When Audrey Jaeger, the W. Dallas Herring Professor of community college education in the NC State College of Education and executive director of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research, originated the Dallas Herring Lecture, her goal was to create a gathering that moves away from a traditional academic lecture and engages community college leaders in critical and emerging conversations about community college student success.
Now, Jaeger will preside over her 10th Dallas Herring Lecture on Nov. 19, 2024.
“Our goal each year is to identify a speaker and topic that resonate in North Carolina and across the country — allowing there to be practical, actionable insights attendees can implement,” Jaeger said. “From lectures on enhancing economic mobility to the future of transfer, we want attendees to leave empowered to make meaningful changes on their own campus.”
Attendees of the Dallas Herring Lecture come from across North Carolina and across the country. More than 1,000 participants viewed the lecture either online or in-person in 2023; and for some, like Forsyth Technical Community College President Janet Spriggs, the event is something they look forward to all year.
“The Dallas Herring Lecture is a highlight of the year. It offers a meaningful opportunity to reflect on our shared purpose and learn from the successes of community college leaders and sustainable practices across the country,” she said. “It challenges us to think deeply and critically about how we can innovate and collaborate to serve all students better and make North Carolina the best place to live and work.”
Since not every member of a community college faculty and staff can attend the lecture in person, many community colleges have started to hold watch parties to livestream the event, which expanded to an online format in 2020 during COVID.
“Stanly Community College has embraced the notion of having watch parties, coupled with having post-Dallas Herring Lecture discussions. These activities have resulted in some of our faculty and staff referencing lecture content well after the conclusion of the event itself,” said Stanly Community College President John D. Enamait. “Our faculty and staff still reference Dallas Herring Lecture content from three years ago. This demonstrates how the watch parties and post-lecture discussions lead to introspection.”
From Lecture to Practical Solutions
The 2024 Dallas Herring Lecture, scheduled for Nov. 19, will feature Russell Lowery-Hart, chancellor of Austin Community College District, delivering a speech entitled “Transforming Higher Education: Loving Our Students to Success Through Intentional, Courageous, and Systemic Leadership.”
The speech, and planned responses from community college leaders, Jaeger said, will focus on institutional transformation, strategies to achieve transformation and the importance of understanding the student experience in institutional change.
“In a time of great change, we are focusing on something we all care about, which is ‘loving our students to success’ and identifying strategies that can be immediately applicable to do that,” Jaeger said.
As in years past, the lecture will be the starting point to a year of research, professional development and engagement around a specific topic. It’s a strategy that, in 2018, led to a multi-year project that ultimately impacted thousands of community college students through classroom instruction.
That 2018 lecture, delivered by Achieving the Dream President and CEO Karen Stout and entitled “The Urgent Case: Centering Teaching and Learning in the Next Generation of Community College Redesign,” discussed the importance of having faculty engaged in student success conversations.
Following that lecture, Belk Center researchers began conducting community college site visits to learn more about teaching and learning, faculty excellence and what type of supports were being offered in relation to what professional development was available to faculty. The data gathered from these case studies later informed a successful grant application that led to the development of the North Carolina Teaching & Learning Hubs.
In partnership with Achieving the Dream and the NC Student Success Center, the four hubs reach all 58 of North Carolina’s community colleges to support scalable and sustainable professional learning activities for community college faculty. To date, the hubs have impacted more than 167,000 community college students who interacted with more than 2,100 faculty who attended professional learning sessions through the Teaching & Learning Hubs.
“The power of the hubs lies in the communities that faculty have developed across institutions and disciplines, which makes the internal benefits of the Hubs all the more unique,” said Belk Center Director of Programs and Initiatives Monique Colclough, who has helped spearhead the hubs since 2019. “Students and faculty are benefiting!”
“I’m incredibly thankful to see that the ideas shared in my lecture have sparked meaningful change across North Carolina’s community colleges,” said Stout. “By centering teaching and learning in redesign efforts, faculty are more deeply engaged in shaping student success strategies. The partnership with the Belk Center and Achieving the Dream has transformed these ideas into practical, far-reaching resources – a true testament to the power of collaboration in advancing educational excellence.”
As the Dallas Herring Lecture celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, Stout will be in attendance, along with every previous speaker from the past decade. It is the first time in the lecture’s history that all past speakers will be gathered together in one place.
- Categories:
