BREVARD, NC. (September 2022) –The John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education (Gardner Institute) recognizes the five institutions who participated in the Curricular Analytics Community in the Summer of 2022. This online community involved faculty and staff who collaborated to develop more efficient curricular pathways. 

The Curricular Analytics Community was developed to provide institutions with a methodology, tools, and community that empowers them to analyze and improve their curricular systems. The initial 12-week experience combines improvement science and curricular analytics tools to help institutional teams identify opportunities for more efficient and equitable course redesign. This accelerated program allows participants to view and implement data in new ways which will result in a plan that can be immediately implemented at their institution.  

The five institutions who participated  in the initial launch include: 

• Frostburg State University  

• Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus

• Governors State University  

• Missouri University of Science and Technology

• University of Connecticut   

Dr. Brandon Smith, Associate Vice President of the Gardner Institute said, “Working with this summer cohort of institutions was inspiring.  Each institution leveraged resources to develop an action plan addressing context-specific improvements that they identified during the initial 12-week engagement. We are looking forward to continuing to learn with the community as each institution puts their plans into action this year.” Dr. Stephanie M. Foote, Vice President for Teaching, Learning, and Evidenced Based Practices added, “The impact of the intentional curricular redesign the institutions in this cohort have planned will be far reaching, and without doubt will change the trajectory for the undergraduate students they serve.”

The Curricular Analytics Community helps address broader institutional goals to increase retention and on-time completion, while also decreasing excess credit accumulation for students. The Gardner Institute team provides support and guides participants throughout the process. The program is also a part of a larger organizational redesign. 

Dr. Beverly Schneller, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Governors State University said, “The Governor’s State University team is delighted with the initial results of our curricular analysis of selected graduate and undergraduate licensure programs we were able to conduct this summer thanks to the Gardner Institute.  We benefitted from the structure of the analytics sessions as well as the tools. The results are being integrated into our strategic planning and key performance indicators as part of the continuous improvement efforts for the academic year now underway.  We are anticipating using the strategies and results as the benchmarks and templates as common ways for communicating the analysis process across the entire curricular over time.”

About the John N. Gardner Institute 

 The John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to partnering with colleges, universities, philanthropic organizations, educators, and other entities to increase institutional responsibility for improving outcomes associated with teaching, learning, retention, and completion. Through its efforts the Institute strives to advance higher education’s larger goal of achieving equity and social justice. For more information, visit www.jngi.org.

For more information contact Katie Locke, Director of Marketing and Communications, Gardner Institute, locke@jngi.org