If the pandemic has shown anything, it is that colleges and universities can make significant change -- like scaling online learning or implementing test-blind admissions policies -- much faster than they thought. Fortunately, there’s a process that can make rapid change far more manageable than the haphazard experience many institutions had in spring 2020.
Short-term improvement cycles, pioneered for public purposes and developed over time by the Carnegie Foundation and the Institute for Health Care Improvement, are commonly used in a variety of settings inside and outside education. In recent years, our team at Sova has been working with institutions to use simplified 90-day and 120-day improvement cycles to make progress on vexing problems that negatively impact transfer students.