Lower Columbia College
Participating in Achieving the Dream will assist Lower Columbia College substantially in:
- Increasing efficiency in gathering and disseminating data
- Increasing exposure to best practices
- Finding the best available tools for tracking and benchmarking progress
Additionally, these activities would support the college’s efforts to move toward strategic enrollment management and allow them to leverage resources to help the students who are most in need of intervention. LCC plans to develop additional strategies targeted toward the first year of college-level studies to further boost credit accrual and graduation rates. There has been a major focus in recent years on transitioning more Basic Skills and Pre-College students into college-level courses, focusing on those student populations that typically contain large numbers of students of color who also tend to face economic challenges. The college also aims to increase the success in pre-college math by completely transforming the course structure, in hopes that the new curriculum will have an extremely positive impact on student success.
Established in 1934, Lower Columbia College (LCC) is located about 45 miles north of Portland, Oregon and serves the Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties. The current campus is made of 27 buildings on almost 39 acres of land and provides a comprehensive mix of educational programs and resources for the district in which it serves. This area has a population that is well below the state average in terms of socioeconomic status and educational attainment, and has been particularly hit hard by recent economic conditions and therefore experiencing, at times, the highest unemployment rate in the state of Washington.
The college serves what they consider a moderate proportion of students of color, comprising 18% of all students in the 2009-10 academic year, compared to only 13% of the population in its service district being of color. In a 2006 report released by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, LCC ranked third in the state for serving the highest percentage of students from the bottom two socioeconomic quintiles at 70%. In the Fall 2009 semester, 28% of students received Pell grants and 60% of the total student population enrolled full-time.
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.
