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Promising Practices for Community College Student Success

Community colleges across the country have created innovative, data-informed programs that are models for educating underprepared students, engaging traditionally underserved students, and helping students from all backgrounds succeed. However, because most of these programs have limited scope, the field now has pockets of success rather than widespread improvement. Turning these many small accomplishments into broad achievement — and improved completion rates — depends on bringing effective programs to scale.

Data Notes: Jan/Feb 2012

11 Jan 2012

Finding Opportunities to Nudge Student Groups Over the Finish Line: Examining Students’ Five-Year Progress

Finish Line

This is a short board game, or simulation, in which several participants take on the roles of community college students and experience college in their shoes.  This game can help college faculty and staff understand what it is like to be a community college student facing multiple barriers to success, and it can also spark conversations about structural inequity while helping colleges to understand inequity from the student’s point of view. To request a copy of the Finish Line, please contact us.

2011 Promising Practices: Broad Engagement

Faculty, student services staff, and administrators share responsibility for student success, and collaborate on assessing the effectiveness of programs and services and improving them. Other stakeholders with influence on student success (K-12 systems, community groups, employers, etc.) are included in discussions about student performance, desired outcomes, and potential improvement strategies. The college also gains valuable insight about ways to improve student success from students themselves through surveys, focus groups, and/or advisory councils. Schools included in this section are: Bunker Hill Community College, College of the Mainland, El Paso Community College, Northampton Community College, Galveston College, Delaware County Community College, Eastern Gateway Community College, and San Jacinto College.

Readiness Assessment

The Acheivng the Dream Readiness Assessment helps colleges reflect on the institution’s student success and equity work to date. This self-assessment focusing on the Four Principles of Institutional Improvement helps stakeholder teams build relationships and refine their vision for Achieving the Dream.

Cutting Edge Series #1: Engaging Adjunct and Full-Time Faculty in Student Success Innovation

This publication is a guide that helps colleges design and implement effective faculty engagement strategies on behalf of institutional change for student success. Working within the Achieving the Dream Five-Step Process for Increasing Student Success through Institutional Change, this report attaches a set of core principles for effective adjunct and full-time faculty engagement to each stage in the process. These principles are then considered more closely, and a set of concrete recommendations and practices is offered for implementing each principle.

2010 Promising Practices: Broad Engagement

Faculty, student services staff, and administrators share responsibility for student success, and collaborate on assessing the effectiveness of programs and services and improving them. Other stakeholders with influence on student success (K-12 systems, community groups, employers, etc.) are included in discussions about student performance, desired outcomes, and potential improvement strategies. The college also gains invaluable insight about ways to improve student success from students themselves through surveys, focus groups, and/or advisory councils. Promising Practices in Broad Engagement include: Durham Technical Community College’s Communities of Learning, Inquiry, and Practice; Eastern Gateway’s College Bound Program; Hillsborough Community College’s Performance-based Scholarships; and Patrick Henry Community College’s Cooperative Learning Professional Development.

Terms of Engagement: Men of Color Discuss Their Experiences in Community College

This MDRC study draws on the experiences of 87 African-American, Hispanic, and Native American men who were enrolled in developmental math courses at four Achieving the Dream Institutions to find out more about what affects the success of men of color in community college. The fieldwork explored how students’ experiences in their high schools and communities, as well as their identities as men of color, influenced their decisions to go to college and their engagement in school.

Planning Guide: Campus and Community Conversations

This is a comprehensive guide for colleges wishing to hold a campus or community conversation about student success. It contains detailed instructions about recruiting participants, logistics, structuring the dialogue, and every other aspect of planning such conversations. Insights and examples of campus and community conversations at Achieving the Dream Institutions are included, as well as detailed guides for moderators and participants. 

Community and Faculty Engagement Case Studies

  • Breaking down the Silos: South Texas College, McAllen, Texas
  • Community Conversations Spur Student Success Initiatives: University of New Mexico at Gallup
  • Engaging Faculty in Data Collection and Analysis and in Redesigning Courses at Sinclair Community College

Planning Workbook: Faculty-Student Dialogue for Student Success

This guide provides instructions and resource materials (such as moderator guides and sample agendas) to enable colleges to conduct productive group dialogue sessions involving faculty, students, and staff in conversations about improving student success.

Community Engagement Self-Assessment Matrix

The Community Engagement Self-Assessment Matrix is a self-assessment and discussion tool for colleges wishing to examine their current community engagement practices and capabilities. It can be used by individuals, but is also useful as a discussion starter for small group discussion among members of a college’s Achieving the Dream Core or Leadership Teams, and as a means of engaging other stakeholders such as faculty, staff, and students.

Engaging Faculty in Achieving the Dream (Principles and Practices of Student Success)

This guide will help colleges understand the importance of meaningfully engaging faculty in their Achieving the Dream efforts. It addresses some of the challenges colleges have faced in this area, as well as tips for successful engagement and concrete examples and case studies of a variety of successful faculty engagement efforts. 

Field Guide For Improving Student Success

This guide is Achieving the Dream’s most comprehensive overview of the signature framework for helping more students finish the courses they start, persist from one term to the next, and earn a certificate or associate degree. The Field Guide includes an in-depth overview of Achieving the Dream’s four principles and five-step process, case studies, and a readiness assessment for prospective colleges to determine how their policies are practices measure up.

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