July 19, 2019

CCRI goes to Florida!

CCRI Advances Coaching for Change (C4C) Efforts

As a national partner of Jobs for the Future (JFF), CCRI supports the Student Success Center Network (SSCN) Coaching Program with strategy development. Since 2017, CCRI has collaborated with Student Success Center (SSC) executive and assistant directors from around the country to advance statewide coaching initiatives. Building on lessons learned from the Coaching Pilot, CCRI is partnering on Jobs for the JFF’s (SSCN) Guided Pathways Coaching program to support SSCs in operationalizing and developing their state designed coaching plans for guided pathways implementation at scale and other reform efforts. Five SSCs from around the country received grants to participate in this two year program. 

These five SSCs convened for a half-day workshop to learn from and about each other’s coaching program and tools we created for them to advance their coaching work. The discussion we facilitated allowed SSCs to share and learn from one another on the following topics; strategic planning, college readiness for coaching, and advancing racial equity. Throughout the discussion, we introduced drafts of our tools and resources related to each of these topics that are grounded in organizational change, coaching principles, equity-mindedness, and Center for Urban Education’s Equity by Design principles.

Read about Coaching for Change

Designing Destiny: How to Engage in Equity and Inclusion

CCRI’s Dr. Lia Wetzstein and Katie Kovacich joined Oregon’s SSC Executive Director Elizabeth Cox Brand and New York’s Rockland Community College President Dr. Michael Baston in leading a working session at Jobs for the Future’s (JFF) Postsecondary State Network Bi-Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale. 

In our session, Designing Destiny: How to Engage in Equity and Inclusion, we used frameworks based on Reflective and Critical Reflective Practice and the Collaboration Continuum to give attendees the tools and strategies they need to navigate and facilitate the sometimes difficult conversations that people must have in order to truly engage in the critical work of improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. We highlighted practices at both the system and institutional levels, and offered examples from the coaching model being used in the Oregon Pathways cohorts and the engagement strategy that Rockland Community College uses to build campus-based support with and through stakeholders.