College Success Professional Learning Community – apply by Apr 4

Posted by on February 11, 2025

The Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND) is a network of over 25 colleges and universities that strengthens service learning, civic engagement, and community partnership in the Greater Philadelphia region connecting academics and community involvement.  PHENND’s College Success work is focused on the impact of the higher education community and centers equity and student success.

A Special Opportunity to Work Together in Philadelphia

PHENND serves as a local partner in Bringing Theory to Practice’s (BT2P) Paradigm Project, a national multi-year initiative focused on systemic change across higher education. BT2P is a national project, headquartered at Elon University, that has funded hundreds of campus initiatives since 2003.  Building on that work, their Paradigm Project’s goals are nothing short of transformational:

• Advance holistic design of undergraduate education
• Build an effective movement for integrative change
• Shift national conversation about public purposes of higher education

BT2P is excited by PHENND’s efforts around college success and has invited us to be one of several “emerging models” working collaboratively with other exemplars on significant areas of educational improvement.

We are focusing our efforts on collaborating with local IHEs, CBOs and school districts around college success for Philadelphia students, especially first-generation students. We’re looking to ultimately have four or five institutions commit to working intensively on college success issues both individually and collectively. We envision a long-term, professional learning community model that exists at each participating institution, coupled with opportunities to come together as a whole collective.  The work we do locally will contribute to the efforts and learnings of the national initiative.

In our first two years we have been joined by campus teams from Community College of Philadelphia and Temple University. We are seeking new teams from additional campuses to join this work.

Applications are due April 4th. Read more about this initiative and see the full application here.