Achieving the Dream

SUMMARY OF ACHIEVING THE DREAM APPLICATION

ACHIEVING THE DREAM

TALKING POINTS

Presented to the CCC BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING July 18, 2005

COMMITMENT

Capital Community College has shown a commitment to Achieving the Dream’s goals through

· Development of a comprehensive student success initiative from 2000 to 2005 using a Title III grant to improve enrollment yield and retention rates;

· Relocation to downtown campus has led to increasing business and school partnerships and higher visibility to influence public policy;

· Role of community colleges in helping traditional and nontraditional students move up the educational ladder is gaining ground in leadership circles;

· Achieving the Dream can help Capital with its current challenges to attract key groups (e.g. minority males), improve student competencies and improve services such as academic advising and increase competencies of students with educational deficits.

POLICIES AND PRACTICES

We identified ongoing strategies to increase student attainment as a basis for being involved in the Achieving the Dream Initiative:

· Intensifying orientation and advising through a Welcome Center, implementation of a first year Student Success Course and an early warning system that allows for earlier interventions when students are failing;

· Strengthening instruction through use of learning communities and experiential learning, including a growing internship and service learning programs since the move to downtown;

· Continuously assessing student learning and reforming practices based on the results.

This latter practice has resulted in a re-writing of the mathematics curriculum, a ‘writing across the curriculum’ interdisciplinary program and other program specific interventions that have improved the learning process.

These activities have brought measurable improvements, including increasing the percentage of students completing developmental courses by 8% over the 1999 base year; and a similar increase in the number of students completing gateway courses for entry into program majors (Grade C or better).

VISION

We see Achieving the Dream helping Capital by:

· Fully integrating gains made through current strategies of student success courses, learning communities and assessment;

· Putting a greater emphasis on enrolling and retaining male students, particularly males of color;

· Intensifying our work with public schools with bridge programs and other efforts to increase college-going rates;

· Improving assessment results in writing and quantitative skills through improvements to a developmental education program that presently is fragmented and requires a re-design.

July 18, 2005

CEW/jhm