Achieving the Dream has launched a five-year, evidence-based initiative to help community colleges adopt shortened academic terms as a strategy for improving student success.
Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a national, non-profit reform network dedicated to helping more community college students—particularly low-income and disadvantaged students—succeed in earning a college certificate, diploma, or degree. The organization works with a network of more than 300 community colleges across the United States, providing them with resources, expert coaching, and data analysis to implement institutional reforms.
Fifteen-week-long semesters have long dominated the college landscape, becoming the de facto standard for most institutions. But proponents of shorter academic terms, like 8-week sessions, say they can be more valuable than traditional 15-week semesters because they offer increased flexibility for students balancing multiple responsibilities.
Achieve the Dream has launched a nationwide evidence-based initiative to prove that assertion.
This year, ATD introduced the Scaling Shortened Academic Terms initiative – a five-year program involving 16 community colleges across Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia -where shortened academic terms were already in-place, albeit in a limited capacity. The four Virginia Community Colleges selected for participation in the project are Mountain Empire, Brightpoint, Rappahannock, and Tidewater.
“They are all colleges that are very interested in shortened academic terms and are at various stages of implementation now, with all offering at least a few
Hutchison
shortened academic terms,” said Dr. Micol Hutchison, VCCS’s Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Policy and Instructional Support Services. “Achieving the Dream likely recognized that these colleges would learn from each other and were well-equipped.”
A major benefit of shortened academic terms is that students can focus on just one or two classes at a time, instead of taking four or five courses in a variety of subjects over the course of a term. “It allows working students and students caring for family members to have more flexibility with their schedule,” Hutchison said.
Advocates of shorter academic terms also maintain the abbreviated courses contain all the content and learning outcomes of a regular-length course. They’re simply compressed into a shorter time span. “The shortened sessions allow for more depth of learning,” said Hutchison, “in contrast to the longer terms, which may cover more breadth but with less depth.”
The selected community colleges will collect data and work with their Achieving the Dream coaches to identify what works and what doesn’t and then share that information with one another over the next half-decade. “This is an opportunity for our amazing faculty to consider aspects of their course design and delivery and consider in new ways how to best engage students and promote learning,” Dr. Hutchison observed. “While the professional development and behind-the scenes work isn’t without cost, it’s not an expensive endeavor; rather, it’s a shift in how we think about teaching and course delivery for today’s learners.”
Participating colleges are set to begin scaling condensed class offerings next year.
