One of my favorite movies all-time is a movie called The Blues Brothers. The Blues Brothers was released June 20, 1980, and was a critically acclaimed comedy directed John Landis and starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, along with a cavalcade of music stars. It is part musical, part comedy, part action-drama. And it is famous for a series of fantastic and quotable one-liners that have endured for decades. I feel certain that I incorporate at least one line from the move every week, if not every day.
There is one scene in the movie when the Blues Brothers, desperate for a gig where they perform and get paid. They roll up to a dive bar called Bob’s Country Bunker and pretend they are the band previously hired to perform. Just before going on stage, Aykroyd’s character Elwood asks the bar tender, “what kind of music do you usually have here?” to which the woman replies, “well, we got both kinds, country and western.” The scene ends with the Blues Brothers winning over the crowd with a mix of country music cover tunes and modifying their playing style to play their own blues inspired music.
While the Blues Brothers is a comedy and should be treated as such, this scene does make me think about how collaboration is the uncomfortably odd house band who crashes higher education’s party. Recently I saw a tweet from Jim Woodell (@jimwoodell). Jim is a consultant who crafts collaborative engagements between higher education and community and business leaders to develop talent, share expertise, and generally work together for good. Over the past few days he has committed himself to a 30 day micro-blogging project that I am following. His April 24th post entitled “Effective Collaboration takes time, trust, knowing, and sharing” not only reminded me of the work the Florida Consortium, where I work, is doing but also of this Blues Brothers scene. The reason it reminds me of the scene is because higher education can present itself as the bar tender. Falling into a pattern where we say to students, well we provide you with both kinds of college, learning and research when college is much more complex than that. The Blues Brothers represent disruption and change. They come into this bar and create a bit of havoc, but the patrons (students) have the time of their lives and give the band a standing ovation. That’s what we try to do with the Florida Consortium.
According to Woodell’s short essay, time, trust, knowing, and sharing are not as much about the acts themselves but are necessary ingredients in building relationships that are not inherently meant to happen. Our organization is comprised of Florida International University, University of Central Florida, and University of South Florida. If you look at the state of Florida, we should be fierce competitors focused on taking each other down in an effort to serve our students. But we don’t do that because we take a disruptive Blues Brothers approach to collaboration. Recently, because of this approach we were awarded a $1.25 million grant from the Helios Educational Foundation to improve Transfer Pathways for our tens of thousands of transfer students. And we know we got there because we demonstrate Woodell’s elements of collaborative success. Here is how we did it.
Time
In 2015 we formed the Transfer Success Network when UCF reached out to FIU, USF, and Florida Atlantic University (not a member of the Consortium but a key partner here) and we started getting together to compare notes and provide support for our uniquely large transfer populations. Afterall, between the four universities we represent around 70% of the State University System transfer enrollment. And we decided early to just take our time. Don’t rush anything. And that is just what we did. We spent two years just meeting twice a year at one of our campuses. The campus would spring for lunch and space to meet. That was it. Our first budget cost like $150 a meeting. Then in 2017 we leveled up and sponsored a statewide meeting of transfer professionals we called The Florida Summit for the Acceleration of Transfer Success. We expanded our meetings to include all state colleges and universities and invited presentations, discussions, speakers, and ideas. It was there that the idea of collaborating for a transfer success project was born. And because we had a thought partner who had been on our side from the $150 lunch tab days, they were there to provide funding. It was taking our time that allowed for this success, not rushing too fast.
Trust
Trust built from time. We spent our time from 2015-2019 sharing data, student stories, processing ideas and this allowed for a trust to build. It was also important to note that since our staffs all did much of the same work (i.e., with transfer students) we had a common language and perspective. We all cared about transfer student success. Trust was built more by the time we spent sharing the aforementioned data and information. We agreed that if we wanted to use a process or program, we learned about we would assign proper credit and if we ever worked together and received a grant, we would distribute the funds in equal measure and with equal labor in the project. We also agreed to share our secrets. Afterall, we all agreed the ultimate goal was transfer student success so a student who graduates from UCF is just as important to FIU as their own students. Afterall, we are all in this together. But we also backed it up with an MOU to outline expectations and understand outcomes. This was important because it committed campus leadership to the idea as well.
Knowing
In his short essay, Woodell mentioned knowing each other as a critical component of collaborative work. I cannot agree more. In addition to time, the Transfer Success Network had a chance to get to know each other and to engage in each other’s lives at a level that was appropriate. This included sharing work related information and stories the entire group could relate to. During the time we spent in idea formation all three universities converted their Course Equivalency Data Entry process from manual to utilizing optic readers. But this did not start serendipitously. The move from manual to optic came because of the three transfer operations getting to know each other, sharing the inefficiencies in their offices, and looking for solutions. FIU was the first to jump into the optical reader pool and when their department shared it freed up several FTE positions to be reskilled for other important tasks and improved accuracy and speed for students then the other two universities jumped on the trend. Perhaps all three universities would have made their way to optic reading on their own timelines, but the knowing got us there faster. So, take the time each meeting to discuss topics like workplace conditions, process inefficiencies, and even where we are going on vacation. We find each time someone shares, someone learns.
Sharing
Speaking of sharing, the other side of knowing is the willingness to share. From the beginning of this partnership the willingness to share ideas, solutions, data, and innovations has been at the core of our work. Therefore, we designed and coordinated the Florida Summit on the Acceleration of Transfer Success. We wanted to provide a place where our state colleges and universities can gather and share the industry secrets that lead to enhanced student success. And there seems to be a statistical correlation between when we decided to share and improvements in the metrics. Since 2017, the year we launched the Florida Summit the two-year graduation rate for new Florida College System Transfers has improved in our network from 33% in 2017 to 42% in 2021. A nearly 10% improvement. We don’t think this is a coincidence. Pairing and sharing have always produced better results.
Afterall, we know there are more kinds of music than just “country and western”. If you trace the roots of music back you will find Country and Western music is a mash up of West African Instruments like the Banju that became the Banjo, Mexican Tejano music, Yodeling from the Hollars of West Virginia, Jazz from New Orleans, and even the Blues from Chicago. And Country merged with Rhythm and Blues to form Rock music, and the cycle repeats. The Florida Consortium did not take a Bob’s Country Bunker approach to solving the issues related to transfer success because we know helping students succeed is more than two or three solutions. So, like the Blues Brothers, we took what we were good at, modified it for the audience we needed to play for, and put on a great show where everyone got their money’s worth.