Challenges in Implementing and Sustaining Community College Organizational Change for Student Success

Student Success Outcome Data

According to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC, 2022a) Fast Facts, there are 1,042 two-year colleges, 935 of which are two-year public colleges, in the nation serving 10.3 million credit and noncredit students. Even with compelling research and work in the field, moving the needle on completion rates is still a major issue facing community colleges and their students today. In May 2021, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (2021), the graduation rate within six years for first-time, full-time degree/certificate-seeking students at two-year public postsecondary institutions was only 28%. Additionally, the percentage of students who had not graduated, were no longer enrolled, and had not been reported as a transfer at a different institution was 42% for two-year public institutions (National Center for Education Statistics, 2021). Of those students enrolled for credit, the majority, at 51%, are students of color. Within two-year public colleges there is much well-documented research on equity gaps in completion, especially based on ethnicity, race, and socio-economic status (Baldwin, 2017; Bensimon, 2018; Bragg et al., 2019; McClenney, 2019).

The time to complete a degree in a two-year college is complicated by the fact that most attendance is part-time and 72% of all part-time students at community college also work (AACC, 2022a). This data underscores the continued need for two-year public colleges to implement and sustain organizational change reform to increase the number of students who succeed in graduating on time or within three years for those who are part-time. Helping students graduate in two or three years has financial benefits for students and allows them to realize their career or transfer aspirations more quickly (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016).

Failure to complete a degree has often been described as an economic and social issue for students given that they incur debt in addition to a loss of future income and economic mobility. For community colleges, however, it is also a moral and ethical dilemma given the access and success focused missions of these institutions (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016). Thus, organizational change reform efforts are needed.

Organizational Change Reform Efforts

In response to the well-documented data around the lack of student completion, community college leaders with the support of foundations and governmental agencies have implemented large-scale transformational organizational change reforms (Baldwin, 2017; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b). These reform efforts have focused on addressing what has been referred to as the completion challenge, which is the term used to address the notion that students enter community college but many fail to complete their degree or transfer (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Jones, 2015; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b). With the advent of the completion agenda to address this challenge, there has been greater attention, research, and activity focused on transformational college reforms to increase student retention and completion rates and ultimately graduation and transfer rates (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b).

At the start of the completion agenda era, many reforms were focused on particular areas like developmental education or on narrow pilot projects impacting a small number of students. During the mid-2000s, researchers and practitioners began identifying a more holistic completion agenda for colleges, particularly focused on community colleges, led by Achieving the Dream (ATD), Completion by Design, and the Community College Research Center (CCRC, 2022; ATD, 2022; AACC, 2018; Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b). A series of national reform efforts culminated in a whole community college reform movement, called guided pathways, focused on increasing student success and persistence and ultimately graduation rates (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2022; Jones, 2015; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b).

Guided pathways according to CCRC, “is a whole-college redesign model designed to help all students explore, choose, plan, and complete programs aligned with their career and education goals efficiently and affordably” (CCRC, 2022, para. 1). The whole-college effort focus includes all faculty, staff, and students playing a role in the change effort and premises that all students would be positively impacted by this reform. The initial research from CCRC and others led to the implementation of the guided pathways model as a methodology for change in community college policies and practices first supported by a national effort called the AACC Pathways Project (AACC, 2018; CCRC, 2022; Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b). The guided pathways approach involved colleges addressing the following four main practices: clarifying student paths, helping students get on a path, helping students stay on their path, and ensuring students are learning (CCRC, 2022).

In addition to those implementation factors which are focused on practice and policy changes directly relating to the student experience, the model calls for whole-college planning around the implementation including educating and engaging stakeholders in the model and ongoing evaluation (AACC, 2019). Additionally, the guided pathways model calls for assessing key performance indicators including credits earned in the first term and first year; program of study; persistence by term; gateway math and English completions in the first year; course completion rates in the first year; and accessing equity in those outcomes which are factors that researchers indicate are early momentum indicators prior to graduation and transfer data points (AACC, 2019).

Much of the research over the past decade supports the organizational change effort of guided pathways as one of the most promising reform efforts to increase student success (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2022, McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b).

A significant number, now more than 400, of community colleges across the country are implementing guided pathways (Jenkins et al., 2022). Early research has shown that using a whole-college reform, like guided pathways, and beginning with the student end goal in mind is a promising strategy to help students persist and complete (Jenkins et al., 2022). Wheeler (2019) also highlighted the challenge of community college students completing their baccalaureate degrees and explored the need to expand guided pathways to inform transfer activities at four-year institutions. Despite the promise of guided pathways, community colleges across the nation have struggled to implement and sustain whole-college reform efforts.

