Building Pathways Summit Explores Transformative Potential of Higher Education to Forge Futures

The pattern in the carpet in the room at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria, VA, which hosted the May 26 summit, looked like a series of interlocking tiles, Kress noted. However, a closer examination showed that the tiles go along routes that don't actually connect to the next tile. That type of lack of connection, lack of a cohesive pathway, is one of the top obstacles facing too many students trying to achieve a postsecondary degree or credential, Kress said.

It is every institution's responsibility to make sure that the journey to a degree is as straight and logical as possible. "At NOVA we ensure there is no wrong door," Kress said. "All the tiles connect. We've connected that pathway."

Kress was among a number of campus, civic, business, and student leaders who gathered for the half-day convening. The event capped ACE's Building Pathways series, funded by Imaginable Futures, which brought these types of groups together to advance student success and build stronger state ecosystems.

A project of ACE's National Engagement Office, Building Pathways was designed to advance student success by elevating state-led priorities and connecting them with national insights and resources. The summit in Alexandria served as a capstone for the series after events in Richmond, Virginia, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, and a national webinar.

The summit was opened with remarks from Sarah Spreitzer, ACE vice president and chief of staff of Government Relations, Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins, and Lance Collins, vice president of Greater Washington, DC, Area, Virginia Tech.

Mayor Gaskins, who touted the event on social media alongside her son, noted that "higher education was a transformative experience for me," one that helped her understand what she wanted to be and achieve as a working and productive citizen.

Collins noted that the building itself, a sleek technological showpiece, reflects the aspirations that Virginia Tech has for the work it wants to do in fields such as computer science and computer engineering, as well as business. That academic intersection helps prepare students for the workforce by embedding them in a realistic environment in order to tackle the kinds of challenges they will have when start their careers, he said.

Kress was part of a panel discussing national perspectives on cross-sector partnerships, which was introduced by Andrew Flagel, president and CEO of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area and moderated by Vandana Sinha. That panel also included Dr. Raj Chand, president of Inova Fair Oaks Hospital and ACE President Ted Mitchell. A panel on state innovations in action was moderated by Heidi Tseu, ACE assistant vice president for National Engagement, and featured Theresa Anderson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, Paula Robinson, director of student access, success, and engagement at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and David Ruth, president of Northampton Community College, whose institution hosted a previous series event.

The event concluded with a conversation featuring student voices from the states, a panel moderated by Bradley Wrenn, program manager for Military And Veterans Education at the University of North Carolina System and featuring Shyane Barnes-Taylor, a Posse Scholar at Kalamazoo College, Katherine Martinez, a graduate of Old Dominion University, and Chelsea Shipman, a graduate of Northampton Community College.

ACE's Mitchell used the connecting carpet tiles metaphor to sum up a key task for all of higher education. The idea of creating pathways and "integrating the carpet squares" is not just to establish specific skills, but to inculcate a set of portable skills and the ability to learn new ones and take on new challenges following graduation, Mitchell said.

This model should be part of a higher education ecosystem that involves challenges and responses from campus leaders meeting workforce needs, he said. "Here is what we need today, and can you help us, and here is what we need tomorrow, and can you help us."