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Strengthening Institutions Project
Project Title: Achieving Student Success: Academic and Social Supports for Improving Retention and Completion
The U.S. Department of Education Strengthening Institutions (SIP) Grant is made possible under the Title III program. The SIP helps eligible institutions become self-sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the institution’s academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability.
Overall Project Goal:
Increase student success, retention and completion by front-loading academic and social supports for first year and at-risk students.
Strategies:
- Strengthen academic advising and educational support services to facilitate student success in achieving educational goals for at-risk students.
- Establish integrative and comprehensive onboarding and first year experience programs.
Objectives:
- Increase the retention rate of first generation, low income students, and underrepresented minorities from
- Increase the number of first generation and low income, and underrepresented minorities who successfully complete their program of study
- Increase the number of first time freshman in good standing
- Increase the fall-to-fall retention rate for first-time, full-time students
- Increase the number of students successfully completing college level coursework within two years after enrolling into developmental coursework
- Increase the number of students who successfully complete Math and English gatekeeper courses
- Decrease the number of gateway courses with a DFW rate of 30% .
Strategies
I. Strengthen Academic Advising and Educational Support
The following interventions has been identified to support the overall goal of increasing student retention and success for UCM's at-risk populations:
1. Design consistent developmental advising case management model
2. Develop a summer bridge opportunity
3. Experiential Learning
4. Academic year programming to enhance student learning
II. Establish Integrative and Comprehensive Onboarding and First-Year Experience Programs
The following interventions have been incorporated into the design of the First Year Experience programs:
1. Assessment of personal strengths, interests, and learning styles
2. Peer mentoring
3. Redesign of the first year seminar
4. Scaling of co-requisite models for developmental English and math
5. Academic supports for essential college level courses across freshman-level Arts and Humanities/Social Sciences, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and other required genderal education courses
Develop. Pilot. Evaluate. Modify. Scale.
Completed Projects
13 incoming college freshman participated in a 4-week summer bridge program. Students earned 7 college credits, stayed on campus, engaged in academic support services, and participated in a variety of social and cultural events on and off campus. Students who were selected to participate in the Central Summer Academy wereable to participate at no out-of-pocket costs to them.
Thomas P. Miller & Associates is a proven consulting service that has years of experience with clients focused in higher education. The UCM Title III external evaluator will visit the UCM campus twice a year, for three days each visit, plus 1 travel day, to ensure that UCM is successfully progressing with proposed activities and the data and evaluation of activities is accurate. The evaluator will also assist UCM by reviewing and providing feedback on deliverables for this project.
Thomas P. Miller & Associates has proposed a four-part evaluation process that will aid in strengthening UCM’s Title III Programs:
1. The Preliminary Evaluation Procedures
2. The Implementation Evaluation
3. The Outcomes Evaluation
4. Reporting Webinars
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) work group, composed of 15 faculty and staff from all four colleges and the Success Advising Center, have completed the course redesign of UNIV 1400: University Foundations. This redesign includes: drafting SLOs, constructing a course syllabus and schedule, and creating an online repository of weekly assignments and activities. The work group, along with other University faculty and staff, are scheduled to pilot 25 sections of this redesigned course for fall 2019.
Ongoing Projects
Contact
Lover Chancler, Ph.D.
Title III Project Manager/Director of The Center
Union 3rd Floor
Tel: (660) 543-8049
