Creativity and the Community College

Educational outcomes today are not what they should be. American students are falling far behind their Asian and European counterparts in math, science, reading and writing. Once a major producer of engineers, America lags behind other industrialized countries.

We face a shortage of nurses and other healthcare workers. Our inability to train and retain good teachers creates a threat to the collective intelligence of our nation as a whole. Our infatuation with “professional” college education over vocational and career training that began in the Kennedy space-age era now threatens America’s manufacturing base. To add insult to injury, statistics from the Illinois Board of Higher Education show that more students are coming out of high school unprepared for college-level work.

The American educational crisis is every bit as threatening economically in the long term as the gas crisis is in the short term.

George R. Boggs, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, says it’s time to value creativity over tradition in higher education. The outcomes of what education does—that is, what the student has learned—rather than how the organization manages its resources must become the measure of educational success.

Illinois Central College has been developing outcome-based accountability. While most colleges and universities engage in student satisfaction and engagement surveys, few try to actually use the data for improvement. ICC does. In fact, at ICC, senior administrators’ compensation is based on improvement on key indicators for student learning, service to students, educating more people and creating value. These core goals drive organizational decisions. While this is not new for most corporations and businesses, higher education has traditionally eschewed this approach.