University of Houston-Downtown Profile

Background

The University of Houston-Downtown is a public university of nearly 12,000 students, offering a wide variety of bachelor’s degrees, as well as master’s programs in criminal justice, professional writing, security management and urban teaching. One of four distinct universities in the UH System, Houston’s Downtown University is nationally recognized for its student diversity, wireless campus, outstanding academic opportunities and productive community and civic partnerships. At UHD, the emphasis is on excellence in teaching and student success.

With dedicated faculty, small classes and innovative course options, UHD offers excellent educational opportunities. The University prepares individuals to thrive in the multicultural workplace of this century through interaction with its richly diverse student population.

Achieving the Dream Goals

UHD seeks to expand and improve services to students in order to increase student success rates by increasing its College Success programming, faculty development, and student tutoring. The University has established the following goals for its Achieving the Dream work:

• Improve first-time-in-college students’ success rates
• Improve performance of students enrolled in “milestone” statistics courses.
• Increase the number of faculty members who develop and use active learning strategies in their teaching
• Increase retention and graduation rates

To achieve these goals, UHD plans to re-design its college success program, establish a stats lab to provide tutorial help to students in upper division courses, and provide funding to assist faculty in developing effective teaching strategies and to enhance the institution’s assessment capabilities.