Founded on the Practice of Research-Driven Continuous Improvement: How Guttman Community College Embedded Self-Study from the Outset

Abstract

Launching a new institution of higher education requires navigating complex stakeholder relationships while justifying significant public investment. The rarity of successfully launching new postsecondary institutions makes each case a valuable source of insights for higher education leaders seeking to advance institutional innovation. This case study examines how the City University of New York (CUNY) successfully founded Guttman Community College (GCC) in 2012. Using Strategic Academic Research and Development (SARD) as a conceptual framework, we analyze two distinct phases: the founding process (2007–2012) and early operational years. During the founding phase, CUNY’s planning team excavated research-based best practices from leading experts and harnessed local expertise through consultative meetings with community college presidents, administrators, and faculty from across the university. In the operational phase, GCC institutionalized continuous improvement through an advisory board, dedicated Assessment Days, the Academic Assessment & Learning Committee governance structure, and the SAGE (Systematic Approach for Guttman Effectiveness) framework. Despite recent declines following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the college’s initial three-year graduation rate of 49.1% dramatically aaexceeded CUNY’s community college average of 15.9% from the same time period. This case demonstrates how systematic application of SARD principles can guide successful institutional innovation in higher education.

1. Introduction

Launching a publicly funded institution of postsecondary education is a monumental feat. Startup funds far exceed operational costs of existing institutions and justifying such a large investment to the wide array of constituent groups that have a stake in such an endeavor requires care and precision. Those involved in stewarding this kind of project need to convince politicians, political appointees, other government officials, higher education experts, peer institutions, and taxpayers that such a project is warranted. For those undertaking such a task, the odds of successfully progressing from an initial vision of a college to opening and maintaining an institution can feel as fragile and unlikely as sparking and sustaining new life on an uninhabited planet. Given the undeniable challenge of bringing a new institution of postsecondary education into existence, those of us interested in strengthening and advancing initiatives in higher education can learn a lot from the rare cases in which a new college is born.

The challenge of creating a new educational institution occurs alongside a growing body of scholarship about evidence-based innovation and educational reforms. Higher education researchers have increasingly pointed to the importance of systematic approaches to organizational change (Kezar, 2018), yet studies consistently document gaps between what we know from research and what is implemented in colleges and universities (Froyd et al., 2013; Henderson et al., 2011). Along with noted gaps between research and practice, we also know that the complexity of postsecondary schooling makes effectuating sustained positive change difficult. While some institutions have achieved remarkable improvements in student outcomes through reforms like guided pathways models and other evidence-based interventions (Jenkins et al., 2018), many reform efforts have struggled with implementation challenges, sustainability issues, and resistance to organizational change (Karp, 2016; CCCSE, 2024).

The broader movement toward data-driven decision making and continuous improvement in higher education provides a framework for understanding how institutions can systematically apply research to enhance student outcomes (Swing & Ross, 2016). Most existing scholarship in this area focuses on reforming established institutions rather than building new ones from empirically-grounded principles. We bring new perspective to this body of scholarship by drawing upon a case study of using research-based best practices in the design and implementation of a new institution.

In 2007, the City University of New York (CUNY) initiated the process of building their first new college in four decades. Five years later, the New Community College, later named Guttman Community College (GCC), welcomed its first class of students. While there is much to be learned from the launch and early administration of GCC, for the purpose of this special issue of Education Sciences, we focus attention on the ways in which the people involved in the launch and administration of GCC made use of Strategic Academic Research and Development (SARD).

Borden and Torstrick outline six tenets of SARD in the lead article for this special issue, and they argue for the use of “integrative, evidence-informed, and action-oriented strategies to make HEIs more inclusive and educationally effective” (Borden & Torstrick, 2025, p. 2). We use SARD as a conceptual framework to better understand the case study of GCC’s founding and early years of operation. First, we consider the ways in which leadership relied on research-based best practices and local expertise in the planning process that led to the launch of GCC. We then turn to an analysis of how the founding faculty and leadership of GCC maintained their commitment to evidence-based decision making to steer the college during its early years. After our discussion of these two distinct periods of time in GCC’s history, we consider how this case study aligns with SARD and identify lessons learned for those looking to advance new initiatives in the field of higher education.

