certificates.

For most of its 60-year history, Tri-C’s academic and student services were organized using a campus-based model. The college’s four campuses, strategically located to provide accessible education to all residents of Cuyahoga County, were structured to have faculty from multiple disciplines located on a single campus report to one of several campus-based deans, then ultimately to each campus president. This location-based administration worked effectively due to Tri-C’s long-standing commitment to shared governance. Tri-C truly values providing all areas of the college the opportunity to contribute expertise and feedback on processes and initiatives, and engages every constituency in creating solutions to help define the strategic way forward for the institution. All constituencies participate in these collegewide decisions, including staff, students, faculty, and external partners.

In 2022, as with all of higher education, Tri-C was faced with moving into a post-pandemic world—the now normal. The public’s confidence in higher education exerting a positive impact on the country dropped from 69 percent to 55 percent from 2020 to 2022 (Fischer, 2022) and the community college’s most important pipelines of students, new from high-school graduates, have in larger numbers chosen not to enroll in college and, instead, directly enter the workforce after graduation. Students deferring higher education expressed concerns that college is too expensive and will plunge them into debt, and indicated thinking it was more important to enter the workforce rather than to pursue a degree or credential (Williams June, 2022). Nationally, there was a general growing sentiment about higher education and its place in a student’s life, with new high school graduates indicating a desire for wider flexibility in courses and scheduling that fit their personal needs (Williams June, 2022).

As Tri-C began the work of creating innovative programs and initiatives, the institution also welcomed its fifth President, Dr. Michael Baston, in July of 2022. A change in presidential leadership can be challenging for institutions, but Tri-C’s deeply held mission to the region meant the college was ready to respond to the new needs of its students, community, partners, and economy in support of its new president. Baston’s strategic priorities for the college include creating a culture of clarity for staff, faculty, and students and redesigning the student experience; charging the academic leadership to create a new academic infrastructure; and shifting from a campus-based model to a collegewide academic school model focused on students (Baston, 2022).

Building on the college’s previous academic pathway work (Jenkins et al., 2019), the new infrastructure was designed to increase clarity of programs and outcomes for students, create opportunities to track and support student progress through new discipline-based cohorts, improve the collegewide schedule building process, and create efficiencies throughout the academic division. Additionally, this academic school model should integrate workforce and noncredit program pathways into academic schools, creating easier transitions for students to move from noncredit to credit coursework while embracing the importance of the gig economy in today’s educational arena. Tri-C’s process of creating and implementing academic pathways also served as a blueprint when planning this academic school model implementation, as it too involved reinventing a longstanding college process at institutional scale (Lahr et al., 2023)

Creating and implementing large-scale institutional change can be very challenging, with barriers to successful and effective change arising at most every single step in the process. The leadership team began the process with thorough and detailed planning, from conception to implementation. The process was outlined, discussed, and debated by the academic executive team, with a proposed timeline, prior to any work commencing. As this would affect both faculty and staff positions, but primarily the college’s deans, human resources was part of early discussions and a trusted partner throughout this process.

Research and evaluation of existing best practices was also a key component to the beginning stages of this project. In early fall 2022, the academic leadership team began researching colleague schools, especially those that had implemented pathways, to examine their academic structures. These included multi-campus large institutions as well as small local Ohio community colleges. The team not only looked at discipline school structure, leadership, and reporting lines, but also researched other institutions’ integration of noncredit workforce programming, how student support was structured, how each provided academic counseling and advising to students, whether admission and enrollment processes were school based, and whether they offered an online college option. The leadership team also did extensive research into Tri-C’s degrees, certificates, workforce credentials, enrollment, and completion numbers for all courses of study as well as regional labor market data. A great deal of consideration, planning, and discussion was had by leadership as the dean structure for this new model was created. Not only were these roles redefined to align with a collegewide academic model, responsibilities, reporting lines, duties, and qualifications, very thoughtful discussions occurred about how these new roles would be filled while honoring the current deanery where many would transition into the new model.

By February 2023, the team proposed its academic school model, which proposed six academic schools, to Baston. After review, discussion, and input from the president, the proposed model was unveiled to the board of trustees and leadership outlined the plan to move forward to implementation in fall 2024. Additionally, as part of Tri-C’s history of shared governance, the leadership of the college’s American Association of University Professors and the Joint Faculty Senate Committee were provided advance notice of communications and the research and implementation process, as appropriate, so faculty understood their expertise and experience would be part of the final structure.

Creating the new academic infrastructure model was not the only work the campus presidents, academic vice presidents, and provost’s office had been focused on during these months of research. Shifting from a campus-based academic administration to a broader collaborative model would be a radical change for faculty, staff, and current students. A comprehensive review of academic administration hadn’t happened for over 20 years at Tri-C. In addition, the college community was still dealing with the uncertainty and fear that were a part of the now normal. The process included planning around messaging, communications plans, and talking points for the internal and external community to thoughtfully introduce this concept to our staff, faculty, and students. The team understood that leading the college through such an extensive institutional change required more than careful planning, but empathetic leadership, which relied on Tri-C’s commitment to shared governance and transparency.

