Rural Guided Pathways Project: Phase 2

In Phase 2, Rural Pathways will expand to up to 32 colleges, including all but one of the colleges from Phase 1. Over the course of the next three years, the Phase 1 and Phase 2 colleges will be a single cohort. They will work with each other — and with community partners in their regions — to implement evidence-based, institution-wide reforms grounded in the guided pathways framework. Participating colleges commit to:

• Designing and implementing a better student experience at their colleges.
• Ensuring that more students earn credentials and move on to living-wage jobs or transfer to a four-year institution with junior status.
• Collaborating with key stakeholders in their regions to increase economic opportunity in the region and be partners in the implementation of a cross-sector approach to guided pathways.
• Implementing evidence-based reforms that will address inequity and lead to improved educational and workforce outcomes.

Rural Pathways is unique in two ways:

1. Rural focus. It is the first time a pathways Institute structure is focused specifically on the needs of rural institutions.
2. Community partners. It is the first time community partners are deeply embedded in pathways implementation. In prior pathways projects, institutions were asked to involve outside organizations in work on discrete topics, such as dual enrollment. In this project, regional partners are an integral part of each college’s team. The value of involving external stakeholders from the onset of pathways work — and giving them specific roles and responsibilities — is becoming increasingly clear. This need, moreover, is amplified in rural settings, where students’ education, residents’ economic mobility, and the regional economy are so closely intertwined.

Thus, the CEO of each participating institution will designate five or six community partners who are committed allies in enhancing regional economic opportunity. These community partners will participate in the project for its duration, including Institute participation (when content is relevant) and all in-person coaching visits. These community partners might include employers, economic development entities, transfer partners, K–12 institutions, community-based organizations, and others. The college must include leadership from K–12 partners and leaders from primary regional employers as community partners. These partners should share an aligned vision of the potential of this work to increase economic opportunity in the region as well as be partners in the implementation of a cross-sector approach to guided pathways. While the stakeholders selected for this role will vary by community, the common thread should be that these community partners have the regional relationship capital to advance the project’s implementation efforts.

This three-year project is funded by Ascendium Education Group, The Ford Family Foundation, and the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies as well as a group of national and regional philanthropies. Applications are due December 6, 2024. Following a selection process led by NCII and including national partners, up to 17 institutions will be selected for participation. The project begins in spring 2025 and ends in December 2027.

The Rural Guided Pathways Project provides a deliberate venue for rural college practitioners to collaborate while they work to improve student outcomes. Historically, rural community college leaders have not had many opportunities to problem-solve around the student success and completion issues that are particular to their culture, context, and capacity. Some rural colleges have participated in national reform efforts such as the American Association of Community Colleges’ Guided Pathways Projects and Achieving the Dream, but they often struggle to apply strategies — even those that work well at urban and suburban institutions — in their rural context. While rural leaders at all levels of colleges often create de-facto partnerships with colleagues to work through issues, these interactions tend to be unsupported, uncoordinated, and one-off collaborations; colleges do not have mechanisms to share what they learn more broadly with their peers at other rural institutions.

Guided pathways, as an implementation framework, has proven to be the most successful structure to help colleges plan and implement radical changes to the student experience at scale. Rural Pathways approaches guided pathways through the lens of improving the student experience. Participating institutions will learn how to implement the essential practices in the four pillars of the guided pathways framework using an integrated, cross-functional approach and involving community partners. Colleges will focus on how students engage with and move through their institutions. Further, colleges will rethink their current structures so they approach this work in an integrated way that breaks down internal silos. Colleges also will focus on improving completion rates, ensuring equitable post-college outcomes, and ensuring that their programs prepare students for employment and further education in fields that expand their economic opportunity and meet local workforce needs.

The Rural Guided Pathways Project curriculum includes six Institutes over three years, site visits, and virtual consultation. Each college also has a designated coach.

Specifically, participating colleges and their community partners will participate in:

• Six 2.5-Day Institutes (see dates below). Each college will send a team of eight people to each Institute. The team will be required to prepare for each Institute and develop action plans with a broader group of stakeholders following the Institute. Each Institute will include keynotes by national experts and leading institutions from the field; smaller, more interactive breakout sessions; and team working time with the support of the college’s designated Rural Pathways coach.
• Aspen College Excellence Program’s Leadership Teams Training. A new technical assistance component in Phase 2 will focus on creating stronger leadership teams at the rural colleges. In spring 2023, the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program issued a report — Rural Community College Excellence — that found that robust and cohesive leadership teams were missing at many rural institutions. This deficiency limits colleges’ ability to effectively tackle challenges and/or take advantage of emerging opportunities. To help address this shortcoming, NCII will partner with Aspen to deliver leadership team training for all colleges participating in Phase 2 of the project. Aspen will deliver in-person workshops at two Institutes as well as two virtual workshops per year.
• Office Hours. Each regional team will participate in two virtual office hours per semester; these sessions will include the college’s project lead and other team members as needed, a member of the NCII team, and the college’s designated Rural Pathways coach.
• Virtual Consultancies. Each college will be invited to participate in two virtual consultancies per year. These sessions, led by the college’s Rural Pathways coach and involving multiple colleges, are opportunities to collectively address problems of practice with peers from other institutions.
• Topical Webinars. NCII and its partners will develop and host three topical webinars per year. Participants can watch in real time and ask questions; NCII also will post the audio recordings and slides online.
• Site Visits. Each college will have one on-site visit from its Rural Pathways coach each year. During these visits, coaches can provide professional development to the broader campus community, customize support to specific college needs, and/or generate insight on challenges and potential next steps.

NCII will provide project leadership for this effort and build on longstanding partnerships with the Community College Research Center and the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program to support participating colleges. NCII will call on other partners to bring additional content expertise and perspectives as the team develops the curriculum and materials.

With most of the original group of colleges continuing in Phase 2, the selection process will identify up to 17 additional rural community colleges that are well positioned, internally and externally, to implement guided pathways at scale. Interested colleges will submit their applications and signed participation agreements by December 6, 2024. NCII will use a two-step process to review applications and select the participating institutions.

1. All applications will be read by two reviewers with knowledge of rural community colleges and guided pathways. The reviewers will use a rubric to score the college applications. Details about the selection process will be shared during the informational webinar on Monday, November 18, 2024, at 2 p.m. ET. Register for the webinar.
2. Based on the application scores, the review team will select 20–25 applicants for individual college interviews. These hour-long interviews will involve a series of questions that will help the review team delve deeper into the college’s institutional culture and capacity to embark on this work. Up to 17 applicants will then be selected based on the results of the college interviews.

The review team will assess one overarching criterion: whether colleges have established the conditions that will enable their institutions to implement — at scale — the reforms that are part of the guided pathways framework. Ideally colleges will have already begun the process of laying the groundwork for and/or implementing guided pathways and adopting its underlying practices. Some colleges may be far along in the implementation process. Most important, successful colleges will demonstrate that they have the internal culture and the external partnerships needed to advance this work.

Gretchen Schmidt, Senior Fellow
National Center for Inquiry & Improvement
gretchen@ncii-improve.com

Chris Baldwin, Senior Fellow
National Center for Inquiry & Improvement
chris@ncii-improve.com