FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards 

Strengthening Institutions ProgramFY 2019 Abstracts[Document subtitle]10-1-2019	

ContentsP031A190002- Kean University, NJ	2P031A190003 - Arkansas State University Mid-South, AR	4P031A190005- Union College, NE	5P031A190010 - Southwest Tennessee Community College, TN	6P031A190011 - District Board of Trustees of Pensacola State College, FL	7P031A190012 - Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, KY	8P031A190013 - Daytona State College, FL	9P031A190016- Adirondack Community College, NY	10P031A190020- Owensboro Community and Technical College, KY	11P031A190023- Holy Family University, PA	12P031A190029 - Southern Nazarene University, OK	13P031A190031- Linn-Benton Community College, OR	14P031A190034- Sauk Valley Community College, IL	15P031A190035 - Southern Connecticut State University, CT	16P031A190042- Seattle Central College, WA	17P031A190043- Bellevue College, WA	18P031A190049 - Alpena Community College, MI	19P031A190056- Castleton University, VT	20P031A190057- St. Catherine University, MN	21P031A190060- University of Houston - Victoria, TX	22P031A190061- Southwest Virginia Community College, VA	23P031A190062- North Shore Community College, MA	24P031A190065- Louisiana College, LA	25P031A190075- Research Foundation State University of New York at Alfred, NY	26P031A190081- Seton Hill University, PA	27P031A190084- McHenry County College, IL	28P031A190091- Community College of Baltimore County, MD	29P031A190092 - Davidson County Community College, NC	30P031A190094 - Bellingham Technical College, WA	31P031A190097 - Big Sandy Community and Technical College/KCTCS, KY	32P031A190100 - Morton College, IL	33P031A190103 - Athens State University, AL	34P031A190104 - Monroe Community College, NY	35P031A190105 - Montclair State University, NJ	36P031A190106- Clackamas Community College, OR	37P031A190107 - Northeast State Community College, TN	38P031A190111 - Lakeshore Technical College, WI	39P031A190117 - Union College, KY	40P031A190118 - Bay Path University, MA	41P031A190119- Pima County Community College District - West Campus, AZ	42P031A190122- Lane Community College, OR	43P031A190123- Portland Community College, OR	44P031A190140- University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, AR	45P031A190142- SUNY College at Old Westbury, NY	46P031A190163- Technical College of the Lowcountry, SC	47P031A190167- Madisonville Community College, KY	48P031A190168- Lorain County Community College District, OH	49P031A190169- Walla Walla Community College, WA	50P031A190170- American International College, MA	51P031A190172- Alvernia University, PA	52P031A190173- University of Maine - Presque Isle, ME	53P031A190179- JC Calhoun State Community College, Inc., AL	54P031A190185 – Auburn University at Montgomery, AL	55P031A190186- Mountain Empire Community College, VA	56P031A190187- Illinois Eastern Community Colleges -Frontier Community Coll, IL	57P031A190190- Jefferson Community College, NY	58P031A190193- Montgomery County Community College, PA	59P031A190194- Grand Rapids Community College, MI	60P031A190201 – Notre Dame of Maryland, MD	61P031A190202- Lourdes University, OH	62P031A190205- Concordia University Ann Arbor, MI	63P031A190214- Notre Dame College of Ohio, OH	64P031A190229- Community College of Rhode Island, RI	65P031A190239- Klamath Community College, OR	66

# P031A190002- Kean University, NJ

**Institutional Profile:**Kean University in Union, New Jersey is a comprehensive, global institution of higher education serving a diverse enrollment of more than 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Kean’s mission is to provide an affordable, accessible and world-class education that prepares students to think and respond critically and creatively in a rapidly changing world. Its five undergraduate colleges offer more than 50 undergraduate degrees over a full range of academic subjects, and the Nathan Weiss Graduate College offers six doctoral degree programs and more than 60 options for graduate study leading to master’s degrees, professional diplomas or certifications. Kean remains committed to excellence in higher education and continuing its long tradition of access, opportunity and affordability for students seeking a college degree. Each year, Kean proudly builds on this distinguished history, as it stays focused on guiding students to academic and professional success.

**Project Title:**The Expansion of Supplemental Instruction (SI) at Kean University

**Problems:**As an institution, Kean University has been very inclusive in providing access to higher education to academically underprepared students but not as inclusive in providing them with the tools and support they need to succeed, as evidenced by low performance in our most challenging gateway courses, as well as low retention and graduation rates institution wide. These “gatekeeper” courses are particularly challenging for first-generation students and those from low-income backgrounds. With nearly half of Kean’s student population identifying as either first-generation or Pell recipients, the need for embedded support in these gateway courses is even more critical to their success.

**Goals:**Support Kean University’s Strategic Plan Goal 2—improve retention by targeting proactively our most at-risk constituencies with effective, directed monitoring and specialized support from pre-matriculation to graduation—through the expansion of the SI program, which targets the university’s most difficult gateway courses – those with the highest rates of DFW grade distributions—and provides much needed support for Kean’s most at-risk student populations.

**Outcomes:**Increased retention; increased four-year graduation rates; decreased DFW rates in key gateway courses; and increased opportunities for on-campus peer leadership and internships.

