Housatonic Community College
Achieving the Dream has had widespread impact at Housatonic Community College. A culture of research-driven decision-making has quickly swept across and become strongly embedded in the college community. Housatonic Community College has established top priorities, which it is pursuing through the following corresponding strategies:
- The Bridges Program, designed to better align priorities and foci with area high schools in order to close the gap between high school preparation and college expectations.
- Open Entry/Open Exit Math, which is based on the self-paced, computer-based learning model to help developmental students proceed more quickly and successfully through and out of developmental courses.
- Open Entry/Open Exit English, similar in structure to the OE/OE Math; self-based and computer-based curricula allow for more efficient progression through developmental English classes and
- The Student Success Coaching program to help students decide on a major, take a career interest inventory, and explore career options; all with an eye toward improving retention rates semester-to-semester and persistence rates from fall-to-fall.
The majority of students entering Housatonic Community College come from poor, urban areas. Unfortunately, these students enter the college facing serious academic deficits, so the college’s interventions are designed to move students through developmental courses quickly and successfully.
Housatonic Community College’s campus is located in metropolitan Bridgeport, the largest city in Connecticut and a central entry point for immigrants from all over the world. As such, in Fall 2011 over 50% of the college’s 5,979 students were students of color; 28.5% were African American, 24.9% were Hispanic.
The college’s service area suffers from a personified socioeconomic disparity, which borders on poverty; particularly when viewed in relation to its surrounding neighbors and communities. Nearly half of all Housatonic students receive Federal Pell grants.
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.