2. Methods

This study employs a single case study design to examine the founding and early operational years of GCC through the lens of SARD. Case studies are particularly appropriate for investigating contemporary phenomena within their context, especially when the phenomenon being studied is deeply embedded within and shaped by its surrounding environment (Yin, 2018). This approach is well-suited for educational research when the goal is to understand complex processes and their outcomes within specific institutional contexts (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). The rarity of successfully launching a new postsecondary institution makes GCC a critical case that can yield insights transferable to other higher education innovation efforts.

2.1. Data Sources

We made use of multiple sources of data to triangulate findings and ensure as comprehensive of a review of GCC’s evolution as possible. In particular, we drew from the following:

• Institutional Documents: We reviewed primary sources including the New Community College Concept Paper (Mogulescu, 2008), Assessment Day agendas, and governance documents outlining the Assessment & Learning Committees structure and SAGE Framework.
• Published Accounts: We analyzed news articles and academic journal articles on the founding of GCC as well as the detailed memoir of CUNY’s former Senior University Dean for Academic Affairs, which has a chapter dedicated to the founding of GCC.
• Expert Stakeholder Perspective: We sought out direct input from key participants and made direct use of personal communication with a GCC Advisory Board member who provided reflections on the Board’s role during GCC’s early operational years.
• Quantitative Outcomes Data: We analyzed graduation rate data from CUNY’s Office of Applied Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics.
• Survey Data: We drew upon the 2008 CUNY-wide faculty and staff survey (D. Allen, 2008) that informed the planning process for the new institution.

2.2. Data Analysis

We conducted our analysis in two phases, corresponding to distinct phases in GCC’s history: the founding process (2007–2012) and early operation years (2012–present). For each phase, we completed a document analysis to identify evidence of SARD principles in action, using the six SARD tenets as deductive codes and remaining open to emergent themes. Document analysis is a useful tool for applying an established framework to a retrospective analysis as it allows researchers to structure their review of artifacts in a systematic manner (Bowen, 2009). To facilitate one part of our document analysis, the content analysis of three years’ worth of Assessment Day agendas, we made use of ChatGPT 4. We carefully reviewed and edited the output prior to finalizing the results of this portion of our case study.

Our analytical approach also included (1) the chronological mapping of key events and decision; (2) the thematic analysis of institutional structures and processes; (3) the comparison of stated intentions in planning documents with implemented practices; and (4) the integration of quantitative outcome data to assess the effectiveness of the new institution. Throughout our study, we sought to enhance validity by triangulating findings across multiple data sources. The retrospective nature of our case study allowed us to examine both the intended and unintended consequences of design decisions, enabling us to consider how principles of SARD may have contributed to the college’s initial three-year graduation rate that was more than triple the average of other CUNY community colleges from the same period.

3. Founding Guttman Community College

CUNY is the largest urban public university in the United States, serving nearly 240,000 students per year. Its former chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, began working with his leadership team to build a new community college in 2007. The chancellor directed Senior University Dean for Academic Affairs John Mogulescu to chair the planning team with the goal of outlining a complete vision for the college by the summer of 2008 (Mogulescu, 2023). Along with Tracy Meade, who led the New Community College Planning Team, Senior University Dean Mogulescu began the intensive process of developing a blueprint for the new college. Knowing just how complex a process they were initiating, those involved in the initial stages of founding this new community college immediately structured their planning process in a way that aligned with the tenets of SARD.

The New Community College Planning Team sought to develop an institution that far outperformed traditional community colleges. In 2008, the nationwide three-year community college graduation rate was 34%1; CUNY’s three-year community college graduation rate was only 13% (CUNY Office of Applied Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics, 2025). With the clear goal of building an institution that dramatically surpassed CUNY’s community college graduation rates, the planning team set to work identifying research-based best practices for guiding students to an associate’s degree (Mogulescu, 2023). In the following sections, we describe how CUNY leadership’s efforts to excavate research-based best practices and harness local expertise while completing a blueprint for the new college connected to and affirmed the value of SARD.

