WSSU to participate in project to improve degree efficiency

Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) will partner with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and three other institutions on a three-year project to develop best practices for faculty-led curriculum changes.

The goal of the initiative is to develop a scalable model to engage faculty and revise curriculum in a manner that makes attaining a degree more efficient for students and improves graduation rates.

The project, “Purposeful Pathways: Faculty Planning for Curricular Coherence,” is funded through a $300,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation.

In 2016, WSSU along with Community College of Philadelphia, the University of Houston-Downtown, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, received a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation to design action plans around priorities unique to their campuses. Project teams analyzed the departments and faculty they would engage and identified performance metrics to measure the impact of their action plans.

With the new grant, AAC&U will guide teams through the implementation of their action plans and help them better understand how to bring high-impact practices across their universities and measure student success.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to build upon our work and expand this project,” said Carolynn Berry, associate provost at WSSU. “Improving curricular coherence is a key part of our strategic plan. We are committed to providing our students purposeful pathways that guide them to higher learning and practical knowledge through curricula that engages them in high-impact practices.”

Participating in the three-year project will allow WSSU to expand its efforts across all academic departments and to better engage faculty in the process of refining curriculum, Berry said. At the conclusion of the project, participants will share best practices and provide a model for other universities to follow.