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Background
With four campuses and two centers in the Orlando area, Valencia Community College is one of the largest community colleges in Florida, with more than 50,000 students. Tourism supplies many jobs in Central Florida and contributes to growth, but also keeps wages low and contributes to transience.
Unequal opportunity continues to affect access and success in postsecondary education, particularly for low-income students and students of color. Many entering students require remediation in math, reading and writing. There is a gap between ethnic groups at Valencia in their completion of remedial coursework and degree completion, with African-American and Hispanic students completing these courses and graduating at significantly lower rates than Caucasian or Asian students.
Achieving the Dream Goals
Valencia has received national recognition for its innovative practices. Its Achieving the Dream goals focus on closing the gap in student success among Caucasian, Hispanic and African American students.
Valencia chose courses with high student enrollment and low success rates to maximize the impact of improvement for these target areas:
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College prep course completion rates
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Gateway course completion rates
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Fall-to-fall retention
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College prep program completion rates
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Rates of completion of 15 credit hours
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Mathematics competency
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Strengthened student engagement
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Increased community awareness and involvement
Valencia looked at strategies piloted internally to assess promising practices for student success. Using the criteria of effectiveness, ripeness (readiness to fully implement), and scalability, it has selected three types of learning communities and the expansion of its student success course as strategies that would have the greatest impact on closing targeted gaps.
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