Street to Completion
HLC Academy for Student
Persistence & Completion
Project Overview
Goal:
To increase student retention, transfer and
completion
Strategy:
To create discrete teams that will develop and
implement targeted activities for pre-defined
populations
HLC Criteria for Accreditation
Criterion Four - Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement
The institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational
programs, learning environments, and support services, and it evaluates their
effectiveness for student learning through processes designed to promote
continuous improvement.
4.C. The institution demonstrates a commitment to educational improvement
through ongoing attention to retention, persistence, and completion rates in its
degree and certificate programs.
HLC Academy for Student Persistence and Completion
•  The academy is designed to build institutional capacity to
improve persistence and completion of its students focusing
on effective collection of data, evaluation and improvement of
current strategies, and development of new strategies
•  GRCC was accepted into the first cohort
•  48 institutions are in the Academy in three cohort groups
Overview of Teams
Cohort Groups: Student Employees
Due to the transient nature of student employees (different student
employees each semester), the team determined that the best way
to impact student employee success and retention rates is to focus
on supervisor based interventions that would ultimately impact the
entire student employee population.
Strategies:
ü  Student Employee Supervisors will conduct exit interview with
students at the end of each semester to determine next
semester plans
ü  Mid semester check in – supervisors meet with student
employees to check on academic progress and to see if
student needs any assistance
ü  The Student Employee Office will work with Advising and
Counseling to develop sessions for student employees on
balancing work and school/time management
ü  The Student Employee Office with help from Staff
Development will conduct workshops with supervisors
focused on what to do if students are having difficulties, steps
to take, services to refer to, etc.
Cohort Groups:
Alpha Beta Omega (ABO)
Data Analysis:
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Due to the cohort nature of this group the team is able to identify,
track, and make personal contact with every member
Based on the data analysis, the team determined that the current
ABO practices are improving success rates of the African
American Male students that participate in this program
For Winter 2014, ABO students succeeded at 76% (A to C-)
compared to 52% for African Americans males not in ABO
Strategies:
ü Send letter of invitation to all African American
Male Students enrolled to an open house for
ABO
ü Assign one advisor to all ABO students
exclusively
ü Develop cohort sessions for ABO students in
CLS 100 (FYE) with a pre-determined instructor.
Cohort Groups: Latino/Latina Students
Strategies
ü
Better understand the characteristics of the population and the
resources currently available to them
ü
Maximize available resources and propose and implement new
resources through the creation of visible/concrete internal
structures that will ultimately support students
ü
Develop outreach activities to bring more Latinos to succeed at
GRCC
Preliminary results from Focus Group
ü  Students felt that support services were mechanistic – “cookie cutter” – in
their first interaction with the college as new students
ü  Personal connection with someone at the college as critical for persistence
(someone that they can relate to)
ü  Cohort support programs such as TRIO have had a positive impact on
navigating the college experience
ü  Not many opportunities for individual interactions or personal connections
with staff and faculty
Suggestions and Ideas from Students
ü  Student Center for students to socialize, study, etc.
ü  Book Loan Program. Books are too expensive!
ü  An opening event for everyone – faculty, students, staff, parents – before
first day of class to meet and connect with people.
ü  More staff from Latino background (bilingual).
ü  GRCC web page in Spanish.
ü  Parent engagement. College should be intentional about reaching out to
parents first, before students.
ü  An earlier and proactive outreach with area High Schools
( representative in each High School)
ü  Establishing a presence within the Latino community (community
organizations, churches, etc.)
Preliminary Results from “Lost” Students Survey
ü  Financial Reasons (mostly people taking a class at a time
and working)
ü  Work (“it was too much to try to do school and work at the
same time”)
ü  Personal reasons (other responsibilities can’t continue right
now, maybe later!)
