Purpose
The comprehensive Redesign of the SMC student experience is an integrated, inclusive approach to reimagine and redesign the college as an equitable institution that is more effective and more efficient at serving our diverse student body with its diverse aspirations, and social and academic preparations. Using a student-centered approach and seeing the institution through a student lens, the redesign engages the college as an inquiry-based, networked community to create an institution as competent in student completion as it is in student access.
The goals of the redesign are:
- To eliminate equity gaps
- To reduce time to completion
- To increase rates of completion
This redesign will involve many facets of the student experience including but not limited to:
- curriculum and course sequencing (program maps),
- career information and explorations,
- academic and non-academic support services,
- academic and career counseling services,
- class scheduling,
- pre-college outreach and preparation,
- matriculation and enrollment,
- faculty-student relationships
- interaction with technological tools
This redesign of the student experience involves building the college’s structures and programs within what has been identified as a “guided pathways framework”. Using such a framework requires managing and sustaining large-scale transformational change to intentionally rebuild our structures and programs to improve rates of college completion, transfer, and attainment of jobs with value in the labor market and to achieve equity in these outcomes.
Approaching this effort via a college-wide networked community of practitioners—the “Redesign Team” outlined below—we seek to reduce duplication and contradiction of efforts, improve communication and understanding of efforts, and create important "cross-functional" opportunities to strengthen our efforts and bring them to scale as part of a transformation of "business as usual".
Structure
The Redesign Team collaboratively guides SMC’s comprehensive redesign and keeps close integration with existing SMC efforts. The Redesign Team is a collaborative body, led by a “steering committee”, and comprised of faculty, staff, students and administrators. The Redesign Team includes representatives from the inquiry teams, work teams, and the logistics, communication, and student advisory squads as well as the shared governance bodies at SMC and various campus programs.
Inquiry teams meet regularly to research and investigate questions pertinent to the comprehensive redesign, including but not necessarily limited to transformative pedagogy and innovative methods of delivering support services to enhance student success. Once the inquiry team makes a recommendation for implementation, the team may become a work team to facilitate the recommended implementation.
Work teams meet regularly to plan for the implementation of specific elements of the comprehensive redesign. These teams of varying size consist of faculty, staff, students, and administrators from the campus at large.
Support squads serve as experts/consultants/trouble-shooters to guide the work of the comprehensive redesign and consider issues related to implementation.