With a major emphasis on low-income and first-generation students, 11 public research universities have joined together in a national coalition to develop new practices to improve retention and graduation rates. Last week, college presidents representing Arizona State University, Purdue University and other schools comprising the newly launched University Innovation Alliance (UIA) announced their collaboration in Washington.
Philanthropic organizations, including the Lumina and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, have committed $5.7 million to support UIA’s work and UIA universities are expected to match that investment with institutional funds. Organizers say the UIA’s intent is to develop a national playbook of ideas and proven interventions that will prove particularly beneficial to low-income and first-generation college students.
“While all postsecondary institutions have a role to play in raising college graduation rates, research universities in particular can be leaders in improving social and economic mobility in three ways: by serving a large proportion of low-income students; by modeling for other institutions the practices and commitment necessary to succeed; and by applying intellectual and research capacity to the issue, as they do to other significant social and scientific challenges,” according to the UIA’s “vision and prospectus” report released last week.
Dr. Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University and the UIA chairman, has characterized the push to build collaboration among institutions accustomed to competing against other schools as one that should lead to meaningful innovation. “These universities have been competing against each other…and we’re not getting to where we need to be,” Crow told an audience in downtown Washington last week.
“Therefore, 11 major public universities, deeply committed to innovation, deeply committed to making things happen, are going to come together and learn from each other. And no school can do this by themselves,” he said.
Purdue University president Mitch Daniels described the alliance as an opportunity for the Indiana-based university while relying on “purposeful innovation” to become a better institution. “We’re going to have to embrace an ethic of student success on our campus that says we want to take more students; we want to have a more diverse population of students; and we’re no longer here to weed them out as historical legend has it. We are here to help them succeed and accept that that is part of our responsibility,” Daniels said last week at the UIA announcement.
