“Constellations” are organized to pursue “3fold gains”
An institution’s constellation (a single pattern of mutually supportive institutional features) is organized to pursue 3fold gains (improves quality, access, and affordability). To define what’s part of (or not part of the constellation), consider the causes of a specific set of 3fold gains.
A constellation includes three domains
Effective constellations consist of mutually supportive:
educational strategies (like HIPs implemented at scale),
organizational foundations (e.g., an office to develop and sustain a network of off-campus sites for undergraduate research and service learning), and
wider world interactions (e.g, marketing to potential students who are attracted by the opportunity to work on HIPs).
Confusors - dangerously ambiguous terms
Each of the following terms (and many other words and phrases used in describing higher education) have at least two widely-accepted but conflicting definitions. When someone includes a confusor in a statement or question without defining the term, the result can be chaotic such heated arguments and seeming unanimity cloaking invisible disagreements.
For each of the following terms, our definition is boldfaced.
Learning (quality): this term has at least three widely used definitions for describing academic programs.
Selected capabilities, achievements, and attributes of students completing their courses of study (our definition)
Evidence-based teaching and learning activities that improve learning compared with mainly presentation-centered teaching; (secondary definition); or
Resources (inputs): institutional inputs and resources such as selectivity; test scores of admitted students; faculty; facilities.
Opportunity (fairness):
Equal ability to enroll in college for many kinds of students;
All potential students judged for admission by the same standard of merit; fairness means highest rated students are favored;
Many kinds of students will have an equal chance to achieve excellence by the time they complete their academic programs (our definition)
Affordability:
With reference to a fixed budget of money or time, can a person or institution afford that product or activity? yes or no? (Rarely, we use this definition.)
Whether students, faculty and staff, and the institution itself have the resources and motivation to invest the money and/or time. For example, how much money must an institution spend on IT? How much time must an instructor invest per student in a course at minimum? maximum? Costs are almost always malleable. Ditto for how much money or time can be afforded (how much do you value the outcomes?) (our definition most of the time)
Additional definitions
At scale: an academic program or service is operating at scale when all the relevant people benefit from it. If a summer bridge program’s small budget allows it to serve only half of the at-risk students, that program is not yet working at scale.
Instruction Paradigm - a set of mutually consistent assumptions about learning. The most basic (and mistaken) assumption is that students’ ability to do academic work is fixed by the time they enter college. This assumption underlies the goal of exclusive excellence (improve quality by not admitting or failing the students who lack the needed ability; the most exclusionary institutions are the best).
Learning Paradigm: a set of mutually consistent assumptions about learning. Most importantly, research has demonstrated that the intellectual abilities of many kinds of students can be developed if the institution embraces practices such as High-Impact Practices and Guided Pathways to Learning. Chapter 1 of Pursuing Quality, Access, and Affordability details just how practices such as these can foster inclusive excellence. Chapter 6 uses these paradigms to describe how institutions support learning, pedagogically and organizationally. These practices are directed toward Inclusive excellence.
Scale: see “At scale” above.