Quality And Quantity Count At Texas A&M

The National Commission on Higher Education has issued a call to action stating: “We believe every institution must pay as much attention to the number of degrees it grants —completion — as it does to success in admissions and recruitment.”

The Texas Legislature has made higher graduation productivity an increasingly high priority.

And Texas A&M University has delivered. The university surpassed a milestone of graduating a record 12,500 students in a calendar year this December, when the combined total of Texas A&M graduates, including the university’s branch campuses in Galveston and Doha, Qatar, was 12,593.

Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin noted that, “the university is a state, national and international leader in producing a high level of well-qualified young men and women for the workforce, entering the military or continuing their studies through graduate or professional degree programs.”

But are numbers enough? While Texas A&M officials are pleased with the increase in graduation productivity, they are even more focused on improving the retention and graduation rates. That’s why they are committed to seeing those increases accompanied by meaningful degrees that reflect deep rather than superficial knowledge and demonstrate the achievement of specific learning outcomes.

That is one of the reasons why embracing Texas A&M’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), “Aggies Commit to Learning for a Lifetime” is so critical. Karan L. Watson, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs stated that the goal of “Aggies Commit” is to “ensure that students, as well as faculty and staff, are experienced in making and sticking with commitments relevant to their growth as well-educated people who serve both professional and societal needs with excellence.”

The QEP is about creating a campus culture that prepares students for whatever the future holds and supporting that culture with significant university resources, including financial support through the Academic Master Plan’s reallocation funds.

That translates into increasing the number and types of high-impact educational practices available to students, increasing the percentage of students participating in these experiences and enhancing the coaching and advising necessary to help Aggie students plan, commit to and reflect upon their participation.

Programs such as the Faculty Teaching Academy, sponsored by Texas A&M’s Center for Teaching Excellence, provide faculty with the opportunity to learn from, and be inspired by, other faculty members. This year the focus has been on high-impact practices, with award-winning faculty leading seminars to share their methods for successfully incorporating these practices into their teaching. That translates into more Aggies benefitting from their participation in undergraduate research, internships, study-abroad opportunities, collaborative projects, diversity and global learning, writing-intensive courses and service or community-based learning.

Texas A&M students are also benefitting from the newly launched Academic Success Center, a holistic approach to helping Aggie students identify roadblocks to academic success, provide them with access to free comprehensive resources and help them achieve their highest possible academic potential.

As executive director James Kracht stated, “We are determined to build students’ capacity to be successful by encouraging them to commit to being successful. We know that once that commitment is made, students can engage in building the skills and doing the hard work that is necessary for success, both at Texas A&M and in the future.”

“While the high number of degrees granted at Texas A&M is worthy of recognition, it is important to determine that our strategic resource allocations and student success efforts are making an impact on our retention and graduation rates,” said Loftin.

“And to ensure the public trust in all we do, Texas A&M maintains transparency through our accountability website,” Loftin continued. “All stakeholders, internal and external, can easily access information about a number of critical issues, including the percentage of high-impact learning experiences provided in each of our colleges as well as yearly comparisons of our graduation and retention rates.”

“Aside from the impact we can make in being open and transparent to all stakeholders, this real-time data helps department heads, deans and university administration look at trends and when needed, make adjustments,” said Watson. “For example, this is data that helped direct our QEP.”

“I have every confidence that, over the long term, the data will show that Texas A&M students continue to exemplify a commitment to learning for a lifetime,” Loftin added, “while our university continues to demonstrate our commitment to student success and the future vitality of our state.”