Background

North Central Michigan College (NCMC) is located in northwestern Michigan, a premier resort area with a declining industrial base. NCMC’s main campus is in Petoskey, with branch campuses in Gaylord, East Jordan, and Cheboygan. NCMC enrolls nearly 3000 full- and part-time students. Programs implemented by the college include the Native American Mentor Program, which recruits Native Americans to NCMC and provides support for their success, and the Developmental Education Strategy, which has improved placement testing and increased student services. The college offers curriculum in areas including the liberal arts, sciences, math, and vocational education leading to associate’s degrees, certificates and certificates of development. Career programs include business, nursing, criminal justice, early childhood education, legal assistance, office administration, computer information systems, and networking.

Achieving the Dream Interventions

Advising Services

North Central believed that a common syllabus of advising goals, professional development for staff, and mandatory advising sessions for students in developmental courses would help students successfully navigate the college system and increase completion of educational goals. Advisors used mandatory advising to recommend that students enroll in developmental courses in their first semester. This was so successful that student demand exceeded course availability. Additionally, a new mandatory online orientation program provides consistent foundational information and allows advisors to focus on individual student needs.

Course-Linked Math Tutoring

In order to improve developmental math and enable students to successfully complete gatekeeper math courses, NCMC revised the math syllabus to include early semester performance assessment and common mid-term and final exams. Instructor-led tutoring is held one hour before or after class. Individual student conferences and course-linked tutoring sessions are required.

Student Success Course

The course is voluntary but highly suggested in mandatory advising meetings. Upon initial piloting, this approach exceeded expectations and the number of sections offered increased from two to six (from 40 to 120 students) due to demand.

Results

Mandatory advising is a successful tool for communicating the value of ATD initiatives to students in need of developmental courses and increasing student enrollment in developmental and student success courses. The 240 students who were required to participate in advising were more likely to enroll in developmental courses in their first year (69% compared to 48% average in previous years) and successfully complete developmental courses in their first year (68% compared to previous 42%).

The data indicate gains in successful completion rates for students requiring two developmental math courses. In the most recently reported Achieving the Dream cohort without course-linked tutoring (2007-2008), 52% of students requiring and attempting developmental math successfully completed at least one developmental math course in their first year. The newly implemented course-linked tutoring for students in the first level developmental math course improved the pass rate to as much as 68% (2008-2009). Initial results are on a very small sample size (N=37) and will be continuously monitored.

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