3.1. Excavating Research-Based Best Practices to Complete a Blueprint for the New College

Before the planning team took on the task of identifying research-based best practices, they first needed to deepen their understanding of the students they aimed to serve and the wider social, economic, and educational context within which they were operating. This approach aligns with principles identified in higher education organizational change literature, which emphasizes the importance of understanding institutional context before implementing evidence-based interventions (Eckel & Kezar, 2003). Unlike many top-down reform models that attempt to transplant successful practices from one institution to another, the planning team’s contextual analysis reflects what Dowd and Bensimon (2015) describe as “practitioner-inquiry”—the process of systematically examining local conditions and student needs to inform evidence-based decision making (Bensimon, 2007).

As noted in their concept paper, the planning team was not looking to develop a “one-size fits all model for community college education” (Mogulescu, 2008, p. 7). During this stage of the work, the planning team drew upon CUNY’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, their own knowledge from their time working at CUNY, and a range of other sources of quantitative and qualitative data. Through this process, several important facts rose to the surface, and the planning team used this knowledge to shape their vision for the new institution. For example, the planning team learned that while 87 percent of first-time community college students across CUNY enrolled as full-time students, the colleges did not have specific structures in place to take advantage of the benefits of full-time enrollment. Because of this, the planning team decided that the new community college should require full-time enrollment during the first year of study, and they envisioned a robust structure to support intensive classroom experiences and advising to rapidly advance student’s skills and knowledge. While contextual knowledge was critical to their work, the planning team knew that they needed a far wider range of perspectives to shape their vision and gain support. To accomplish this goal, they conducted an extensive review of existing scholarship and engaged an advisory board of top experts.

The planning team aimed to answer the deceptively simple question, “In light of what we know today about community college education, what would we do differently if given the opportunity to create a new institution?” (Mogulescu, 2008, p. 4). While they surely engaged deeply with a far more extensive body of literature throughout the process of developing a blueprint for the new college, the planning team ultimately cited more than one-hundred pieces of the most relevant and impactful scholarship in The New Community College Concept Paper. In doing so, the planning team demonstrated to those who had a stake in the new college that their vision was built on a solid foundation of research-based, expert knowledge. Anyone reading the concept paper can immediately see that the planning team designed the operational structure, educational model, services, partnerships, and assessment plan that comprised the blueprint for the new community college using high-quality, evidence-based research. By doing so, the planning team was able to simultaneously craft a new college that would serve its students well and increase buy-in from the countless groups involved in advancing and approving the design.

In addition to their review of the literature, the planning team also engaged an advisory board of experts from across the country. This 11-member group consisted of scholars, leading practitioners, nonprofit directors, and industry leaders. Throughout the planning process, these advisory board members shared a collective body of knowledge and experience that helped generate some of the most innovative design concepts that were included in the concept paper and eventually became a part of GCC’s structure. Not only did the advisory board’s depth and breadth of expertise provide invaluable support to the planning team, but it also bolstered the credibility of the project.

3.2. Harnessing Local Expertise to Complete a Blueprint for the New College

Alongside their literature review and engagement with the core advisory board of experts, the planning team also turned to the vast expertise across CUNY. The faculty and higher education administrators across CUNY are renowned scholars, educators, administrators, and leaders who have the most direct understanding of the students who CUNY serves. No group was better positioned to support the development of the new community college. Furthermore, this community of local experts had the most at stake in the success of such a new institution and were able to bring the most critical lens to the process.

The planning team began by speaking with the presidents of the six pre-existing CUNY community colleges. Each of the CUNY colleges has a lot of autonomy and their own governance structure. Because of this, the planning team next scheduled consultative meetings at each campus. Given each community college’s distinctive character, the groups attending these consultative meetings also varied. In each case, the campus provost and a collection of faculty members participated. The groups were kept relatively small, ranging in size from 6 to 13 individuals who shared their local expertise with the planning team. In addition to these structured consultative meetings, the planning team met with 74 additional faculty and administrators from across CUNY campuses and from within CUNY’s central offices as well as 78 experts outside of CUNY. These outside experts included college faculty and administrators, city and state officials, nonprofit leaders, business leaders, and union leaders. In a relatively short period of time, the new community college planning team was able to tap into a vast network of expertise, being sure to center local knowledge from within CUNY.

