Serving the New Majority Student

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. The New Majority Student: Working from Within to Transform Higher Education 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. The book utilizes a business perspective to academic transformation, providing a guide to how universities can redefine and restructure their education product to meet student needs. Taking a Human Centered Design approach, the contributors provide frameworks and examples of how institutions can reallocate technology, effort (internal, external, student, faculty) and finances to reimagine programs and ensure long term institutional health.

This two-book series is a major step forward in addressing the demographic changes affecting post-secondary education. The series offers an innovative framework for rethinking who the traditional student is, as well as strategies to create institutional changes to establish effective learning environments for the “new majority” of adult learners. Drs. Malm and Weber have used their extensive experience in higher education to create this timely and important series. I strongly believe that faculty and administrators from across the university community will find this an invaluable resource for creating more inclusive environments for today’s diverse student body., 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., While we continue to focus much attention on redesigning our colleges to create pathways to accelerate and improve completion for traditional first-time, full-time students, our country and our communities will only thrive in the future if we are also redesigning to support the access and success of “new majority” students. “New majority” students, once labeled as non-traditonal students, are older, working, parents, attending part-time and are often first generation students. This second in a two-book series is a clear call to action for college leaders to develop a “new majority” student success agenda that aligns processes, systems, scheduling, and programs to support the success of “new majority” students in achieving a degree or credential that has a high return for them, their families and the community they live, work and serve in. This book is a valuable resource for academic and student affairs professionals and faculty committed to engaging in comprehensive institutional transformation that makes their colleges “new majority” student capable., Serving the New Majority Student: Working from Within to Transform the Institution (Rowman & Littlefield), second of a two-book series, is a must-read for academic leaders who are committed to transformational change, particularly in responding to the needs of New Majority students: first-generation, part-time, adult learners.   On the heels of the first book, Academic Transformation: A Design Approach for the New Majority (November 2017), the second book focuses on solution-based approaches for educational effectiveness that can, and should, be applied to administrative processes.  One strategy for doing so is to reimagine planning, communication, and evaluation processes using the authors’ tool, the Balanced Values Scorecard.  Another valuable feature of the second book is an appendix that recommends critical conversations and team building exercises for cross-functional teams to use in engaging in courageous conversations to promote the success of New Majority students.

Dr. Eric Malm is an Associate Professor of Economics and Business Management and Chair of the Business Department at Cabrini University in Radnor PA.As a faculty member and administrator, Dr. Marguerite Weber has more than 30 years of experience designing, implementing and assessing student success systems at universities and community colleges.