An open letter from Thomas Katsouleas

Dear Coalition for Transformational Education Colleagues,

As a member of the Coalition for Transformational Education, UConn seeks to imagine what our University would look like for students if every one of our faculty and staff each shared a purpose to help transform the lives of our students.

A Life-Transformative Education is one that engenders identity, agency, and purpose in our students through authentic and inclusive learning experiences and emotionally supportive mentorship.

In November of 2019, I charged a Task Force at UConn to begin the work of creating a culture and infrastructure that ensures each student has the access and encouragement necessary to engage in their education as a life-transformative experience. I am pleased to share with you a summary of our efforts to date and chart a course forward.

UConn’s challenge is not a lack of life-transformative educational experiences. Individual professors and programs are deeply committed to this type of educational experience. The grand challenge is to effectively extend and scale life-transformative educational experiences to every single one of our 24,000 undergraduate students by their graduation.

I am sharing here a few key highlights. You can find the full report at lte.uconn.edu.

Pedagogical pathways

Under the leadership of the Authentic and Inclusive Learning working group, the Task Force identified seven pedagogical approaches that underscore authentic and inclusive learning:

•               Social-emotional learning

•               Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs)

•               Experiential and Action Learning

•               Service Learning

•               Social Justice Education and Dialogue-Based Learning

•               Human Rights Education

•               Intercultural Citizenship and Competencies for Democratic Culture

Advising and mentoring

The Advising and Mentoring group examined the role of advising and mentoring as a crucial pillar in students’ ability to fully engage in their education as a life-transforming experience. The group identified challenges and created suggestions related to providing emotionally supportive mentorship for all UConn undergraduates.

One initial pilot being launched through the LTE initiative at UConn is a mentoring program for students who are identified as at-risk of discontinuing their education. Faculty and staff volunteers are being trained this semester and will be paired with students to help them navigate challenges impeding their success.

Moving forward, the group will continue to explore these key areas into next academic year 

•               Assessment of advising, including job duties and reward structure: What does “quality advising” look like?

•               Advising roles, expectations, and support for faculty, staff, and students.

•               Advising models, scaling, and structures, across schools/ colleges/ departments and between faculty and staff advisors.

•               Barriers to effective and equitable advising and mentoring.

Engaging and expanding a network of LTE champions

One of the successes of the LTE project so far has been the bringing together of faculty and staff to envisage a transformative process in relation to campus culture, which has been advanced through: 

•               LTE task force and five working groups

•               Cultivate kick-off workshop to energize LTE champions

•               LTE speaker series

Several hundred faculty and staff have been engaged in these activities so far, with plans to expand the network of LTE champions in future academic years.

Next steps

To go from good to great, we have to catalyze our culture in gradual and not-so-gradual ways. We have to expand the quantity and variety of our best existing programs. We have to develop new programs by “listening louder” to our students, our alumni, our communities, and converting what we hear into actionable reciprocal impacts for those involved.

Moving into the spring of 2021, the LTE Working Groups have been restructured and received new charges to consider initiatives at various scales of implementation ease and resource needs, as well as how to infuse those activities with LTE’s core values. 

Why is LTE so important?

Never has the importance of Life-Transformative Education been more clear than now, amid a global pandemic and its economic repercussions, a nationwide reckoning with anti-Black racism and white supremacy, and the changed models of education as online teaching became a necessity.

Life-Transformative Education differs from past educational initiatives in three important ways:

1.                   It is focused on success as measured by well-being and work engagement outcomes long after graduation, rather than completion of college;

2.                   It moves mental health from an auxiliary service to a part of the core mission;

3.                   It is inclusive from day one with a goal of reaching every student.

Our community shares pride in UConn’s commitment to offering LTE to all students and I look forward to our continued efforts to produce effective solutions in the coming year. To follow our progress, visit our website.

Sincerely,

Tom

Thomas Katsouleas
President