IvyStrengths

Strengths Impact on Students

by Kathy Waltz-Freel

In an effort to gauge the impact of adding Strengths Quest to the curriculum, I have begun to collect retention data on two cohorts, students enrolled in IVY 071, who received a grade of A-F during fall semester 2005 and students enrolled in IVY 070, who received a grade of A-F during fall semester 2006.  IVY 070 and IVY 071 are the basic study skills classes that students who need Academic Skills remediation are encouraged to take along with their other developmental classes.  The most significant change in the curriculum that was made for these two groups was adding the Strengths approach.  Our preliminary data shows that the fall to spring retention rate for students enrolled in IVY 071 fall semester 2005 was 73% (119 students in the cohort, 87 of them returned for spring semester.  The fall to spring retention rate for the students who were enrolled in IVY 070 fall semester 2006, those who learned about their strengths, was 83% (181 students in the cohort, 151 of them returned spring semester.)

The fall to fall retention rate for those students who were enrolled in IVY 071 fall semester 2005 indicates that only 36 percent of those students returned to the college fall semester 2006 (43 out of 119).  I will be collecting the fall to fall retention data for the fall 2006 cohort, fall 2007 as well as continue to track both groups.

While I know that it is often difficult to know what factor or factors have contributed to student retention, I am encouraged constantly encouraged by the ways that my students have embraced the strengths concept and by these early numbers.

Students Define Their Strengths

by Kathy Waltz-Freel

As a part of the Region 2 Strengths Initiative, we have woven Strengths Quest into our IVY life skills classes.  Students do more than just take the Strengths Finder and complete some reflective assignments focused on strengths, almost every assignment they complete, whether the assignment focuses on whether one is a good candidate for distance learning or asks the student to find campus and community resources, students revisit their Five Signature Themes and how their themes impact them in the context of that assignment. The final project for the semester is a reflective paper on their strengths.  The papers this semester have provided some great definitions of the Signature Themes. (All have been shared with the student's permission.):

"My fourth strength is Achiever.  I feel that I am relating this strength at work now.  I work long hours, 12-18 hour days.  They say this is a theme that keeps you moving, it works for me.  People will say to me, how do you do it? I don't know, I just do it!"

"Competition was the third out of my five signature themes and this is the easiest out of the five for someone to see in me.  It is very easy, I hate to lose.  I think that competing with other people is a great way for me to compare myself with other people.  And when I think about it, it's not really important winning or losing, but having a scale to compare myself with other people . . .I'm not very good at letting other people be better than I am. I can really tell that I am competitive when I play someone younger than me in a video game, or maybe someone that has never played or seen the game at all and I have played the game for a few months, and I won't help that person out very much, and I will still play my hardest because I'm competitive, and I hate to lose no matter what the situation."

"My fifth strength is WOO which means winning others over.  A person with WOO loves the adventure of meeting new people.  They take satisfaction from breaking the ice with strangers and making a common connection . . .I have been to many gatherings with friends, and they always ask if I will be o.k. not knowing anybody.  I always am, in fact, I usually have a better time not knowing anybody."

"My final StrengthsQuest talent is Positivity.  My family tells me I am the glue that holds them together because I am always upbeat, always seeking the positive side of all situations. . . I awake in the morning with the attitude God has granted me another day ,and I truly do not want to miss a minute of it!"

"The final signature theme I would like to discuss is Discipline. . . I believe that this is also a great signature theme for myself because my dislike of surprises or anything out of the ordinary, my impatience with mishaps, my daily routines, and my detail orientation does not need to be misinterpreted as controlling behaviors that 'box people in.' I feel that my discipline allows me to focus on not only bettering my life and staying focused, but it allows me to provide the necessary tools that I need to set an example for my daughter, so that she can ultimately grow up, and develop into a strong African American woman, just like her mother.. . ."

Input's Output

by Jerry Madsen

Question: How many people with Input does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Depends.  Is it a halogen bulb, florescent bulb or a standard incandescent bulb?  Is it for a one-way or three-way lamp?  Is it indoor or outdoor?  If it's outdoor, is it a bug light or a flood light?  Is it for a ceiling fan or a refrigerator?  What is the bulb's voltage, light output, and lifetime?  What's the bulb's luminous efficacy and efficiency?  Does it have a standard E26 Edison screw base or is it for a string of Christmas lights?  Is it a white light or black light...

I tease.

But if anybody has ever sat in a planning session with somebody with Input, you know that the questions will come and probably faster than you can answer them.  That was the situation I found myself in last year after proposing to our administration that they allocate a portion of Lilly matching grant monies to a region-wide Strengths Initiative.

What I did not know at the time was that of the 13 members of our administrative leadership body - which is comprised of our Chancellor and 12 Executive Directors and Deans - nine of them had Input in their Strengths set.  The great thing about working with people with Input is that when they make a decision, chances are they have turned-over just about every stone and they make that decision with confidence.  The challenge is staying patient while all those stones get flipped.

Following our trip to the "Building a Strengths-Based Campus Conference" in June 2006, the aforementioned Jim Powell, Kathy Waltz-Freel and I were asked to submit a budget plan on how we would spend the grant monies if they were allocated to the initiative.  In preparing our plan, we made a conscience decision to partner with The Noel Academy for Strengths-Based Leadership and Education for one simple reason: They are and have been doing what we were hoping to accomplish.  So we teleconferenced with Eileen Hulme and her crew, got some direction, and settled on a Strengths-based strategic plan that focused on professional development, academic affairs and student life.

