Eastern Maine Community College
Eastern Maine Community College’s primary focus will be on improving student outcomes, which will rely on data to set goals for and measure student success, and setting strategic priorities for each of the college’s divisions. Over the last decade, Eastern Maine has put special emphasis on increasing access to enroll more people in higher education. While increasing enrollment remains central to their goal, it is also critical that they increase the number of degree completers. The college recognizes that this important work will require a thoughtful approach to planning and implementation, a reallocation of resources, and the involvement of stakeholders at the college, system, and state level.
By supporting the college’s strategic focus on student success, participation in Achieving the Dream will help communicate to the entire college community the central importance of the effort and will enable Eastern Maine to build a college-wide culture of evidence and inquiry far more quickly than would otherwise be possible.
Eastern Maine Community College is a small, two-year college specializing in technical, career, and transfer education and serves some of the poorest and most rural areas of Maine. At Eastern Maine, 58% of students qualify for Pell Grants. Maine lags the rest of New England in the percent of recent high school graduates enrolling in college and the percent of adults enrolled in post-secondary education. As a result, it has the lowest percentage of degree holders in the region.
About 57% of Eastern Maine’s students are full-time and the college has often lacked the resources and infrastructure necessary to assess the effectiveness of its programs. While the college’s total success (as measured by graduation, transfer, and continued enrollment) has increased from 39% to 58% over the past eight years, Eastern Maine would like to work with Achieving the Dream to improve their graduation rate, which has declined from 34% to 27%. At the same time, the remediation rate has increased substantially and is currently 83%, the highest in the Maine Community College System. Math remediation rates far outweigh reading and writing: 74% of all first-time Eastern Maine students are required to enroll in remedial math.
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.
