\n<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, the Louisiana Board of Regents decided to ditch the term \u201cnoncredit\u201d as a way to refer to short-term and workforce programs at colleges and universities.<\/p>\n
Board members were struck by \u201cwhat a terrible term that is\u201d for the wide swath of education and workforce training pathways that students can take, said Tristan Denley, the Louisiana Board of Regents\u2019 deputy commissioner for academic affairs and innovation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not that many things in life that get described by what they\u2019re not,\u201d Denley said. \u201cThat term just didn\u2019t in any way seem to capture what these kinds of credentials are, what students gain by earning them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louisiana now uses the phrase \u201cvalidated skills and learning.\u201d The goal is to convey to students that these programs show a mastery of skills valued by employers.<\/p>\n
Louisiana isn\u2019t the only one getting rid of \u201cnoncredit.\u201d The state is part of the Noncredit Mobility Academy, a group of higher ed officials from six states, which the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, Education Strategy Group and Progressive Policy Institute brought together to work on their noncredit offerings. The group\u2014representatives from Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Texas and Virginia\u2014has collectively decided the term \u201cnoncredit\u201d has to go, according to a recent blog post from SHEEO.<\/p>\n
Carrie Klein, associate vice president of SHEEO, said calling courses noncredit focuses solely on what students aren\u2019t getting\u2014college credit\u2014versus what they are gaining. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are getting opportunities that help them advance in their career,\u201d Klein said, \u201cwhich is good not just for them as individuals but for the state, as well, and for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The renaming trend is catching on among states and higher ed institutions alike. Montana now calls noncredit programs \u201cvalidated skills and training.\u201d Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana refers to these programs as \u201cskills training\u201d to better \u201creflect the value of these courses for our students,\u201d college officials told Inside Higher Ed <\/em>in an email. Clark State College in Ohio uses the term \u201cprofessional credit\u201d programs. <\/p>\n Jo Blondin, president of Clark State, said she was tired of the \u201cdeficit framing\u201d around noncredit students.<\/p>\n \u201cThe implication to me is you\u2019re really not a student. You\u2019re not a learner,\u201d Blondin said. \u201cYou don\u2019t matter to the institution the way that the credit students do. And nothing could be further from the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n The term \u201cnoncredit\u201d is widespread in academic circles, but it\u2019s often opaque to students, especially first-generation students, Denley said.<\/p>\n When students hear a program is noncredit, they often ask, \u201c\u2018What do you mean it\u2019s noncredit? Do I not get credit for doing it?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just very difficult unless you\u2019re on the inside of higher education nomenclature to know what it is that\u2019s being said there.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes the state\u2019s new terminology makes it easier for campuses to explain program options to prospective students.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, what\u2019s in a name can be important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n To Blondin, the term \u201cnoncredit\u201d reflects a bigger issue: the \u201cbifurcation at colleges and universities around academic credit,\u201d which she\u2019d like to do away with. She said at too many institutions, students in short-term programs are treated differently than peers in credit-bearing classes. For example, they may not get student IDs or have access to the same wraparound services that other students do.<\/p>\n She believes this two-tiered system stems from the fact that federal financial aid funding depends on students taking a certain number of credit hours. As a result, credits play an outsize role in how colleges are structured, sometimes to the detriment of noncredit programs. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re moving toward\u00a0\u2026 ensuring that our professional credit students are eligible for all of the services that any student would get at Clark State, including wraparound services, counseling, tutoring,\u201d Blondin said.<\/p>\n Kanler Cumbass, senior associate at Education Strategy Group and the author of the SHEEO blog post, also emphasized that renaming these programs is just one step in ensuring these students get the care and attention they deserve from state and higher ed leaders.<\/p>\n For too long, noncredit programs have been a \u201cblack box\u201d or the \u201chidden college\u201d within the college, he said. Having an open debate about how these programs are characterized is part of a broader effort to bring these students into the \u201climelight.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe name change has to be supplemented with both a statewide and higher education institutional commitment to student success for learners who start their postsecondary journey through short-term training programs,\u201d Cumbass said.<\/p>\n These programs should \u201chelp you land a good job to put more food on the table for your family,\u201d or offer \u201ca clear, automatic, stackable pathway into longer-term learning to do the exact same,\u201d he added. \u201cA name change by itself does not accomplish that goal,\u201d but it\u2019s a part of a \u201cslow shift.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of years ago, the Louisiana Board of Regents decided to ditch the term \u201cnoncredit\u201d as a way to refer to short-term and workforce programs at colleges and universities. Board members were struck by \u201cwhat a terrible term that is\u201d for the wide swath of education and workforce training pathways that students can take,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[495,23098,2969,199,3545],"class_list":{"0":"post-44501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-higher","9":"tag-noncredit","10":"tag-officials","11":"tag-state","12":"tag-term"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What\u2019s in a Name?<\/h2>\n