Danville Area Community College
Danville Area Community College (DACC) is developing a culture of evidence that has proven particularly effective in identifying the needs of their African American student populations.
As the culture of evidence grows at DACC, it is witnessing institution-wide faculty, staff and students finding student success strategies helpful.
Evidence demonstrates that the greatest performance gaps in persistence, completion and semester-retention rates confront their African American students. The college created an Equity and Inclusion sub-team to develop initiatives to focus on addressing and closing these gaps as follows:
- A-MALE (African Males Addressing Life Effectively) is a support group designed specifically to address student success in and among the College’s African American male population. While more data needs to be collected, initial evidence showed 69% of the A-MALE participants enrolled in the Fall 2010 semester re-enrolled the following Spring; whereas, only 62% of the comparison (non A-MALE participant) cohort re-enrolled.
- WISE (Women Inspiring Success Effectively) is a female support group, and also a class students can receive Corporate and Community Education credit for completing.
- Professional Development interventions designed, in conjunction with the Teaching and Learning sub-team, to improve teaching techniques with an eye toward equity, inclusion, cultural awareness, and Cooperative Learning techniques in instructional delivery.
Initially established as an extension center of the University of Illinois in 1946, DACC currently operates as an independent two-year area college, and services high school districts in five East Central Illinois counties.
Vermillion County, where the college is located, statistically ranks among the worst counties in the state when measuring the percentage of adult residents ages 25-34, with either a two-or four-year degree.
The college has identified financial challenges and burdens facing students as a key hurdle to degree completion, with statistics showing nearly 70% of all of DACC’s first time in college students receiving some sort of financial aid. The initiatives are targeted at best equipping its students to address and overcome these barriers to completion.
The Achieving the Dream Model
Achieving the Dream community colleges commit to our Student-Centered Model of Institutional Improvement. Based on four principles, the model frames the overall work of helping more students, particularly low- income students and students of color, stay in school and earn a college certificate or degree.
Each college approaches the work differently, but Achieving the Dream’s five-step process provides practical guidelines for keeping the focus where it belongs and building momentum over time. Throughout the process, Achieving the Dream coaches offer customized support and help each college’s core team implement data-informed programs and policies that build long-term, institution-wide commitment to student success.