Recognizing that there was no way to include all voices and perspectives in their blueprint for the new community college, the planning team still aimed to create an open process. One final step that the planning team undertook was inviting all CUNY staff and faculty to complete an online survey. A total of 156 respondents from across all CUNY campuses, 55% of whom self-identified as faculty and 31% of whom self-identified as administrators, provided survey responses. A team in CUNY’s Office of Academic Affairs analyzed the responses and generated a report for the planning team (D. Allen, 2008). The report notes themes that emerged from the responses to the 11 survey questions. While a few respondents expressed skepticism about launching a new community college and noted the need to offer more funding and support to existing institutions, most responses were supportive and offered valuable information that the planning team was able to integrate into their blueprint. One survey response even expressed a sentiment that seems to have guided the planning team and chancellor in being bold with this new institution—“When in doubt, why not err on the side of venturesome, the different, even the radical?” (Mogulescu, 2008, p. 118).

Notably, the survey was not extended to students, alumni, or community members, which represents a significant limitation given GCC’s explicit mission to serve populations historically underrepresented in higher education. The planning team’s extensive engagement with experts and faculty, while valuable, primarily amplified perspectives of those already within higher education systems. Missing were the lived experiences of first-generation college students, low-income students, students of color, and community members who would have possessed more personal knowledge about barriers to college success. While the resulting institution achieved remarkable initial success, more inclusive community engagement might have yielded even more effective innovations.

Despite some missed opportunities, the extensive stakeholder engagement process reflects key principles identified in the higher education organizational change literature. Kezar and Eckel (2002) emphasize that successful institutional transformation requires broad-based participation and the cultivation of change agents across organizational levels. Similarly, research on institutional effectiveness in community colleges highlights the importance of strengthening the institutional ability to systematically gather, analyze, and apply information for continuous improvement (McClenney, 2013). By engaging diverse constituencies, the planning team was essentially building the institutional capacity necessary to implement and sustain evidence-based innovations—a process that Swing and Ross (2016) identify as critical for data-informed decision making in higher education contexts.

3.3. Stewarding the Launch of Guttman Community College from Blueprint to Convocation

After completing the blueprint for the new community college, the planning team entered a new phase of work to steer the project from vision to implementation. They created 11 working committees to oversee key aspects of building the new college, held occasionally contentious open forums at each of the existing community colleges, and worked through tense but necessary conversations with union leadership to integrate their critiques and suggestions (Mogulescu, 2023). Throughout this process, the Chancellor’s Office offered strong support for the project and uplifted respected voices who were proponents of the new school. As the project progressed, the largest U.S. higher education media outlets—Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education—began publishing articles that expressed hope and excitement about CUNY’s new community college (Ashburn, 2010; Moltz, 2009a, 2009b). The overall tone of these articles is best summed up by the observation that despite concerns over the bold break from traditional community colleges, “Even a number of skeptics, however, are applauding CUNY for trying something so different” (Moltz, 2009a). Ultimately, CUNY advanced its innovative new community college through the approval process and opened in 2012.

Table 1. Defining features of GCC.

Defining Feature	Basis for Implementation
Required two-week Summer Bridge program before matriculation culminating with opening convocation	Summer bridge programs help students transition from high school to college by teaching navigation of college systems and building comfort with faculty, staff, and students; they offer accelerated, focused learning opportunities that allow students to acquire skills and knowledge in preparation for college-level courses (Kallison & Stader, 2012; Wathington et al., 2011)
Mandatory first-year full-time enrollment requirement	Students who enroll full-time during their first year graduate at higher rates than part-time students (Bailey & Alfonso, 2005)
Merging of remediation/credit coursework in integrated first-year curriculum	Remedial coursework, when disconnected from standard coursework, shows no evidence of supporting persistence to college graduation (Calcagno & Long, 2008)
Limited number of majors with well-defined pathways	While community colleges typically offer numerous program options, they rarely provide highly structured pathways that limit choices but ensure timely graduation and appropriate employment outcomes; structured programs with clear sequences improve completion rates (Rosenbaum et al., 2006)
Learning communities with cohort structure	Students who develop strong initial connections with other students, faculty or staff, and course material are far more likely to continue and succeed; learning communities are “uniformly and positively linked with student academic performance, engagement in educationally fruitful activities, gains associated with college attendance, and overall satisfaction with the college experience” (Zhao & Kuh, 2004, p. 124)
Student Success Advocates as integrated academic advisors	Research supports “intrusive advising” or “active counseling,” which requires multiple meetings during each semester and shows improved retention and completion rates (Grubb, 2006)
Comprehensive peer mentoring program	Peer mentoring helps students achieve social integration and positively affects their transition to college; benefits include improved academic performance, social integration, and retention rates, with particular benefits for underrepresented groups and first-generation college students (Rodger & Tremblay, 2003)
Block scheduling with 12-week and 6-week cycles	Summer term credits maintain a consistently positive relationship to degree completion and provide African American students, in particular, a significant boost in graduation rates (Adelman & Taylor, 2006)
Mandatory community days and civic engagement	Service learning and civic engagement show significant positive relationships with 6-year graduation rates; students with civic engagement demonstrate 23% higher degree completion rates and significantly better educational attainment (Conway et al., 2009; Finlay et al., 2011)
Assessment and continuous improvement focus (Center for College Effectiveness)	Data-driven decision making and institutional learning approaches show consistent improvements in student outcomes when implemented systematically across community college programs (L. Allen & Kazis, 2008)

