Gluing Higher Ed Back Together
Authors: Dawkins et al, 2024
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Publication Type: Opinion Article
Details: This article is focused on the utilization of learning communities as a mechanism to reglue higher education back together following a series of “shocks to the system” that have and will continue to occur in our field. These “shocks” are all colliding to force institutions, and their leaders, to engage in rapid response and change. Senior leadership on college campuses continue to grapple with tough decisions surrounding rebuilding student enrollments, identifying pathways to increase student sense of belonging, recruiting new faculty and staff energized to teach students in innovative ways that actively engage their minds and imbue them with hope, investigating how to balance and integrate face-to-face and online learning, and ultimately establishing an ethos of care amongst students, faculty and staff.
This piece communicates the ways in which intentionally designed learning communities resourced by the institution offers supports and builds trust between students and the institution, creates space for deeper life faculty-student interactions, addresses faculty burden through collaboration, uplifts a values-based approach to student engagement, and ultimately communicates that the institution and its leadership are committed to serving their students through creating intentional spaces that help reglue the learning and the relationship building that occurs across a multitude of learning contexts.
