ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT
FYSE
2011
A. Describe the past year’s accomplishments and the current status of this Action
Project.
The First Year Experience (FYE) project was launched with President's Cabinet approval
in January 2011. As of August 1, 2011 the FYE AQIP has organized three teams for each
of the project sub-goals (orientation, advising, and gatekeeper courses). The project
manager has built an infrastructure to support the work that includes: centralized
documentation, ANGEL community communication, complex sub-committee system,
regular meeting schedules and timeline/GANTT chart to monitor progress. The team
completed a self study on current practices, policies and issues using Survey of Entering
Student Engagement (SENSE), advising and orientation survey data, as well as feedback
from student and faculty focus groups. The team completed a review of the "best
practices" literature and catalogued findings. The team also organized a day-long summit
for 200 faculty and staff to delve deeply into disaggregated SENSE data on entering
student success. The team has synthesized and organized all data into a matrix related to
each of the sub-goals. Connected to these data are the pilot programs, recommendations
or actions being taken in the second phase of the project. A few initiatives are currently
underway including the opening of the First Year Advising Center (FYAC) (August
2011), continuation of the delegate "light touch" pilot program (June 2011), pilot testing
of the College Student Inventory (CSI) diagnostic tool (August 2011), pilot testing of
block scheduling (Fall 2011), implementation of the “Sinclair Talks” weekly
programming series (Fall 2011), and initiation of an orientation pilot (Fall 2011).
New Student Orientation
New student orientation is now linked with academic advising to ensure students attend
orientation prior to meeting an academic advisor. Student advising appointments are set
through a shared calendar, which is scheduled in the Enrollment Center. Orientation
content has been modified to focus on the information critical for the student’s first term.
The New Student Orientation Subcommittee is recommending:
•
Requiring mandatory orientation.
•
Disaggregating orientation content – determining what should be delivered when.
•
Creating an orientation (course) syllabus.
•
Developing interactive components and multi-modal (one size doesn’t fit all)
approach.
•
Capturing student feedback (individually) with communication strategies to
inform/remind students over time of key issues.
•
Improving connections to Career Services and Academic Advising.
Key Issues and/or Decision Points
•
Policy/Potential enrollment impact – Mandatory orientation—new students will
not be able to register for classes until requirement has been met.
•
Funding for registration hold software development.
•
Staffing – Mandating orientation would double the number of students who
currently attend orientation (FY 10-11, 4327 students attended).
•
Designated facilities – Space for approximately 11,000 orientation attendees.
•
Funding - Development of additional communication sources (multi-modal)
resulting in enhanced delivery of information over time.
•
Funding – Development of a new orientation video and workbook for students.
•
Staffing Career Services – Providing career counseling to new undecided students
to assist them with goal clarification and positively impact success of the right-to-know
cohort.
Advising Subcommittee
The College opened the FYAC utilizing the “Modified Phoenix Plan” in August 2011.
Activities include: hiring of new FYAC advisors, utilization of senior advisors, training,
determining content of new student advising sessions, determining pre-advising activities
with Enrollment Services via shared calendars, and collaboration with Orientation.
The Advising Subcommittee is recommending:
•
Requiring mandatory advising.
•
The use of Student Success Planning (SSP) and My Advising Plan (MAP) tools
for all degree and certificate seeking students.
•
Assigning advisors with designated caseloads.
•
Creating uniform advising session content for new students.
•
Improving connections between Career Services and Orientation.
Key Issues and/or Decision Points
•
Policy/Potential enrollment impact – Mandatory academic advising—new
students will not be able to register for classes until requirement has been met.
•
Funding for registration hold software development.
•
Funding – Beyond Quarter to Semester (Q2S) Conversion Initiative, staffing for
FYAC advisors assigned caseloads for new students.
Gatekeeper Courses Subcommittee (Overlaps with Developmental Education Initiative)
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Student Engagement Track was established
for faculty development in FY 10-11 by the Gateway Subcommittee. The track consists
of six consecutive workshops which include topics related to student engagement within
and outside the classroom, technology, problem based critical thinking, breaking down
barriers, and related topics.
The Gatekeeper Courses Subcommittee is recommending:
•
Improving success rates of students who test into DEV 110 based on evaluation of
written essays.
•
Improving pathway from DEV 110 to ENG 111.
•
Increasing enrollment and success rates in DEV classes.
•
Developing divisional breakout sessions to form learning communities and block
scheduling of cohorts.
•
Exploring the appropriateness of requiring competencies from SCC 101 as an
admission requirement.
•
Developing success seminars that fit into block scheduling format.
•
Creating SCC 101 content embedded into DEV courses.
Key Issues and/or Decision Points
•
Staffing – To assess written essays for DEV 110.
•
Staffing/Policy/Funding – Requiring SCC 101 competencies or success
workshops would require staffing.
•
Processes developed to provide some advising to divisional cohorts of students.
•
Processes developed to do group advising with students at various levels of
proficiency.
•
Approval to require SCC 101 as an admission requirement. Additional sections
will be required to meet demand.
•
Training (faculty) – time management, study skills, test-taking skills.
B.
Describe how the institution involved people in work on this Action Project.
Staff and faculty were invited to participate in committees and subcommittees based on
their interest and expertise. To date, nine faculty and twenty-five staff have participated
in committee work. Two hundred staff and faculty also participated in the day-long
summit on entering student success.
C.
Describe your planned next steps for this Action Project.
Continue to implement action steps related to the FYAC, revised orientation model and
development of electronic tools to support and centralize FYE. Define lessons learned,
document and disseminiate changes made as a result of project activities.
D.
Describe any “effective practice(s)” that resulted from your work on this
Action Project.
Many of the modifications to advising and orientation are based on interal and external
best practices or lessons gleaned from other initiatives. Specifically, the new advising
model is based on lessons learned from the Title III project which ended in 2009.
E. What challenges, if any, are you still facing in regards to this Action Project?
Managing this large of a project with three significant goals has been challenging. Loss
of faculty participation in the summer has significantly slowed progress on the gatekeeper
course sub-goal.
F.
If you would like to discuss the possibility of AQIP providing you help to stimulate
progress on this Action Project, explain your need(s) here and tell us who to contact
and when.
N/A
G.
Who should be able to see this annual update?
Anyone