Challenges with Implementing and Sustaining Organizational Change Reform

Bragg et al. (2018) indicated that the community and technical colleges across the nation engaged in change have become involved in many different reforms over the years. The sheer number of activities around reform creates a challenge and struggle for colleges to identify the why, what, and how of their change efforts (Bragg et al., 2018). In many cases, colleges are continuing to use an ad hoc manner to address student success and completion (M. Baston, personal communication, February 25, 2022). Many efforts to change college structures to support students are pilots that only impact a small number of students (Bailey et al., 2015; Jenkins et al., 2022).

According to Kotter (2012), it is challenging for any organization to undertake organizational change efforts and many fail. Due to their complex structural models and leadership practices, higher education institutions find it even more challenging (Eddy & Mitchell, 2016; Kezar, 2018). Kezar (2018) shared that higher education institutions were particularly challenged by organizational change efforts due to their cultures and given the myriad of factors and stakeholders involved in the change.

White (2022b) also highlighted the challenges and the history of the completion agenda and maintained that for change to be effective, there must be a focus on people and processes. Often, efforts fail immediately or over time due primarily to leadership challenges at multiple levels (Kezar, 2018; Klempin & Karp, 2018; White, 2022b). Klempin and Karp (2018) explored this in their research on technology-mediated advising reform and found that successful change efforts required multi-tiered leadership and shared vision.

Based on insights from researchers and experts in the field, community colleges have a desire to undertake organizational change to support student success, but a majority are challenged with not just creating but also sustaining that change within their institutions (Baldwin, 2017; Klempin & Karp, 2018; McClenney, 2019; White, 2022b). Practitioners in the field who are creating, leading, and sustaining organizational change need to learn more about how to best structure change efforts for sustainability in the long-term (G. Schmidt, personal communication, October 1, 2021).

Colleges and their leaders are also challenged to create, sustain, and maintain culturally responsive supports for their students as part of the completion agenda. Bensimon (2018) argued the need to also connect the reform work to equity and particularly racial equity rather than as a generic form of reform for all students, which does not address the structural racism creating inequities for students of color. Bragg et al. (2019) shared that “it takes more than open access to create equity in higher education” (p. 5). Bensimon (2018) and Bragg et al. (2019) stated the implicit need to embed racial equity into guided pathways. “Guided pathways can be seen as a model for equity through its comprehensive approach to improving success for all students, but it is difficult to view it as a model that is about equity due to its silence on rectifying inequities for racially minoritized students, as well as other underserved groups” (Bragg et al., 2019, p. 3). Therefore, racial equity practices must be embedded in organizational change and leaders of color must have a voice in the reform effort (Bensimon, 2018).

Purpose and Scope of Literature Review

Despite the urgency for organizational change reform, the current body of literature focuses primarily on the need for change and challenges. To our knowledge, we have not identified any literature reviews focusing specifically on the institutional reasons for colleges having difficulty implementing and sustaining college reform efforts, especially implementing guided pathways in community colleges. A deep understanding of the reasons or root causes of organizational change reform challenges and failures will provide community college leaders with more targeted strategies to improve change reform processes.

The purpose of this literature review was to identify the root causes of the challenges in implementing and sustaining community college organizational change for student success particularly focused on guided pathways whole-college reform. Given the breadth of this topic, this study focuses primarily on the internal factors that community colleges face, although mention is made to select external factors identified in the literature. This focus on internal factors was intentionally selected because colleges will be more able to act on internal factors. Although this literature review focuses primarily on the institutional level, some national, state, and system-level change efforts are referenced as these macro-level change efforts can support and influence institutional level change. Additionally, the review of literature is focused on guided pathways as this has been one of the most significant whole-college reform efforts for community colleges undertaken in the last ten years (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Jenkins et al., 2022; Jones, 2015; McClenney, 2019; McNair et al., 2021; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b).

