Joan Ruelle and Deandra Little deliver keynote address at symposium on high-impact practices

Joan Ruelle, dean of the Carol Grotnes Belk Library, and Deandra Little, assistant provost and director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, delivered the keynote address at the Seattle Pacific University Symposium on High-Impact Practices (HIPs) in Academic Libraries on Oct. 27, 2020. This is an award-winning proposal for a one-day event held by and for the Orbis Cascade Alliance consortium, consisting of about 40 academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest. The Engaged Library: High-Impact Educational Practices in Academic Libraries (2020, ALA) is edited by Ruelle and features an introduction by both presenters entitled, “A SoTL View of HIPs and Libraries.”

High-impact educational practices (HIPs) — as identified by George Kuh and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (2008) — are widely recognized as activities that promote student engagement, student retention, and positive student learning outcomes. How these 11 practices are implemented may vary some, depending on institutional context and priorities, as well as on the learners themselves, but are all meant to create substantive activities that deepen student learning, engagement, and success.

A persistent struggle for libraries has been articulating how libraries directly and indirectly contribute to student success, and calls to better measure and articulate the contributions of libraries to student learning are well-represented in our profession (most notably through the ACRL Value of Academic Libraries initiative). As high-impact practices become a leading measure of engaged pedagogy on college and university campuses, we hope to provide an entry point for academic librarians looking to learn more about HIPs so they can lead, partner, and contribute to engagement and assessment with HIPs on their campus to better communicate the academic library’s value to the broader academic community.