Connecting the Stakeholders: Departments, Policy, and Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education
Naneh Apkarian, Western Michigan University; Dana Kirin, Portland State University; Jessica Gehrtz, Colorado State University; Kristen Vroom, Portland State University
This article reports on major themes that arose from discussions at the Mathematical Association of America's Precalculus to Calculus: Insights and Innovations Conference.

Estimating the Return on Investment (ROI) for Instructional Improvement Efforts Step-By-Step Tool Walk-Through
Daniel Rossman; Rayane Alamuddin; Martin Kurzweil
Step-By-Step Tool Walk-Through of the ROI Tool

Investing in Success: Cost-Effective Strategies to Increase Student Success
Jane Wellman; and Rima Brusi

Accelerating change: The power of faculty change agents to promote diversity and inclusive teaching practices
R. Heather Macdonald, College of William and Mary; Rachel Beane, Bowdoin College; Eric Baer, Highline College; Pamela Eddy, College of William and Mary; Norlene Emerson, University of Wisconsin-Richland; Jan Hodder; University of Oregon; Ellen Iverson, Carleton College; John McDaris, Carleton College; Kristin O'Connell, Carleton College; Carol Ormand, Carleton College
This article about preparing faculty to act as change agents to support diversity and inclusion is applicable to both two-year colleges and a larger audience.

How UT-Austin's Bold Plan for Reinvention Went Belly Up
Lindsay Ellis
This article provides a cautionary tale about large institutional efforts to redesign undergraduate education and the challenges of measuring what works. In 2016, UT Austin pledged to revamp undergraduate education, adding state-of-the-art online classes, redesigned curricula, and short courses, among others, to produce less expensive degrees, teach practical skills and expand access via technology. Dubbed "Project 2021" it also committed to measure what worked and adjust accordingly. By 2019, the project was deemed too ambitious and lacked support to continue. Several lessons about the impact of changes in undergraduate teaching are useful. For example, implementing regular quizzes in large classes narrowed grade disparities between students from different socioeconomic groups. Massive online classes modeled after late-nighttalk shows were hailed as a national model for using technology to deliver remote instruction and billed as next-generation undergraduate programs. Yet, while students rated the online courses highly, evaluations of student learning showed no advantage to the course delivering mode, and the cost for the heavily produced studio quality courses was high. Key conclusions from the project evaluation is that it was very complicated and lacked direction, got caught in bureaucratic processes, and was expensive.

Evaluating the Return on Investment in Higher Education: An Assessment of Individual- and State-Level Returns
Kristin Blagg; Erica Blom

Implementing Integrated Comprehensive Student Programs in STEM: Challenges and Facilitators from the CSU STEM Collaboratives
Elizabeth Holcombe, Indiana University-Bloomington
In my last post, I described the benefits of integrated support programs for underrepresented students in STEM. These integrated programs bridge organizational silos and build a unified community of support, in which faculty and staff work together to break down barriers to student success. The campuses that participated in the CSU STEM Collaboratives project saw increased student success and other organizational benefits as a result of creating integrated programs. While integration across functional areas represents a promising strategy for supporting student success, it represents a new way of working in higher education. Implementing integrated programs presents some unique challenges that may not be evident when implementing other types of interventions. In this post, I will briefly discuss a few of these challenges, as well as some strategies that STEM Collaboratives campuses used to overcome them.

Turning on the Thrive Channel to Accelerate Change in Higher Education
Susan Elrod, Indiana University-South Bend; Lorne Whitehead, University of British Columbia
Conversations about "institutional change" in higher education have become pervasive. This is probably because colleges and universities are under tremendous pressure - to graduate more students, to improve success of underrepresented minority students, to reduce costs, and to expand the benefits they provide to our society. Many state systems are engaged in developing performance-based funding metrics that are intended to promote achievement of specified goals. Others are engaged in major reorganizations that are merging or possibly eliminating campuses in service of larger goals that are important to the state, such as enhanced transfer, graduation or fiscal efficiency. This seems scary, but at the heart of all of this is a sound idea - since our society has a long history of improvement and undoubtedly there are still more improvements to make. And to do that, organizations must be adaptable; they must make changes for the better. Why then, is this so concerning for so many? A key challenge is that achieving change in any organization is hard. It is complicated. It involves many levels of the organization. It is motivated by a variety of purposes. It is challenged by competing agendas. It is frequently stalled by a variety of obstacles. Further, positive change requires a vision, strategy, and tactics. But most importantly, it requires effective change leadership. What does that actually entail?

Wider PERSIST at Boise State
Wider PERSIST at Boise State WIDER program to broaden faculty use of evidence based instructional practices and assessment by providing funding to STEM faculty and departments (including salary, stipends, course ...

What Is the Potential for Applying Cost-Utility Analysis to Facilitate Evidence-Based Decision Making in Schools?
Fiona Hollands; Yilin Pan; Maya Escueta
The authors investigated the feasibility of applying a decision-making framework based on cost-utility analysis to facilitate decision-making. A key challenge was guiding decision makers to find suitable evidence.