Method

To explore the challenge of organizational change within community colleges, a search was conducted of peer-reviewed research found in the library databases. In addition, public scholarship including websites of professional organizations and books were reviewed. Informal conversations with practitioners in the field were also conducted. These different data points are important to fully understand the problem of practice from both the research and practice perspectives. The combination of these data points (peer-reviewed articles, public scholarship, and practitioner conversations) provided a more comprehensive understanding of the why and how of organizational change. This approach shed light on why whole-college student success reforms, like guided pathways, are difficult to start, implement, and sustain.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

An initial literature review search was conducted using the following databases: Academic Search Premier, ERIC, Education Source, Educational Administration Abstracts, and APA PsycINFO. The search terms used were “community colleges” and “completion agenda” or “guided pathways” or “institutional change” or “organizational change.”

All peer-reviewed articles, both qualitative and quantitative, between the years of 2015–2022 were included in the search. The timeframe was selected based on the publication date for Redesigning America’s Community Colleges (Bailey et al., 2015), a seminal book on the topic of guided pathways which is the main framework for the type of whole-college organizational change effort described in this problem of practice. Articles did not have to be available in full text to be included. This search returned 159 unduplicated articles.

As the focus of this literature review was on the root causes of challenges associated with implementing or sustaining guided pathways in U.S. institutions, the first inclusion criteria was that the article needed to focus on guided pathways reform efforts within the U.S. In addition, the purpose was to look at whole-college reform efforts. Additionally, articles that were not relevant to the problem of practice were also excluded.

Following a title review, 99 articles were eliminated and 36 additional articles were eliminated after an abstract review. Approximately 30% of the 99 articles were excluded because they focused on specific curricular changes, 15% were focused on social change, 10% were focused on healthcare change, 10% were focused on international or four-year institutions, 9% were focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) or nursing programs, 9% were focused on student service programs, 9% were not at all relevant in any way to the problem of practice, 4% were focused on dual enrollment programs, and 3% were focused on developmental education reform programs.

The remaining 24 articles met the inclusion criteria based on the problem of practice that community colleges are challenged with creating and sustaining student success, whole-college organizational change with a particular focus on guided pathways. Finally, using a snowball sampling approach which involved reviewing the reference list of these articles and other sources, five peer-reviewed articles that directly addressed the problem of practice but did not appear in the database search were also included. Of those 29, eight were primarily focused on guided pathways and 21 were focused on more general whole-college reform practices. Thus, a total of 29 peer-reviewed articles were included in this review.

Public Scholarship

Peer-reviewed reference snowball sampling and other sources of public scholarship including books, articles, blog posts, and websites were reviewed and cited. These sources provided direct examples of relevant themes and challenges within the problem of practice.

Practitioner Conversations

In order to better understand the specific problem of practice focused on community college organizational change efforts, four informal conversations with national and college practitioners were conducted. The conversations were informally focused on the problem of practice and the initial question was “What do you think are some of the challenges around implementing organizational change efforts at community colleges specifically guided pathways?” with follow-up open-ended questions related to their responses. The practitioners included a consultant who led national guided pathways implementation efforts, two community college presidents at colleges that were implementing guided pathways, and a community college assistant dean of student success that also serves as a state-wide guided pathways coach. The practitioners were selected based on their direct involvement with guided pathways organizational change efforts over the last five-year period at the national, state, and college levels and existing relationship with the authors. The conversations were held between Fall 2021 through Summer 2022. Conversations centered around the problem of practice regarding the challenges community colleges face in implementing organizational change for student success and the related topics of guided pathways implementation.

Findings

A synthesis matrix was used to organize the peer-reviewed articles, public scholarship, and practitioner conversations. After a review of the literature, three main root causes for why creating and sustaining institutional student success organizational change efforts particularly guided pathways is challenging emerged.

The first root cause focused on contextual challenges to collaborating for change including structure, financial, and leadership challenges. Organizational structures including college policies, practices, and governance were cited by researchers as barriers to both student success and institutional change. The organizational structure of the college itself and its departments and programs, as well as cultural norms that create barriers to faculty, staff, and administrators working together across the institution, multi-level leadership challenges, and financial and external pressures are all reasons that organizational change efforts are not implemented or sustained.

The second root cause that emerged was around awareness and motivation challenges for organizational change focused on people in institutions. Lack of awareness of the need for or how to change by faculty, staff, and administrators, along with a lack of motivation or resistance to the change effort can create significant roadblocks for colleges.

The third root cause that emerged was change management process challenges within institutions. Leaders in higher education may lack professional development in change management strategies and that can create significant challenges when they are faced with the need to develop an effective organizational change process that is sustainable over time. Many leaders may also not realize that there are resources to support them should they face resistance or other challenges to implementation. Leadership challenges, within institutions at all levels, was also a significant meta-theme found in the research that impacted all three of the main root causes.