provides an overview of some of the key design elements that emerged from the planning process and were ultimately incorporated into CUNY’s new community college upon its launch (S. E. Evenbeck, 2019).

4. Advancing Guttman Community College

During the early years of GCC, the school’s leadership and faculty institutionalized and deepened systems and structures to support the intentional work of continuous improvement. Elements of SARD are evident throughout these efforts. Here, we focus on GCC’s meaningful engagement of an advisory board, commitment to self-assessment, and integrated structures for sustained improvement.

4.1. Drawing upon the Expertise of an Accomplished Advisory Board

Building upon the work done by the new community college planning team, GCC established an advisory board of experts from across the United States. The advisory board included experts and practitioners within and beyond CUNY who had a special commitment to the success of underrepresented students in an urban community college. Some had worked with CUNY during the planning phase of the college.

Perhaps the best way to capture the work of the advisory board is to consider the reflections of one of its members. Here, Betsy Barefoot—an expert on the first-year student experience—shares her perspective on the role of the GCC advisory board:

“The external members of the Advisory Board included not only community college experts, but also university administrators, nationally known researchers, and award-winning creators of national higher education initiatives. Those of us who were invited to serve on this Board over a period of years looked forward to our annual meetings at the campus on 40th Street overlooking Bryant Park. Central to the ethos of Guttman was the belief that certain required best practices touted by researchers but more commonly used at four-year colleges and universities could be adapted to meet the particular needs of Guttman students. During our meetings, we listened, we questioned, and we participated in classroom activities. We were proud to be part of this venture and felt a real sense of ownership in what was happening. I, along with other Advisory Board members, also took every available opportunity to talk about and brag about Guttman in other higher education settings. Among community colleges founded in the early 21st century, Guttman was clearly a star”.

(B. Barefoot, personal communication, 20 February 2025)

Each year, the leadership team for the college identified an area of special focus for the Board’s annual gathering in early December. The agenda included an overview of the area and then time for substantive conversations with the Board members, soliciting their advice. Every gathering included having an expert assigned as listener throughout the day, with that person reporting back on what had transpired during the day. A report for the day was circulated to all members of the campus community with an upcoming all-campus meeting including discussion and recommendations for action based upon the Board’s counsel. The campus administration also shared a mid-year report with all members, inviting comments and questions to provide engagement and advice across the year.

4.2. Making Space for Assessment

At the heart of Guttman’s model is the creation of space to ensure that assessment is structured and sustained institutionally. Guttman accomplishes this through dedicated Assessment Days—typically eight to ten days per academic year—where all regular classes, standing meetings, and operational duties are paused or reduced so that the campus community can focus exclusively on assessment (S. Evenbeck & Merians, 2016). By carving out space and time, the college creates an integrated culture of inquiry where faculty, staff, and administrators come together to review curricular and programmatic structures and align the work with larger institutional goals.