ü  Changed educational plan (i.e. cosmetology school)
ü  Other: Relocation, went into the military, health – pregnancy,
injury – “college is not for me”
Access Team
Focus on 3 program areas – Business (all programs), Culinary Arts, and Transfer Students. Program # of Students Earned Degree/
No Transfer Earned a degree & transferred Transferred S7ll @ GRCC “Lost” Student Success Rate All Students 22,669 5% 2% 16% 41% 36% 64% Business -­‐ Trf (101) Culinary Arts (151) Transfer (007) 1,360 4% 1% 15% 43% 37% 68% 629 5% 0% 4% 47% 43% 57% 2,287 9% 7% 25% 31% 29% 71% Access Team
Data Collection
ü  Meet with departments to discuss outreach, recruitment, and
student readiness needs
ü  Regarding transfer students, reach out to recent transfers to gain
feedback on transfer experience and readiness
ü  Utilized data collected from Transfer & Articulation Coordinator
regarding transfer student experience
Access Team
Intervention
ü  Similar approach across all program groups
ü  Develop comprehensive communication and outreach plan for
prospective students and leads interested in specific programs
ü  Increase faculty/department input and involvement in this process
ü  Premise – stronger prospective student engagement and
knowledge will lead to better placements within programs, and
subsequently improve student success levels
Access Team
Intervention - continued
ü  Use new lead sources for student interest – FAFSA & ACT suspense files
(data on file but no student application), purchase lists from ACT, and utilize
new web interest forms to collect prospect information
ü  Send multi-layer communication plan and program information based on
student interest
ü  Involve faculty in material development, sequencing of communications, and
hosting events for prospects
Access Team
Example Communication Plan
ü  Email a fully developed microsite to any student lead or prospect that indicated a
business program interest. This microsite will be a mobile enabled, marketing oriented
website featuring rich media (videos, picture, alumni testimonials, etc.) promoting
specific academic programs.
ü  Follow up direct mail communication from the department head marketing and
promoting their programs, and inviting the student to contact them with any questions
ü  Additional postcard about program specifics – course, co-curricular programs, transfer
opportunities/articulation agreements, student organizations, etc.
ü  Additional email featuring numerous alumni success stories (completion of program
leading to employment, successful transfer, etc.)
ü  Host an Open House for students who have expressed an interest in these programs,
and featuring many of the great advising resources provided to current students
Transfer Team
Team members reviewed several institutional sources of data, but focused on two main
reports generated by IRP.
1.
Fall 2011 FTIACS in Transfer Plans Still Enrolled in Fall 2013
2.
2011-2012 Students as of Fall 2012 by Program Code
o
Students who both earned a degree at GRCC and transferred to another College
o
Students who transferred to another college prior to earning a degree at GRCC
Strategies for Intervention:
Strategy #1 – Contact Fall 2011 FTIACS in Transfer Plans Still
Enrolled in Fall 2013 to ask the reasons why they are still enrolled
at GRCC and how we might help them meet their goal of transfer
Strategy #2 – Identify the transfer programs / majors that have
the highest transfer rates and interview their leadership to
determine why – identify the transfer programs / majors that have
the lowest transfer rates and share the strategies used by the
more successful programs / majors to see if they result in
improvement
More successful transfer programs* Less successful transfer programs* Pre-­‐Secondary Ed – Trf Art -­‐ Trf Pre-­‐Med – Trf Music (all) Engineering – Trf English – Trf Comp. Sci. – Trf Nursing – Trf Physical Therapy -­‐-­‐ Trf Pre-­‐Pharmacy – Trf Biology – Trf Social Work – Trf Pre-­‐Elem Ed -­‐ Trf * “More successful” is defined as those programs having more than 100 students and 27% or greater falling into the two categories analyzed (e.g. transferred with a GRCC degree and transferred prior to earning a degree) * “Less successful” is defined as those programs having more than 100 students and 22% or fewer students falling into the two categories analyzed (e.g. transferred with a GRCC degree and transferred prior to earning a degree) Retention Team
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As part of the Street to Completion project, the Dean of Student Success and
Retention was charged with increasing the retention rates of one or more groups
of students in a specific curriculum code (major)