Contextual Challenges to Collaborating for Change

Contextual challenges to creating and sustaining change can include structures, policies, practices, and governance that comprise an institution, as well as the silos that exist between different departments of the college or within roles of college employees (R. VanWagoner, personal communication, June 29, 2022). Context also describes internal and external challenges facing organizational change such as lack of leadership support at all levels, financial and budgeting challenges, and the impact of the global pandemic. These contextual impediments can create challenges for faculty, staff, and administrators who need to work collaboratively on organizational change efforts to positively influence student success (Bailey et al., 2015; Fay et al., 2021; Guth, 2017; Klempin & Karp, 2018).

Awareness and Motivation Challenges to Change

Based on the literature, lack of awareness of the need for or how to change along with a lack of motivation or resistance to change within institutions can create significant roadblocks for colleges (Bailey et al., 2015; Chase et al., 2021; Conrad & LeMay, 2020; Fay et al., 2021; Guth, 2017; Kezar, 2018; Klempin & Karp, 2018; McNair et al., 2016; VanWagoner, 2018; Walleser, 2018; White, 2022b). Not all community college leaders, faculty, staff, and administrators are aware of the need for organizational change efforts and even if they are aware, many may not know how to lead change or be motivated to engage in change efforts (White, 2022b).

Change Management Process Challenges

For organizational change to be successful, a series of actions or steps must take place and be sustained over time as part of the institutional culture (Kezar, 2018; Kotter, 2012). Kezar (2018) shares those challenges within a change framework specifically for higher education that include considerations around the type of change including the content, scope, level, focus, forces, and sources of change; context for change including the external factors and intuitional culture; agency/leadership which includes top-down and bottom-up, collective, and shared leadership considerations; and approach to change which includes how colleges use scientific management, evolutionary, political, social cognition, cultural, and institutional theories for change. All of which, if not considered according to Kezar (2018), can be barriers to change within a higher education environment. Kotter’s (2012) model maintains that organizational change fails due to complacency, lack of engagement of key stakeholders or a guiding coalition, underestimating and under communicating around vision, failing to create short-term wins, declaring victory too soon, and not anchoring the change in the culture. Although more linear and corporate than Kezar’s (2018) model, both underscore that change is difficult in complex systems like higher education institutions due to factors around engagement, timing, vision, and leadership (Kezar, 2018; Kotter, 2012).

Discussion and Recommendations

Community colleges are challenged to implement and sustain student success organizational change due to three main reasons: contextual challenges to collaborating for change, awareness and motivation challenges to change, and change management process challenges within institutions. Additionally, leadership challenges to support change efforts are evident in all three reasons. These reasons create barriers for community colleges to embrace, implement, and sustain organizational change efforts, especially guided pathways that will ultimately increase equitable student success, including increasing persistence and graduation rates. These barriers to student success significantly impact the social and economic mobility of students, as well as their families, especially for students of color.

Further research around contextual challenges could be helpful to understand how colleges have overcome structural and funding challenges in implementing their change efforts. In fact, CCRC and others are continuing to research the contextual challenges within community college reform efforts particularly around structure and funding for guided pathways implementation. Additionally, an in-depth review of external factors, like the pandemic, that impact internal organizational change should be conducted for additions to contextual challenges facing community colleges. Much of the research on change focuses on awareness and motivation challenges and less on the change process for colleges. There is limited research on how the change is implemented and sustained in organizations embarking on whole-college reform like guided pathways. In order to overcome these challenges, there are several possible options to provide specific supports for implementation and sustainability of the change effort.

Implications for Leaders

Based on the findings from this literature review, there are several actions that community college leaders can take to improve implementation of whole-college reform efforts and ensure that these efforts are sustainable. First, in order to address contextual, awareness, and motivation challenges, community college leaders can seek out professional development and training opportunities for their faculty, staff, and administrators and provide campus-wide opportunities for collaboration and provide communication. Also, honoring past change efforts can build organizational trust to move forward with new change efforts. Second, to address change management process challenges, colleges can seek out external coaches who can provide support and guidance. Coaches can also make sure that stakeholders have access to resources they need to understand the change process. Finally, senior leaders and boards of trustees must embrace and design support for change leadership processes within their organizations. One way for leaders to embrace this change approach is within their strategic planning process, hiring and human resources processes, accreditation review process, and changes to campus-level policies and practices. For each of the three challenges, there are specific recommendations for colleges to implement and sustain change.

