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“As important as it is to get people into college, it’s also important to graduate them with the skills, competencies, attitudes and values to succeed beyond college,” says George Kuh, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the project that served as the model for the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). The two surveys share similar goals and have about a 75 percent overlap in content. This was intentional, explains Kuh, because “we have to think and behave as if the educational system in the country is seamless.” With a continuity of perspective, educators at two-year and four-year schools “stay focused on our primary goal and responsibility — to enhance the quality of the undergraduate experience at whatever level.”

A Lumina Foundation® grant for $1.3 million supports efforts to help schools use NSSE findings to spark improvement on their campuses. In partnership with the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), Kuh and his colleagues will gather and disseminate information about successful practices in place at 20 exemplary schools. These include large state universities, small private campuses and historically black colleges.

“We’ve identified institutions that have better-than-predicted survey scores and graduation rates,” explains Kuh. Probing the factors behind the statistics is at the center of the Lumina Foundation-funded Project DEEP — Documenting Effective Educational Practices. “Teams of researchers will make site visits to study the kinds of programs, policies and practices that are working well. We want to learn how the schools brought the ideas on line and how they’ve implemented them. These are lessons that will help other institutions as they work to improve the undergraduate experience.” Among activities planned in conjunction with the release of survey data are summer academies for teams of educators and roundtable discussions attended by campus administrators, legislators and other stakeholders.

A separate but related project is BEAMS — Building Engagement and Attainment of Minority Students. Supported by a Lumina Foundation grant to AAHE in partnership with NSSE, this five-year initiative will strive to improve retention, achievement and institutional effectiveness at historically black, Hispanic-serving and tribal colleges. The role of NSSE is to recruit the participating schools, administer the survey and score the data. Using the NSSE results, the campuses will create plans to enhance student engagement and promote student and institutional goals.

“We’re excited about the BEAMS project,” says AAHE President Yolanda Moses. “It gives us the ability to work with some of the most remarkable campuses in America to strengthen student learning and institutional effectiveness. What we learn is going to be valuable to a national higher education audience as well.”