Please address these questions, with reference to “your” recommendation as it appears in the three reports:
1. What specifically troubled the Commission? (Please paraphrase the Commission’s language, rather than quoting it—we are trying to arrive at a common understanding.)
The 2012 report stated that the college partially met the recommendations because of the changes that were made in increased staffing, expanded hours, prioritizing counseling, and the development of goals in the Student Services Plan. However after interviewing faculty, the report suggested that there needed to be additional access to counseling and advising for students.
2. What are we supposed to be doing now? (That is, what does the Commission say we are, or should be, doing to respond to the recommendations? What did we say we were doing or planning to do?)
In the follow-up visit report, we stated that we are using program review and college planning to prioritize the needs of services. We are then using technology as more efficient way to deliver more access to counseling and advising services. We are using West Expressway as an online portal for students to make appointments, identify their goals and course of study, complete orientation, prepare for assessment, and create an abbreviated education plan. The new SIS powered by PeopleSoft will expand the self-service functionality with the addition of a degree audit system that can give students real-time feedback their progress toward their goals.
3. Which committees should be involved in what we should be doing now? (Note what they should be doing.)
The Student Success Committee should and has begun to address other ways to increase access to advising. A “Discipline Advising” committee has been developed to review how teaching faculty can create strong models that will facilitate advising. The first programs to start developing these models are CSIT, Aviation, and Dental Tech.
Enrollment Management Committee will be looking at ways to provide access to counseling services via college success courses, learning communities and structured GE and CTE pathways and cohorts.
4. Which college employees have responsibility for what we should be doing now?
Student services faculty, staff, and administrators all have responsibility for the effort to increase access to services. One area that is presenting challenges is the creation of an abbreviated educational plan and a comprehensive educational plan for all new students which is done by counselors. Teaching faculty also have a responsibility to support students in their classes by sharing what skills are needed to be successful in their disciplines, discussing career options within their discipline, linking students to appropriate support services, having updated curriculum, increasing the availability of course offerings needed to graduate and transfer, and ensuring that articulation information of their discipline is current and accurate.
5. What evidence did we use in our presentations to the Commission or visiting team?
What evidence might we use in the Midterm report? (Include evidence we should be collecting, as well as what is already available.)
In the initial self-study for 2006, West submitted quantitative and qualitative survey data, counts of important documents like student educational plans, data from DEC, SARS student contact data, SLO and program review data, and policies outlined in the catalog and schedule.
During the follow-up visit, representatives from the Student Services Council were interviewed. West also submitted data on the numbers of students who had access to more services via the piloting of West Expressway. The plans for the new Student Information System were discussed. And the program review and prioritized process was deemed to be working because of the additional new hires identified in the prioritization process.
For the midterm report, I’d like to report out on the effects of the new hires and the new uses of technology (West Expressway and the new SIS) that will hopefully increase the numbers of students who have had access to counseling services particularly in completing their educational plans. I’d like to see all service areas utilizing point-of-contact surveys and using results of SLOs to assess student satisfaction and utilization of services. I’d like to see data from focus groups on issues about when students have had trouble accessing our services. I’d like to see teaching faculty actively involved in student advising that provides assistance and mentoring to students in their classes and in their majors. I’d like to see streamlined structured pathways and innovating teaching modalities (like learning communities) that lead to improved completion rates.
These all look back to the events of the last two years, but they are sure to trigger some ideas about developments since the 2013 Follow-Up Visit Report. Do jot those down, too!