# FY 2014 Project Abstracts for New Awards:  Title III Part F Strengthening Institutions Program

# College of New Rochelle

# New Rochelle, NY

This proposal requests funding for a program of five activities designed to raise the College’s retention, persistence and graduation rates, improve institutional productivity, lower student costs, enrich curriculum, and enhance supportive student services. 

The primary, overarching activity on which the multifaceted supplementary activities will be based is the establishment of Student Success Communities, closely modeled on Learning Communities at other institutions which controlled studies have shown to improve retention and persistence by close monitoring and support of students. 

A supplementary activity for which funding is requested is an effective college-wide data management system to monitor student progress and thus enable timely interventions and support as needed. 

The proposal also request funds to establish the Gill Library Learning Commons as a second supplementary activity, to help with the identification of students requiring developmental work in quantitative reasoning, writing, technological proficiency and information literacy and to offer developmental modules in those areas, as well as making the Learning Commons resources available to students at the New York City campuses. 

A third supplementary activity for which funds are requested is faculty development which will take place in the Center for Teaching and Learning. This activity would promote more effective classroom instruction and provide training and support in effective mentoring and student support practices. 

The fourth supplementary activity is to expand STEM-related coursework to students at all of the schools, and provide laboratory experiences in the refurbished and/or better equipped laboratory facilities.

# Connors State College

# Warner, OK

**Proposed Project:**Tradition, Technology, Triumph: Creating Access and Pathways to Success

**Background/Service Area:**Connors State College (CSC or Connors) is a public, two-year community college (fall 2012 enrollment: 2,340) located in the heart of Oklahoma’s Native American Nations in Eastern Oklahoma (service area primarily encompasses the Cherokee Nation and the Muscogee [Creek] Nation). The College comprises two campuses—Warner (enrollment 913) and Muskogee (enrollment 1,427). CSC’s seven-county primary service area (total of 4,563 square miles) is a predominantly rural area with high poverty rates (19.9 percent average), low incomes ($18,045 average), and low rates of educational achievement (only 15.6 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree). Native Americans make up the largest minority group in the region (23 percent of the total area population and 31 percent of Connors’ student population, nearly a third).

**Institutional Problems:**Despite the fact that CSC serves a large region, with students commuting up to over 60 miles one way, and many students have work and family responsibilities (48 percent work and 53 percent are single parents), CSC has extremely limited distance education offerings. Courses offered online fill very quickly, indicating students’ need for flexible class options. However, insufficient technology infrastructure and inadequate faculty capacity to develop and deliver online courses have prevented CSC from increasing online course offerings or providing online support services. Additionally, Connors offers little support, including crucial academic support specifically for Native American students, 76 percent of whom are required to take developmental courses due to low scores on the COMPASS placement test.

**Proposed Solutions:**CSC’s institutional problems will be strategically addressed through the proposed project (**$5,414,460 request**over five years), which includes the following components:

1. We will **develop online and hybrid (combination online and face-to-face) courses in various disciplines**(with integration of Native Ways of Knowing) to increase curricular offerings for students in need of accessible, flexible course options. This includes comprehensive professional development for faculty, who will develop and pilot 35 courses for online delivery. Six online/hybrid degree programs will be made available. To further facilitate increased access to online courses and services for Native American students, we will equip an ITV classroom and a computer lab at the Cherokee Nation.

2. We will **develop comprehensive online support services**to boost the success of both online and traditional students. This will eliminate the need for students to come to campus to receive services such as financial aid assistance and advising. Online support services will ensure that all CSC students have twenty-four/seven access to the support they need to be successful.

3. We will **create a Native American Success & Cultural Center**(and a satellite center at our second campus) to offer services designed to boost Native American student success, including supplemental instruction (SI), academic advising, tutoring, mentoring, and cultural resources. The Center will provide space/resources for academic enrichment and collaborative learning.

Results of extensive research informed the project design, including studies that comply with the Department’s (ED) definitions of *moderate*and *strong evidence of effectiveness,*in accordance with the **Absolute Priority**of this Title III, Part F Competition. Consequently, CSC has developed a project that incorporates practices that have demonstrated evidence of effectiveness, based on ED definitions, in two specific areas: implementation of online learning and use of SI as a student support strategy to enhance academic achievement for Native American students.

# University of Central Oklahoma

# Edmond, OK

The University of Central Oklahoma’s (UCO) Project Transformative Learning will strengthen the University by allowing UCO to take significant steps in fulfilling its mission of transformative learning. UCO’s transformative learning initiatives are operationalized through a focus on what it calls its “Central Six” tenets: 1) discipline knowledge; 2) leadership; 3) research, creative, and scholarly activities; 4) service learning and civic engagement; 5) global and cultural competencies; and 6) health and wellness. This project will allow UCO to develop and implement a highly replicable way to capture student learning outcomes (SLOs) that are not captured in a standard academic or activities-based transcript. In addition, UCO’s proposed project will enable the institution to collect extensive data about High Impact Practices (HIPs) in a way not yet accomplished on college campuses because a single tool with associated processes that track and access both curricular and co-curricular student engagement via HIPs has not yet been constructed.

UCO’s institutional effort to develop and implement an Official Transformative Learning Record will provide students with the opportunity to plan and monitor their own progress toward exemplary achievement in transformative learning, regardless of their major. This exemplary achievement will be assessed against evidence-based outcomes for both curricular and co-curricular activities. Based on the evidence studies presented in the Absolute Priority and institutional preliminary data, UCO contends that this will increase student motivation to expand engagement in transformative learning experiences, resulting in improved student retention and graduation rates, especially among low-income, first generation, and/or minority students.

