Lone Star College System, an Achieving the Dream (AtD) institution, will publish its annual AtD report at the end of April. In the report LSCS will outline the five strategies of focus for the system, how these are being addressed, and articulate plans for further implementation during the grant cycle.
Achieving the Dream is a multiyear national initiative to help more community college students succeed. The initiative is particularly concerned about student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success, including first-generation students and low-income students. Achieving the Dream works on multiple fronts, including efforts at community colleges and in research, public engagement and public policy. It emphasizes the use of data to drive change.
LSCS has formed a multi-layered organization comprised of faculty, staff and administrative leaders from all five campuses to accomplish the implementation and evaluation of the five primary strategies to promote measurable changes:
Strategy 1: Create a campus climate where early and continuous intervention is part of the college culture to provide additional support to the most at-risk students.
Strategy 2: Develop and implement a student success course to provide additional support to the most at-risk students.
Strategy 3: Focus on professional development for faculty and student service staff to improve student engagement in the learning and advising processes based on a culture of evidence.
Strategy 4: Review policies, practices and procedures that include evaluations of advising, assessment, placement, prerequisites, and payment practices.
Strategy 5: Enhance student success by engaging the community in an advisory capacity.
“LSCS has made tremendous strides during the planning year, as well as in our first year of implementation in terms of collecting and analyzing data that has assisted the AtD stakeholders with making decisions about student success initiatives,” said Larry Rideaux, LSCS executive director of Achieving the Dream.
“We are working toward piloting programs during the summer and fall 2008 semesters for both students and faculty to promote student engagement. Piloting selected programs will allow us to determine if an initiative is actually having impact before it is implemented on a full-scale basis,” said Rideaux.
“As we pilot student success initiatives, we plan to design evaluation tools that will assess how our students are progressing and how we can intervene to provide the necessary support to make each LSCS student successful,” he said.
“Another major initiative, Achieving the Dream will tackle during the upcoming year is to develop and implement a student success course to provide additional support to the most at-risk students,” said Rideaux.
During spring 2008, LSCS worked to expand an early and continuous intervention system that supports individual course completion, developmental sequence completions, transition and successes in gatekeeper courses.
“One of our strategies was to establish early intervention through online faculty referrals,” said Dorothy Reade, co-chair of the Achieve the Dream core team.
“Students may need support with coursework, financial aid, or career counseling, and we can be there to identify the need and provide the necessary assistance with early intervention,” said Reade.
“LSCS trainers will work to provide continuous, meaningful, professional development to encourage data-based decision making and faculty development for student engagement,” said Reade.
“We hope to better engage and serve students by understanding their needs and culture,” she said.
LSCS has invested in collecting and analyzing data, organizing cross-sectional teams, and identifying strategies to improve teaching and learning across the system. LSCS has committed a diverse cross-section of personnel and $500,000 accompanied by an additional $100,000 from Houston Endowment Inc. (www.houstonendowment.org) over the next four-years to assist with increasing student success system-wide.
Lone Star College System consists of five colleges, including CyFair, Kingwood, Montgomery, North Harris, and Tomball, six centers and Lone Star College-University Center. With more than 49,200 students in credit classes last fall, LSCS is the third largest community college system in Texas. To learn more, visit LoneStar.edu.
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