Each Assessment Day is designed around targeted themes that support improvement at the institutional, programmatic, and course levels. A review of Assessment Day agendas over the last 36 months reveals the following themes:

• Collaborative Data Analysis: Faculty and staff teams analyze student learning artifacts—often drawn from key assignments—using normed rubrics. These sessions focus on identifying patterns in student performance, surfacing instructional challenges, and generating insights that can inform both curriculum design and teaching practice. In some sessions, participants engage in cross-program discussions using common rubrics to ensure consistency in assessing communication, quantitative reasoning, and digital literacy outcomes.
• Curriculum Mapping and Revision: Based on findings, program faculty meet in structured sessions to evaluate the alignment between learning outcomes, course content, and assessments. In various agendas, programs conducted mapping exercises to link Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) to course assignments, reviewed syllabi for alignment, and identified course-level changes to address gaps. This sometimes included revising scaffolded writing assignments or embedding additional support for quantitative reasoning.
• Professional Development: Assessment Days often include workshops on data literacy, inclusive pedagogy, and emerging issues such as generative AI, digital literacy, and neurodiverse learning strategies. In one example, a faculty development session was devoted to unpacking culturally responsive teaching practices, while another explored how to leverage data to improve academic support structures. Other workshops have focused on backward design for assignments, group norming for equity, and reflections on integrating civic engagement into capstone courses.
• Institutional and General Education Outcome Review: Cross-disciplinary discussions examine how well students are achieving institutional learning outcomes. Some agendas show breakout groups organized around specific Guttman Learning Outcomes (GLOs), such as critical thinking or teamwork. In these groups, participants analyze data from previous semesters, reflect on teaching practices, and draft action plans to improve integration of these outcomes across the curriculum.
• Strategic Planning and Program Review: Faculty and staff use Assessment Days to prepare for periodic program review, update departmental assessment plans, and align programmatic goals with institutional priorities. Several agendas included structured time for programs to complete or revise their Annual Program Review templates. In one cycle, programs also reviewed retention and persistence data alongside student achievement measures to inform practices for the upcoming semester.
• Focused Department Retreats: Certain Assessment Days feature extended time for departmental retreats, allowing programs to take a deep dive into their curricular coherence, assessment practices, and student performance. These sessions often include goal setting, backward mapping from capstone expectations, or establishing benchmarks for high-impact practices.

4.3. Integrating Structures for Sustained Improvement

The Academic Assessment & Learning Committee (AALC) serves as the college’s primary governance body for assessment. Its charge includes recommending institutional assessment procedures, supporting program review, interpreting assessment results, and identifying professional development needs. With membership drawn from faculty and staff across divisions, the AALC ensures broad-based participation and transparency in assessment planning and implementation.

Working in concert with the AALC is the Office of Institutional Research (OIR), which provides the data infrastructure and analytical expertise needed to support evidence-informed decision making. The OIR produces dashboards, facilitates college-wide surveys, supports accreditation reporting, and manages data collection aligned with assessment cycles. This office ensures that the campus community has access to relevant and timely data, fostering a shared culture of inquiry.

These efforts are coordinated under the umbrella of SAGE—the Systematic Approach for Guttman Effectiveness. SAGE serves as the college’s institutional effectiveness framework, connecting assessment, planning, and budgeting. Units across academic and administrative divisions complete annual SAGE Profiles, which document their goals, assessment results, and improvement strategies. These profiles are aggregated to inform strategic planning, allowing the college to evaluate progress toward institutional goals and ensure that resource allocation aligns with demonstrable needs and successes.

The integration of Assessment Days, AALC governance, OIR analytics, and the SAGE framework ensures that assessment is not siloed. Instead, it is a recursive and collaborative practice woven into the fabric of institutional operations. Guttman Community College offers a compelling case study of how institutions can reframe assessment from a compliance exercise into a dynamic, collaborative, and mission-critical practice. Guttman’s approach demonstrates that making space for assessment is not merely about scheduling—it requires intentional design, strategic alignment, and community engagement. Institutions aiming to strengthen their culture of assessment may find in Guttman a powerful model: one that unites people, centers student learning, and leverages evidence to drive meaningful change.

5. Conclusions: Strategic Academic Research and Development and the Founding of a New College

The founding of GCC illustrates the extraordinary demands of launching new postsecondary institutions. Beyond the obvious logistical complexities lies a more fundamental challenge—convincing diverse stakeholders that radical departure from established practices merits substantial public investment. The New Community College Planning Team’s experience navigating political approval processes, union negotiations, and public scrutiny while maintaining an evidence-based vision, combined with the insights gained by leadership, faculty, and staff who have operated GCC through its various phases, offers valuable lessons for those contemplating higher education reforms and new initiatives.