The proposed $7,783,143, five-year project will provide the resources for UCO to build its capacity to better serve its students, including low-income, first-generation, and/or minority groups. UCO’s project has been designed to achieve the following three goals:

1. Improve UCO’s infrastructure using an institution-wide data tracking and reporting system that will capture students’ progress on the learning outcomes related to each of the Central Six for both curricular and co-curricular activities;

2. Train and develop 1,040 faculty and staff in the assessment of SLO achievement, including how to assess student learning in both curricular and co-curricular activities, as that learning connects to student growth related to one or more of the Central Six; and

3. Increase student engagement in HIPs of the Central Six tenets by providing 1,850 students with a “living” online tool (i.e., Official Transformative Learning Record) that students can use to plan and monitor their own progress toward a holistic, transformative education.

UCO will establish the TL Endowment Fund ($2,000,000) in the UCO Foundation.

Interest from the Fund will be used to support TL efforts by funding student projects at UCO after the grant period.

UCO’s Project Transformative Learning will measure the institution’s progression toward achieving its mission, resulting in strengthened academic programs, institutional management, and fiscal stability. The project has been designed to meet the Title III: Strengthening Institutions Program Absolute Priority.

# West Virginia Wesleyan College

# Buckhannon, WV

**Institutional Profile:**West Virginia Wesleyan College (Wesleyan) is a private residential college located in the heart of Appalachia in North Central West Virginia. The College enrolls over 1400 students, offers 44 majors and 34 minors along with graduate programs in athletic training, business administration, education, English creative writing, and nursing.

**Service Area:**Wesleyan is located in West Virginia which has one of the lowest college going rates in the country. Only 17.6 percent of West Virginia residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. (U.S. Census, 2012) This is the lowest rate in the Appalachian region.

**Student Profile:** Total full-time equivalent enrollment for fall 2010 was 1425 (1285 undergraduate and 140 graduate students). Nearly 60 percent of Wesleyan’s student body matriculates from West Virginia high schools, with 30 percent being first-generation college students and 13 percent minorities (based on self-reporting and demographic data). Twenty percent of entering freshman need remedial coursework in order to be prepared for a typical college course.

**Faculty Characteristics:**Wesleyan employs 89 full-time faculty and 67 part-time/adjunct faculty with a student–to-faculty ratio of 13:1. Eighty faculty members hold a terminal degree in their field.

**Significant Problem:**Wesleyan has determined that fall-to-fall retention of first-time, full-time students, and persistence to graduation are significant problems for the College, as well as the state. Issues contributing to this problem include a high percentage of incoming students unprepared for college-level courses; low engagement among first-generation and minority students; low number of flexible and technology rich learning spaces; and too few faculty prepared to deliver courses including technology and active/experiential learning methodologies.

**Title III Project:***Strategies for Improving Student Engagement and Success at West Virginia Wesleyan College*involves one Title III activity which consists of two components: (1) development and implementation of enhanced academic services, courses, and programs to increase student engagement, retention and persistence to graduation for first-time, full-time students; (2) development and implementation of a teaching and learning center to support faculty through open source resources, faculty development and cross-discipline activities to better meet the educational needs of first-generation, minority or underprepared students. By September 2018, this project will increase: (1) the fall-to-fall retention rate of first-time, full-time students; (2) the six-year graduation rate of first-time full-time students; (3) the number of upgraded classrooms with flexible furnishings and instructional technology; (4) the number of faculty prepared to revise course curriculum to incorporate pedagogical best practices and the number of such courses delivered; (5) the total number of students enrolled at the college.

**The Request:** West Virginia Wesleyan College is requesting $10,000,000 in Title III funding over a five-year period to implement its project with more than 48 percent of funding in support of faculty development, student services, and course and program development. The remainder (52 percent) of funding will support equipment and supplies, primarily in the areas of flexible and technology-rich classrooms.

# MidAmerica Nazarene University

# Olathe, KS

MidAmerica Nazarene University (MNU) located in Olathe, Kansas, is a private, Christian Liberal Arts University with over 36 majors in five academic Schools. With an enrollment of approximately 1300 undergraduates and 450 graduate students, over 90 faculty and staff are committed to serving students with excellence and care. However, efforts are constrained due to a recent financial crisis. Due to the budget reductions, MNU has engaged in a comprehensive institutional analysis culminating in the development of this Title III proposal.

MNU is requesting $10,000,000 for the Title III Strengthening Intuitions Program for a single comprehensive activity—Creating CAPS: Center for Academic and Professional Success. Revenue is requested to fund the three components of this university wide activity.

1. **Strengthening Faculty Development:**Professional development activities will be developed and conducted toward the integration of technology, pedagogy and content knowledge into the classroom, to support at-risk and diverse learners.

2. **Expanding the services of the current Student and Academic Support Services:**An increase in course completion and persistence to graduation is anticipated with the expanded activities of peer tutors, Academic Specialists and new curriculum for developmental courses. Personnel will be added to create a comprehensive student support team to address the needs of at-risk and diverse learners in a holistic student-focused environment.

3. **Creating a Career Services Center:**With renewed emphasis on career counseling, career preparation and internships, the goal of this part of the Title III project is to re-instate career services and to create and eventually increase the participation of undergraduate students in a Career Services Center.

11/14/2014