Contextual Recommendations

To address the root cause of context challenges, it is recommended that colleges and their leaders:

• • Provide regular opportunities for leaders to engage in institutional-level conversations and collaboration using new or existing college forums and committees (Bailey et al., 2015; Lester, 2020);
• • Invite all college stakeholders including boards of trustees to participate in organizational change conversations (Baston, 2018; Fay et al., 2021; Gill & Harrison, 2018; Kadlec, 2019a; Luna-Torres et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2020; Walleser, 2018; Wyner, 2021);
• • Develop consistent messaging around support for change reforms from senior leadership, boards of trustees, and other campus governing bodies (Wyner, 2021);
• • Broaden the focus of leadership to include leaders at all levels and roles within the college who both understand the change in theory but also embrace it in practice (Eddy & Mitchell, 2016; Kezar, 2018; Klempin & Karp, 2018; Lester, 2020);
• • Align budgets with institutional change efforts (Jenkins et al., 2022).

Awareness and Motivation Recommendations

To address the root causes of awareness and motivation challenges, it is recommended that colleges and their leaders:

• • Develop regular opportunities for professional development around change for all leaders (Bailey et al., 2015; Chase et al., 2021; Conrad & LeMay, 2020; Fay et al., 2021; Guth, 2017; Kezar, 2018; Klempin & Karp, 2018; McNair et al., 2021; VanWagoner, 2018; Walleser, 2018; White, 2022b);
• • Expand and engage more faculty and staff in the work for change efforts to be successful (CCCSE, 2020; Rife & Conner, 2017);
• • Communicate the importance of the change at all levels so mid-level leaders, faculty, and practitioners can understand their role in the change process and how to contribute to the change effort (Bailey et al., 2015; Chase et al., 2021; Conrad & LeMay, 2020; Klempin & Karp, 2018);
• • Provide regular mechanisms for updating and messaging college stakeholders so they understand the need for the change and its impact on the whole-college (Conrad & LeMay, 2020);
• • Use data, sensemaking, and organizational learning to help stakeholders see the need for change (Kezar, 2018; McNair et al., 2016);
• • Help stakeholders understand the return on their investment of time and effort as part of the change effort and engage them in the development of the change activities (Chase et al., 2021; Conrad & LeMay, 2020; White, 2022b).

Change Management Process Recommendations

To address the root causes of change management process challenges, it is recommended that colleges and their leaders:

• • Use a macro change framework such as Kezar (2018) and engage the whole college in discussing the change such as guided pathways;
• • Help faculty and staff understand the knowledge around the why, what, and how of the change and the impact it will have on them (White, 2022b);
• • Reinforce that change may be a long-term process and use short-term celebrations to support the ongoing change efforts (Kotter, 2012; White, 2022b);
• • Provide mid-level leaders the professional development support, resources, and skills they need to bring about sustained change (Chase et al., 2021; Conrad & LeMay, 2020; Klempin & Karp, 2018; McPhail & McPhail, 2020; Reed, 2020; VanWagoner, 2018);
• • Communicate the change as part of the vision, mission, and values of the college (Kezar, 2018; Kotter, 2012; VanWagoner, 2018);
• • Use existing resources, like the Pathways Collaborative practitioner-focused toolkits, to support planning and implementing guided pathways (AACC, 2022c);
• • Develop or engage institution coaching supports (AACC, 2022c; ATD, 2022; JFF, 2022). Coaching, unlike consulting or mentoring, maintains that the answers to challenges of implementation lie with the college stakeholders undertaking the change effort and uses specific coaching strategies to support stakeholders in moving change forward (Boerner, 2016; Bragg et al., 2018; Bragg, 2019; McClenney, 2019).

College leaders at all levels could benefit from thinking strategically about implementing and sustaining organizational change efforts. The three challenges to implementing and sustaining the change efforts can be significant barriers to colleges’ supporting student success. However, if colleges and their leaders are more aware and understand the change process and the type of activities that support change as referenced in the recommendations, it can have a significant impact on sustaining and implementing the change reform efforts and ultimately supporting student success outcomes (Bailey et al., 2015; Baldwin, 2017; Jones, 2015; Kezar, 2018; McClenney, 2019; Stout, 2016; White, 2022b; Wyner, 2021).

References