I arrived at Believe in Students in April 2020, just as the pandemic was rocking the world and changing college campuses, in some ways permanently. My job when I arrived was to figure out how to utilize incredibly generous philanthropic support to provide emergency grants to students. There were two ways we were doing this: one was a highly scalable and efficient tech-based solution, a partnership with Beam. The other was a highly personalized approach on about a dozen campuses across the country that essentially went around the bureaucracy of most institutional approaches and was led by faculty, called the FAST Fund – an acronym standing for “Faculty And Students Together.”
The FAST Fund wasn’t the model that could scale to meet the demand for emergency grants we know exists – but it intrigued me for two reasons. First, as a former teacher, I was intimately familiar with the negative stories some people have in their heads about teachers, and especially professors, and even more so, about teacher’s unions. I was overjoyed to have the concrete example of what these educators were willing to do for their students, for free (and often putting their own money in), in the midst of their own upended lives.
Second, I had spent about fifteen years working to improve college success for first-gen, low-income students. And in all the hundreds of hours of conversations I’d had about student success, I had never once talked to or about faculty members as part of the solution. Which suddenly struck me as crazy – how can you talk about making school more effective for students when the people who are primary to that experience are not part of the conversation?
And so, I began to think more about how to build on what we had in this FAST Fund network of leaders. How could we give these volunteers who had stepped forward practical solutions to help students – but in a way that didn’t just require them to find more time, energy, and patience in an era of incredible exhaustion and burnout? Because the most common thing I heard was, “I want to help, but I don’t know what to do; I’m not a social worker.” This anecdote is now a common recognition across institutions and systems: most people in colleges today, especially faculty, have received little to no training on what they can do within their own jobs to better support today’s college students. And yet, faculty are critical actors in students’ college experiences, and essential to the effort to transform higher education to a space where students are seen as humans first. No faculty member needs to become a social worker; they do need (and most want!) opportunities to rethink ways to approach their existing work in their own classrooms that can improve student success.
And this is why this work is such a central piece of what our founder, Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, coined “#RealCollege.” What she calls “the new economics of college” have changed what it takes for students to pursue the American dream. Built to serve the last century’s constituents who were often subsidized by family wealth, our higher education system today fails to recognize and respond to the diverse needs of 21st century students. Today, a student who works just as hard as those students of the past will struggle to make it, plunging deeper into poverty as they reach for their degrees. The term #RealCollege is about going beyond platitudes about what college is for, and recognizing the real needs we are failing to meet. Recognizing today’s college students for the highly motivated and talented people they are, the #RealCollege movement is about investing in America’s future by re-investing in students.
WeAnd this is where we reconnected with Sara and her brilliant collaborator, Dr. Jesse Stommel, who had begun developing a critical tool called the #RealCollege Curriculum. This curriculum is designed to bring the best parts of the conference Sara and her team had hosted in the pre-pandemic era together with the critical work Jesse led at the Digital Pedagogy Lab, a best-in-class approach to providing research-based, practical, affirming support to faculty and students engaged in online learning. Sara and Jesse suggested that Believe in Students would be the ideal home for this curriculum, and we happily accepted, seeing the opportunity to build something different and valuable to college faculty, as well as other partners.
The curriculum centers the same principal actors as our FAST Fund efforts – teachers and students who carry the primary responsibilities of teaching and learning. And as we are creating it, there are a few values we hold as design principles:
- We believe in students. Today’s students are not “kids.” They are experts in their own lives and experiences, and listening to them can provide both guidance and motivation for change. We see students as powerful, resilient, and asset-filled, not deficit-laden problems to be solved. Students are featured as instructors in our content, and sit alongside researchers, administrators, and practitioners to guide learners to improved practice.
- We respect teachers. Too often, faculty are an easy scapegoat for the myriad problems in higher education, when we know that these issues stem from structural problems far beyond their control. Here, there is no shaming teachers for not doing better, for not knowing more, for not figuring these things out on their own. We start from a premise that all learners who are taking these courses want to serve their students well, and this curriculum can empower them to be change agents on their campus and within the field.
- We support the people who support people. We approach this work through a solidarity lens — that students, faculty, staff, and administrators are all in this together. We know that college and university campuses are challenging places, and everyone needs help. We support educators, so they can better support students.
- We prioritize action. While we know that developing core knowledge is important, we believe that creating a higher education system that better serves students will only happen when people do things differently than they are now. Content is designed to give people concrete ideas for what they can do tomorrow, and in a month, and over the course of a year, and presses people toward taking action.
- We understand how adults learn best. The content is most likened to MasterClass – highly engaging microcontent centered around high-quality narrative videos that can be absorbed 5-10 minutes at a time. We are utilizing a pedagogy of care for adult learners, getting to the golden nuggets quickly and offering practical, applicable information and skills.
- We’re starting in the classroom, but we’re not stopping there. While we know that the most immediate impacts will be generated by those closest to students, we also know that changes in the classroom uncover and amplify the need for changes in the system. All across the country, there are students and faculty, staff, administrators, and policymakers who are part of the #RealCollege movement. This curriculum is a tool for them to add to their ranks, and build this powerful coalition into an unstoppable force for change.
Our pilot partners included a small set of California community colleges as well as leaders from our FAST Fund network, where faculty and staff unions at community colleges and regional four-year institutions in the midwest are encouraging their members to participate. Feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. 75% of users said that after participating in just one course, they gained confidence in openly discussing issues of basic needs insecurity with students and peers. 80% expressed direct plans of action. And most exciting, the majority of learners expressed a desire for more courses. No teacher could ask for anything better than their students wanting to learn more!
We’re now ready for the next stage, with three new courses coming for spring 2025 and preparations to make content available to a larger group of institutions and learners. From the initial funding for the project from the Gates Foundation, we’ve gained support from the Michelson 20MM and ECMC Foundations. We’re working with instructors who get it, like Compton College President Dr. Keith Curry and Freddy Shegog, a graduated #RealCollege student who now uses his experiences to advocate for others. And Soledad O’Brien Productions is engaged with us to ensure high-quality video content continues to anchor the course content. All backed by a powerhouse advisory board including not only some of the most innovative leaders in higher education, but faculty, staff, and students, too.
We couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to support the people who support #RealCollege students every day, and can’t wait to tell you more. You can learn more at our upcoming webinar on October 28 where you’ll hear more from our creators and instructors, and get a sneak preview of the first course. We hope you’ll join us there, and we can’t wait to take the next steps together in advancing the #RealCollege movement!