Much of higher education was originally designed to meet the needs of full time 18-22 year-old students who enter directly from high school. However, the New Majority of our students are older, likely to swirl among institutions, and have significant adult responsibilities outside of the classroom. Academic Transformation: A Design Approach for the New Majority is a call to transform colleges and universities to meet the academic and student experience needs of New Majority students and for adult educators to become advocates, allies, and resources for needed reforms. Book contributors, including faculty, staff and administrators at public, private and community colleges, provide insights for this transformation. Taking a personalized approach based on a wide range of experiences, the contributors provide a framework for cross-campus conversations and collaborations to help stakeholders across the institution to understand New Majority learners' strengths, needs and challenges within an increasingly competitive educational market. The text begins with a description of New Majority learners, explores enrollment management and student experience considerations, articulates a retention model and adapted high impact practices to support student success, navigates technology considerations, and addresses the impact of academic transformation for New Majority learners on higher education finance.
Industry Reviews
In their new books Academic Transformation: A Design Approach For The New Majority and Serving the New Majority Student: Working from Within to Transform the Institution Malm, Weber, and colleagues make a compelling case for colleges and universities to pay increased attention to (and to redistribute resources toward) the students they characterize as the “new majority.” It shows how creative instructional design strategies can be adapted to meet the needs and take advantage of the strengths of new majority learners. As a faculty developer at a public university that serves a large number of new majority students, these books have challenged and extended my thinking about the nature of the professional enrichment opportunities we offer. I plan to integrate elements of Academic Transformation into my work with new faculty.
