The 2008-2009 academic year will be the college’s final year for funding through the Lumina Foundation’s Achieving the Dream: Community College Counts initiative. The college was recently sent the final installment, $84,100 of the $400,000 grant. The funds have paid for programs geared toward creating institutional changes to support the success of low-income and minority students.
What’s planned for the final year? The “Success Coaching” program, under the direction of Becky Knickel, business studies professor, and Stephen Herd, automotive technology professor, will begin this year. Groups of college employees will work with first-time-in-college students. The goals will be to help students make a stronger connection with the college and to help them connect their future success to their college success.
Zach Ballard, former F.A.S.T. student
One of the first initiatives was the Future Achievers Succeeding Today, F.A.S.T, pilot program initiated in summer 2005. This program offered free tuition and books to a cohort of new students who received group instruction and individual support.
The use of data has been a focus of the grant as well. The college has made steady progress in using data to inform institutional decision-making since the inception of the ATD initiative. Institutional research has added data visualization software and increased the efficiency of data gathering and the effectiveness of reporting.
Other initiatives have included involving faculty and staff members in Take Care of Business Week, changes in advising approaches for First-Time-in-College students, pilot projects for mentoring, continuing changes in financial aid, and the repositioning of the Welcome Center.
