Did you know it’s Love Data Week? ❤️ This is an international celebration always held during the week of Valentine’s Day, when universities, community colleges, nonprofits and more are encouraged to host events that help promote all things data.
And Dr. Tait Kellogg, our Senior Director of Impact, loves data so much, she’s on a mission to make every person feel like a data person, starting with our new data team at the Lab. As Tait posted on LinkedIn, she asked the team to share their “data autobiography” — which included how they got interested in data work, what part of the data process most lights them up, and what they want to learn more this year.
She jokes, “Turns out (and I know this will shock you) no one on my team dreamed of being a Data Coach when they were 10. Instead, they came from vastly different backgrounds and found data once they realized how powerful it could be for making better decisions. What we all share: a deep belief that data isn’t about numbers for numbers’ sake. It’s about making data-informed decisions in service of learners, community colleges, and communities.”
This is also the perfect week to share our latest Impact by Design brief: Why Non-Degree Data Needs a Redesign: 7 (Hard-Earned) Insights on the Challenges of Collecting Short-Term, Non-Degree Program Data.
This brief draws on three years of experience from the Lab’s Data Coaches, three of whom are authors of this piece. Over that time, the team coached dozens of community colleges as they worked to collect, report, and make sense of data on short-term, non-degree programs. Their insights and recommendations for the field reflect not a single implementation, but recurring patterns observed across institutions as they tried to build data practices in a space that was never designed to be measured.
Thanks to Tait and the entire Lab data team, including: Rachel Wimberly, Kaman Hung, Mary Ann DeMario, Nishita Chheda, Dharma Wong, and Jagir Pipalia.
