Academic advising for continuing and returning services handled by TRIO Student Support Services/Academic Advising. This service supplements the students’ faculty advising.
Eastern Gateway Community College
Active in Achieving the Dream:
2005 - present
Leader College:
2009 - 2012
Leader College
Participating Institution
While expanding to serve three more low-income counties in Northeast Ohio, Eastern Gateway Community College’s completion rate steadily increased.
What We Are Doing:
Eastern Gateway's student success strategies target first-time students, who are usually also first-generation college students.
- The graduation rate for first-time, full-time degree or certificate-seeking students improved from 18% in 2004 to 26% in 2009
- During this period, the population of first-time, full-time degree or certificate seekers grew by more than 450 students
To attain ambitious retention and completion goals, the college changed two policies in 2010. It made the college success course mandatory and required students who need remediation to take developmental courses first.
Who We Are:
Eastern Gateway Community College's student population is primarily white with a growing population of African Americans.
In Fall 2009, 56% of the college's 2,120students were women. Forty-four percent of students received Pell grants.
In 2008, Jefferson Community College was renamed Eastern Gateway Community College and expanded north into three Rust Belt counties previously not served by a public community college. The new service area is a mix of small, rural towns and shrinking industrial cities that have high unemployment and low college-going rates in common. The college's newboard has embraced Achieving the Dream's goal, developing its own scorecard for charting the student success factors it regularly monitors.
How We Work:
Eastern Gateway’s efforts to build a college-going culture include having faculty members “invade” high schools to teach academic lessons and study skills for the College Bound program. It offers programs for kindergarten to grade 12 students and their parents to demystify college preparation and enrollment.
At academic recognition programs, college personnel distribute “My student is College Bound!” window stickers for parents’ cars and give students t-shirts and book covers imprinted with: “Achieving My Dream – I am College Bound.”
For its Developmental Education Initiative the college started a new developmental math curriculum that uses computer labs with online assistance and teacher guidance.
PDF Version:
Student Success Strategies
Eastern Gateway Community College is using the following strategies to impact student success:
This college success course (CSS106) is designed to provide the newly enrolled college student with information needed to make a smooth transition into the college experience.
MyWritingLab is being incorporated into English redesign implemented Fall 2011. Students complete a diagnostic which populates their individualized study plans. They progress through the course at their own pace, asking for instructor assistance as needed.
MyMathLab - competency-based, computer-assisted program, requiring mandatory attendance. A Math Emporium with 2 instructors and 2 tutors was established at one of the college's sites in spring 2013.