The leadership team values empathetic leadership, using active listening and understanding of multiple perspectives and priorities, which is essential to leading staff, faculty, and students through large institutional change (Powell, 2023). Surveys show that empathetic leadership provides employees with the ability to be more innovative and engaged, to have a sense of inclusivity, and to be more likely to stay with the organization (Brower, 2021). Successful adoption of the new infrastructure required everyone involved to become invested in the benefits of the transition for students and the college, and an empathetic approach was vital to the success of this project.

Because academic deans would be most directly affected, academic leadership ensured an open and honest communication process with them. The team met with the deanery in mid-April of 2023 to present the proposed model, explain the reasoning behind the change and proposed process, and reassure the deans that they would have the chance to provide input on the model and proposed staffing. The model, which at the time had six proposed academic schools, was then unveiled to staff and faculty at spring convocation in May 2023. This presentation was followed by the distribution of a survey to all staff in the workforce and academic divisions, as well as all full-time and part-time faculty. The team received over 700 individual responses to the survey, which contributed to the continuing work on the model.

Throughout summer 2023, the academic leadership team carefully reviewed the results of the survey and the information gathered from the existing deanery, and made several changes based on the input received, including which programs were housed in which schools and reducing the number of schools proposed. In fall 2023, the team updated the college with its new structure, now with five collegewide schools:

• Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Creative Arts
• Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering, and Computer Science
• Nursing and Health Professions
• Business, Legal Professions, and Hospitality

Once the five schools were finalized, the dean roles in these schools were reimagined, bringing discipline and student foci to the new roles. Staffing the new dean structure once again required administration to both lead and listen with empathy to the current deans, while relying on the expertise of the human resources and legal departments to create a process that was fair and equitable and that honored the great work already happening by our deanery. In October, the deans were invited to a meeting led by the academic leadership and human resources where the process created to staff the new dean roles was explained, concerns were expressed, questions were answered, and the timeline was outlined. The important messaging of the meeting was that the new positions would be posted exclusively internally, providing the current deans the opportunity to apply for one or multiple new positions, assuring the deans that the focus of the initial staffing process would remain on current staff. While it was not an easy process to create and successfully implement, and the team had to pivot as additional concerns or issues were brought by deans and faculty to the table, the majority of the new positions have been confirmed while very few have required external searches.

Even though the institution has made tremendous progress on the shift to academic schools, leadership knows there is a great deal of work ahead for the college. This type of large-scale institutional change, requiring a shift in institutional culture and perceived staff priorities and  involving most academic systems and processes, is a longer-term process, with goals and benchmarks to be reached along the way (McMurtrie, 2022). The academic school model will be in place for fall 2024, but both the leadership and deans are aware that it will be an evolving work in progress which will need to be refined, tweaked, and shifted as students are admitted to schools. Currently, the leadership is working on a communication plan for students and external stakeholders to explain the student focus of the schools while assisting current students through several enrollment process changes that will occur starting in the fall. Additionally, the research conducted by leadership on student support within each school, school-focused enrollment and admissions, and financial aid and scholarship support continues to be reviewed and refined for Tri-C’s new model. However, the Tri-C team is confident this new infrastructure will immediately begin to show benefits for students. As the work new processes, procedures, and supports are finalized, leading with empathy and reinforcing the institutional shared governance model will allow Tri-C to meet these challenges and, ultimately, provide students with clarity, support, and outcomes that will ensure Tri-C is the place where futures begin.

References

Baston, M. (2022). The first 100 days. Cuyahoga Community College. https://www.tri-c.edu/president/documents/dr-baston-100-days-brochure.pdf

Brower, T. (2021). Empathy is the most important leadership Skill According To Research. Forbes.  Forbes Magazine Online. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tracybrower/2021/09/19/empathy-is-the-most-important-leadership-skill-according-to-research/?sh=2d8a874d3dc5

Fischer, K. (2022, July 26). American’s confidence in higher education drops sharply. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/americans-confidence-in-higher-ed-drops-sharply

Jenkins, D., Lahr, H., Brown, A. E. (2019). Redesigning your college through guided pathways: lessons on managing while-college reform from the aacc pathways project. Community College Research Center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/redesigning-your-college-guided-pathways.html

Lahr, H., Klempin, S. C., Jenkins, D. (2023). Innovating at scale: Guided pathways adoption and early student momentum among the AACC pathways colleges. Community College Research Center. https://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/guided-pathways-aacc-colleges.html

McMurtrie, B. (2022, June 17). The undergraduate experience. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-student-success-challenge

Powell, J. (2023, November 14). Rethinking authentic leadership: The essential need for empathy in higher education leadership. Higher Education Digest. https://www.highereducationdigest.com/rethinking-authentic-leadership-the-essential-need-for-empathy-in-higher-education-leadership

Williams June, A. (2022, September 28). Why some high-school grads say no to college. Here’s why — and what might change their minds. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/some-high-school-grads-say-no-to-college-heres-why-and-what-might-change-their-minds

Karen Miller, Ph.D., is Provost and Executive Vice President at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio.

Opinions expressed in Leadership Abstracts are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.