After review of the retention of different groups of students from Fall 2012, the
team selected Undecided Students due to the large number of students
indicating they were undecided and a high “lost rate”, 39%
Interventions included targeted communications-email, letters, phone calls to
three subgroups: new undecided, continuing undecided in good standing, and
continuing undecided on academic probation
Fall 2013 Undecided Students aKer interven7on Fall 2013 Undecided Students (FTIAC), Status by Race/Ethnicity Acad Load Race/ N Transferred Fall 2013 Undecided Students, Status by Race/Ethnicity Ethnicity Enrolled in Winter 2014 No Record of Transfer or Enrollment/ Lost Full-­‐time Am. Indian 9 0 6 Asian 30 0 Black 68 2 Hispanic 58 3 Pac. Islander White Part-­‐time Enrolled) 3 67% 26 4 87% 46 20 71% 0 47 11 81% 0 3 0 100% 401 8 340 53 87% 40 0 37 3 93% TOTAL 609 10 505 94 85% 5 0 3 2 60% Asian 21 0 13 8 62% Black 87 0 47 40 54% Hispanic 88 0 48 40 55% Am. Indian 1 0 1 0 100% 323 6 219 98 70% Not Specified 36 1 24 11 69% TOTAL 561 7 355 199 65% White (Transferred or Not Specified NR Alien Success Initial Conclusions:
ü  Communications with all three undecided groups resulted in a change of major rate of
10% for FTIACs, 21% for those continuing in good standing, and 19% for those
continuing who were on academic probation in Fall 2013
ü  Undecided FTIAC students were retained from fall to winter at a lower rate than all
FTIAC students
ü  Full-time, undecided FTIAC students are retained at a much higher rate than their parttime counterparts, but still lower than all FTIAC students
ü  Retention gaps exist for most racial groups with the exception of full-time Asian students
ü  Final “lost” rates will be calculated in October 2014
Completion Team
ü  The area of focus was student graduation. The primary goal was to
determine strategies to improve graduation rates for students at GRCC
ü  The graduation rate for students for this one year period was 7% for those
students who earned a degree and did not transfer and for those students
who transferred and earned a degree Fall 2012 Gradua[on rates for all degree seekers (IRP, 2013) Plan Code Program Number of Students All Degree-­‐
Seekers 22,669 Earned a degree at GRCC, no record of transfer 5% Both earned a degree at GRCC and transferred to another college 2% Transferred to another college prior to earning a degree at GRCC 16% S7ll aRending GRCC 41% “Lost” 36% Student Success (Transfer and/or Degree Comple7on and/
or S7ll ARending) 64% Data Analysis: With the Street to Completion team, it was
decided that the graduation initiative would focus on four
programs or areas of students based on both size of the
plan code and low trends in graduation rates: 1) Transfer/Other – Plan Code 007 2) Culinary/SICE – Plan Code 151 3) Automotive - Plan Code 922 4) Business Administration - Plan Code 102 Gradua[on rates for targeted segments and programs Plan Code Program 007 Transfer/
Other-007 151 Number of
Students Earned a
degree at
GRCC, no
record of
transfer Both earned
a degree at
GRCC and
transferred to
another
college Transferred to
another college
prior to earning
a degree at
GRCC Still
attending
GRCC “Lost” Student Success
(Transfer and/or
Degree
Completion and/
or Still Attending) 2,287 9% 7% 25% 31% 29% 71% Culinary
Arts-151 629 5% 0% 4% 47% 43% 57% 922 Automotive
Technology-922 273 5% 0% 6% 46% 43% 57% 102 Bus
Administration-1
02 1,360 4% 1% 15% 43% 37% 63% Key areas of concern or interest were expressed by faculty regarding plan codes and the accuracy of
the data: ü
ü
Faculty would like to see an easier system for plan code changing and asked if the departmental
secretary could be authorized to input plan codes with and for students.
Student Records Office stated that between 100-200 plan code changes per week occur in the
Registrar's office. The process is manual.
As a result of this meeting key areas of focus are planned for the following academic areas that include
the targeted areas as well as others: ü
ü
ü
Automotive - run Degree Works on each student – Identify the courses that have not been
completed and look for patterns. Business - target Accounting - who are the students in this code and what have they completed? Culinary – How can these students be accurately tracked as they often wait for several semesters
before entering the program due to demand. Your degree is the difference.
Marketing/Communication Strategy
•  Tag line developed to remind students of the importance of
graduating from GRCC
•  Appears on apparel, lanyards, cards, notes, email, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpVEDFUf6Y0
Questions
John Cowles, Dean of Student Success & Retention jcowles@grcc.edu