What emerges most clearly from this case study is that institutional success cannot be assumed, even with exceptional planning and expertise. Yet GCC’s trajectory also suggests that systematic, evidence-based approaches can dramatically shift the odds. Where traditional CUNY community college graduation rates sat at 13% when GCC was in the design phase, CUNY’s methodical application of research-backed innovations produced fundamentally different outcomes for the new institution (CUNY Office of Applied Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics, 2025). This suggests that while success remains uncertain, the probability of meaningful impact increases substantially when institutions commit to rigorous, data-driven development processes.

The SARD framework proves particularly illuminating when applied retrospectively to GCC’s evolution.

Table 2. Principles of SARD at GCC.

SARD Principles	Founding	Operations
Select Priorities that Impact Effectiveness	The new community college planning team set a clear and measurable goal of outperforming CUNY’s existing community college graduation rates by developing a new approach to community college education.	Each year, GCC’s leadership team established a focus area that directed the advisory board’s work and shaped the school’s priorities for the year. Similarly, each series of assessment days is structured around a theme to address pressing needs.
Harness Existing Expertise	Throughout all stages of the planning process, those involved in founding GCC engaged experts from across the US and from within CUNY—including the existing community college presidents, provosts, faculty, and staff. The planning team even invited the full CUNY to share their ideas through a qualitative survey.	GCC’s advisory board drew upon an accomplished group of higher education experts to provide sustained expertise and guidance, with members taking pride in their ownership of the venture and actively promoting Guttman’s work in other higher education settings.
Convene Diverse Constituents	During the process of founding GCC, leadership convened administrators, faculty, government officials, scholarly experts, industry leaders, philanthropic organizations, and nonprofit directors for guidance and different types of support.	Through its Assessment Days, GCC regularly convenes faculty, staff, and administrators in collaborative data analysis sessions, cross-disciplinary discussions, and strategic planning activities. Its AALC draws membership from across divisions to ensure broad-based participation and transparency in assessment planning and implementation.
Use Evidence-Informed Processes	While developing the blueprint and eventual design for GCC, the planning team and GCC leadership drew upon extensive reviews of scholarship on evidence-based best practices relevant to community college education.	OIR provides data infrastructure and analytical expertise to support evidence-informed decision making through dashboards, college-wide surveys, and data collection aligned with assessment cycles. Assessment Days feature collaborative data analysis where teams examine student learning artifacts using normed rubrics to identify patterns and generate insights that inform curriculum design and teaching practice.
Engage Cross-Sections of Staff in Key Actions	At each stage of the planning process, leadership, faculty, and staff had a voice and a role to play. This included membership on the planning team and working committees, engagement at small convenings and open forums, and participation in the CUNY-wide survey.	Units across academic and administrative divisions complete annual SAGE Profiles documenting their goals, assessment results, and improvement strategies, ensuring all staff participate in the college’s systematic approach to effectiveness. And Assessment Days pause regular classes and operational duties so the entire campus community can focus on assessment activities together.
Spotlight Support of University Leadership	Chancellor Goldstein and other CUNY leaders took lead roles in supporting and advancing the founding of GCC, including speaking at internal meetings, interfacing with government officials, and communicating with media outlets.	GCC’s leadership institutionalized and deepened systems for continuous improvement by creating dedicated Assessment Days, establishing the AALC governance structure, and implementing the SAGE framework. Leadership demonstrates commitment by making space for assessment as a mission-critical practice woven into the fabric of institutional operations rather than treating it as a compliance exercise.

reveals how seamlessly SARD principles guided both the college’s creation and its operational practices. The planning team’s extensive literature review and stakeholder engagement translated directly into institutional structures like the advisory board and Assessment Days. This continuity between founding philosophy and operational reality demonstrates SARD’s utility as both a planning tool and as a sustainable framework for ongoing institutional development.

Perhaps most striking are the quantitative results that emerged from this systematic approach. GCC’s inaugural cohort achieved a three-year graduation rate of 49.1%—more than triple the 15.9% average across other CUNY community colleges from the same time period (CUNY Office of Applied Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics, 2025). Even as rates stabilized to around 40% through 2018, the college maintained a substantial advantage over system peers, who had climbed to approximately 25%. These outcomes help validate the considerable investment in research-based design and evidence-informed practices that characterized GCC’s early years (See

Table 3. Three-year graduation rates at CUNY community colleges, by fall cohort.