But as I said, when working with decision-makers who have Input, you have to wait for all the stones to be flipped.  Our administration was satisfied with the 16 page breakdown of dollars and cents, but now they had a whole new set of questions.  How effective is a Strengths initiative?  How will it help our region meet the state-wide metrics?  How will we know it's helping us meet the state-wide metrics?  What does the research say about Strengths?  How are other institutions utilizing Strengths?  Can it interface with the Bridges out of Poverty program?  How will you create buy-in among faculty, staff and the student body?  So on and so forth...

They were asking questions in that meeting faster than I could write them down.  All valid.  All legit.  Very few we were prepared to answer.

So I got Eileen Hulme of the Noel Academy back on the horn and this time she pulled Laurie A. Schreiner into the mix.  They helped answer some of our questions, compiled some data for us, and with Kathy Waltz-Freel taking the lead in the effort, we submitted a 15 page, single-spaced addendum to our original proposal.

I like to think that the final report was a Input-lover's dream, because on November 10, 2006, our administration unanimously approved the plan; a testiment to the Strengths initiative and to the Input strength.

Closing the Gap

by Jerry Madsen

As the Director of Student Life for Ivy Tech Community College's North Central region, any hope I had in implementing a wide-spread Strengths Initiative across three campuses was dependent one key factor: closing the gap that traditionally falls between faculty and professional staff.

In my twelve years as a student affairs practitioner, spanning six institutions, I have seen several colleges and universities take on the holistic education of students in a less-than-holistic manner.  For some reason we've seen fit to compartmentalize our curricular and extra-curricular efforts, blindly hoping that the left hand and the right hand will some how come together by graduation to form a resounding 'clap'.  Granted, the Chronicle of Higher Education is replete with examples of where this is not true, it is still far from what I would consider a wide-spread practice.  For years, student affairs practitioners have been calling across the gap for ‘Seamless Education’, getting only an echo in reply.

In my experience, it has been a slow turning.

That changed for me when I came to Ivy Tech in May 2005.  Here, I found faculty and staff working closely together to tackle issues ranging from enrollment management and retention to long lines at the bookstore and less-than-satisfactory vending options.

It was a vocational breath of fresh air.

So I surveyed the landscape and tried to identify the convergence of two factors among the faculty: (1) those with a visible and vested interest in the health of the institution and success of students and (2) influence.

I found what I was looking for in Dr. Jim Powell, General Education Department Chair and Kathy Waltz-Freel, Academic Skills Department Chair.

Now, I would like to think that I did such a magnificent job selling these two on Strengths that they couldn’t help but throw their support in my direction; however, the reality is this: They took StrengthsQuest™, saw its intrinsic value to our students, and our Strengths Initiative Steering Committee was born.

By June 2006 we had pulled some additional faculty and staff members into the fold and were in Omaha, Nebraska for Gallup’s annual “Building a Strengths-Based Campus Conference”.

It was this conference that served as the backdrop to our proposal to the administration…

Strengths In Jeopardy

by Jerry Madsen

My strengths, in order, are Ideation, Relator, Adaptability, Restorative, and Individualization.  Of the five, I am most aware of my Ideation (Considering it's the first, I suppose that would stand to reason).  I'm aware of it when I lift my head off the pillow each morning with a new idea and I'm aware of it each night when takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to slow my brain down long enough to fall asleep.

Now just because I'm full of ideas, doesn't mean that I am full of good ideas.  So when I think the two converge - 'idea' and 'good', that is - I tend to feel the need to share.

This past December I led our regional Student Affairs team in an introductory Strengths workshop.  Pressed to come-up with what I hoped would be a memorable activity, I created Strengths Jeopardy.  Granted, it wasn't the most original idea, but it was certainly entertaining for all those involved; participants and observers alike.

If you do any Strengths training, please feel free to try it out.  If you don't have the ability to project a PowerPoint presentation, the expense can just be limited to printings and the cost of a t-shirt or whatever college bookstore prize you deem appropriate.

Otherwise, click here to download the game board (PowerPoint format; hit F5 to run) and edit it to your liking.  But remember the golden rule of Jeopardy: All answers must be in the form of a question!

Enjoy!

Prelude to an Initiative

by Jerry Madsen

According to our website, Ivy Tech Community College is Indiana's "second largest public post-secondary institution serving over 106,000 students a year. Ivy Tech has 23 campuses throughout [the state]. It offers degrees that lead to good paying jobs and credits that transfer to other Indiana colleges and universities, allowing students to pursue bachelors' degrees."

But more importantly, Ivy Tech Community College is a group of people who have come together under the banner of wanting to serve the members of the community represented by each of our campuses.

Born out of a desire to improve Indiana's 46th national ranking in 'College Education Earned' among adults, in 2005, the College's central administration implemented the Strategic Plan 2010.  While there are several specific components and metrics woven into the plan, the overarching goals are as follows:

Increase successful program completions by 50% over a five-year period (2005-2010), across-the-board on a statewide basis.  This includes a...
... 50% increase in technical certificates.
... 50% increase in associate degrees.
... 50% increase in other, industry-recognized certifications.
... 50% increase in successful transfers to four-year institutions of pre-baccalaureate students.
The overarching goal for increasing program completion will be achieved within the context of a “balanced scorecard."

Each of the 14 regions within the Ivy Tech system were charged with the responsibility of contributing to the College's 2010 goals.  The North Central Region - which consists of campuses in Elkhart, South Bend and Warsaw - identified, among other things, the StrengthsQuest™ program and the Strengths paradigm as a key component to creating a student centered approach to meeting our goals and equipping our learners with the tools they need while at Ivy Tech and beyond graduation.

This 'blog' serves as the chronicle of our initiative...