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
BMCC	15.0	15.9	18.3	18.9	20.1	22.4	24.5	26.6	26.4	24.0	25.9	24.7
Bronx	11.1	10.8	15.5	16.2	16.0	20.3	21.4	19.5	21.9	21.2	17.5	16.3
Guttman	--	--	49.1	43.5	46.3	43.1	39.8	38.9	41.1	31.6	24.6	22.9
Hostos	11.9	12.6	20.6	22.1	20.0	26.7	23.1	22.9	21.1	20.4	16.8	16.0
Kingsborough	18.7	23.4	26.2	28.2	27.9	31.9	34.3	35.0	31.6	26.7	23.6	27.6
LaGuardia	16.8	16.3	20.0	22.0	22.8	26.9	28.5	32.2	29.3	29.2	25.7	24.4
Medgar Evers	5.0	4.5	3.9	4.4	12.3	12.9	15.7	16.2	13.9	19.5	16.8	11.8
NYCCT	6.9	7.3	7.9	6.6	7.4	10.4	11.6	10.6	12.7	11.3	13.6	12.4
Queensborough	18.5	18.1	22.0	21.9	22.6	24.3	28.1	29.2	28.6	26.1	23.0	24.0
Staten Island	3.3	2.5	3.5	4.9	5.3	11.7	15.5	14.4	17.3	20.1	9.3	8.6
University Total	13.4	14.0	17.3	17.7	18.8	21.9	23.7	24.6	24.5	23.2	21.3	20.7

).

Recently, GCC’s graduation rates have fallen to 22.9%. While the precise causes remain unclear, the timing coincides with COVID-19’s disruption of higher education, suggesting that pandemic-related challenges overwhelmed the college’s structures. As one of CUNY’s colleges consistently serving the most low-income and first-generation students—both populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19—this decline in graduation rates at GCC is unsurprising. However, examining graduation rate changes across the CUNY system reveals that GCC’s model may have been particularly vulnerable to pandemic disruption.

Between 2018 and 2021, GCC experienced an 18.2 percentage-point decline in graduation rates (from 41.1% to 22.9%), compared to the system-wide average decline of only 3.8 percentage points during the same period (from 24.5% to 20.7%). While most CUNY community colleges experienced modest declines ranging from 0.3 to 5.6 percentage points, GCC’s decline was by far the steepest in the system. This pattern suggests that the intensive, relationship-based support structures that initially drove GCC’s exceptional success—including cohort learning communities, intrusive advising, peer mentoring, and collaborative Assessment Days—may have been particularly difficult to replicate in remote environments. The very features that made GCC’s model transformative for student success appear to have created dependencies on in-person interaction and campus-based community building that could not be easily adapted to emergency remote instruction.

This vulnerability highlights both the strengths and limitations of highly intensive educational models. While GCC’s approach produced remarkable results under optimal conditions, the substantial infrastructure required to maintain its supportive learning environment proved fragile when external circumstances prevented traditional delivery methods. The supportive context for learning at the heart of Guttman’s model surely became difficult to maintain in a remote environment, highlighting the dramatic impact of unexpected external factors on carefully designed institutional innovations.

Far from undermining SARD’s relevance, these recent challenges underscore its continued importance. The framework’s emphasis on systematic evaluation and evidence-informed adaptation becomes particularly valuable during periods of institutional stress. GCC’s current situation presents an opportunity to apply SARD principles to comprehensive program review that might aid the institution in returning its graduation rates to pre-pandemic levels.

The broader implications for higher education leaders are both encouraging and sobering. SARD offers a proven pathway for developing transformational initiatives, as GCC’s early success demonstrates. However, sustaining such achievements requires constant vigilance and willingness to adapt when evidence suggests course corrections are necessary. External forces—whether economic, political, or health-related—will inevitably test even the most carefully conceived institutional models.

For those looking to advance reforms in postsecondary schools, GCC’s story counsels both ambition and humility. The systematic application of research-based practices can produce remarkable results. However, lasting impact demands ongoing commitment to the evidence-informed principles that enabled initial success, along with the adaptive capacity to respond to changing conditions that scholars like Kezar (2018) and Birnbaum (2000) identify as essential for organizational resilience. In an era of persistent challenges facing higher education, SARD provides not a guarantee of success, but rather an effective framework.