**Implementation Strategy:**By Spring 2024, the SI program will expand to support all sections of previously identified high DFW-targeted gateway courses (in math, chemistry, computer science, and accounting), thus impacting 1,550 students, in an effort to increase student retention and success during their first and second years at Kean.

**Funds Requested:**$1,493,340. Kean University’s Title III project budget is designed to ensure full implementation of the project’s comprehensive design and implementation strategies, to sustain staffing and professional development needs, and to support project assessment activities over the five-year grant period, as well as to position Kean to institutionalize initiatives beyond the life of the grant.

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards

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# P031A190003 - Arkansas State University Mid-South, AR 

Arkansas State University Mid-South is a public 2-year college located in West Memphis, AR, which is part of the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

In Fall 2018, Mid-South enrolled 1,492 students, 56 percent of whom were African American. The majority, 53 percent, were first generation in college, and 70.6 percent of students were eligible for Pell grants. The majority (75.7 percent) of that group had an Expected Family Contribution of 0. Mid- South draws largely (86 percent of students) from rural Crittenden County, Arkansas, which takes Arkansas’ characteristic poverty to the extreme, with a per capita income of just $20,133, or 67.5 percent of the national rate ($29,829). More than a quarter of families with children (27.7 percent) are low income, compared to the national rate of 17.4 percent (ACS, 2017). The state ranks **43rd**in the nation for residents 25 years or older who have finished high school and **48th**in bachelor's degree completions (ACS, 2017).

Despite several strengths in academics, institutional management, and finance, Mid- South’s administration, faculty, and staff has identified several serious problems related to information technology, ranging from inadequate systems for institutional management and online student support and instruction to limited faculty knowledge of current instructional technology and to major gaps in its instructional program in information technology.

For the last three years, retention rates for both full-time and part-time students have generally hovered around the mid- to upper-40s, dropping as low as 25 percent for the 2017 cohort of part-time students. This group is strongly affected by work schedules and family responsibilities and increasingly turns to online instruction for flexibility in their education. With over half (53.6 percent) of all students taking one or more online courses and with short-term (8-week) courses increasing in popularity, Mid-South believes it is time to begin offering complete associate degrees online. By developing new online short courses that meet general education or specific program requirements and converting existing face-to-face courses for online delivery, the college proposes to make three degrees available online, with some courses accelerated: the AAS in Business Technology, the AS in Teaching, and a proposed new AS in Computer Programming that will be developed as a face-to-face program and then also made available online.

Online support for students is weak, and Mid-South needs to integrate such resources as Starfish, TutorMe, EMSI Career Coach, and Cash Course to monitor student progress, provide 24/7 access to academic assistance, give students information linking their programs of study to regionally available careers, and increase their financial literacy. A new online registration program, which automates the registration process, and online transcript requests will make it easier for students to access those processes and will also increase efficiency in the Registrar’s Office. Faculty teaching online courses will also gain proficiency by participating in best practices training.

By the end of the grant period, Mid-South expects success rates for online courses will be within 3 percentage points of rates for face-to-face classes, compared to a 9-point average difference for the last 7 semesters. With greater academic success, the retention rate for online students will have increased by at least 3 percentage points over an average of 49 percent over the last 3 years (nat. avg. = 62 percent, NCES, 2018).

This proposal addresses Competitive Preference Priorities 1 and 2 and also addresses the Invitational Priority.

The Year 1 budget totals $450,000.

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards

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# P031A190005- Union College, NE

**Institutional Profile/Demographics:** Union College (UC) is a private, nonprofit four-year college founded in 1891 and accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Located in Lincoln, Nebraska, UC offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Most students are considered traditional college students (91 percent) and most attend on a full-time basis (91 percent). The college serves a diverse student body with 47 percent non-white enrollment and a large population of Hispanic students (21 percent). A large percentage of UC students are low income (50.4 percent).

**Project Title:** uSucceed at Union College

**Goals:** UC is experiencing major and chronic problems of low first-time, full-time (FTFT) student retention, especially among students deemed at high risk of dropping out or failing; low six-year graduation rates; and low pass rates in critical first-year courses. The college’s ability to resolve these institutional weaknesses is hampered by inadequate advising, learning management, and early alert systems as well as a lack of professional development and an integration of student support services that promote student success. UC’s overall project goals are threefold: 1) increase retention and graduation rates for FTFT students, 2) improve institutional systems to support student success, and 3) improve fiscal stability through increased retention. In order to achieve these goals, UC will establish a centrally located, integrated student success center (uSucceed Center) and adopt a life-coach model that provides all freshmen with both academic and non-academic assistance. Roles and responsibilities within the uSucceed Center will enable the college to coordinate learning supports such as supplemental instruction and to facilitate work-based learning opportunities such as internships. UC will also enhance systems infrastructure by installing a campus-wide learning management system, an early alert system, and advising software and will build a culture of student success best practices through improved professional development opportunities for all faculty and staff.

**Expected Outcomes:** As a result of implementing the uSucceed at Union College project, UC will achieve the following outcomes by September 30, 2024: 1) increase FTFT retention to 80 percent; 2) increase retention of high-risk FTFT students to 73 percent; 3) increase pass rates in three groups of first-year courses to 85 percent, 85 percent, and 90 percent; 4) increase to 66 percent the percentage of FTFT students who demonstrate timely progress to six-year graduation; 5) increase to 90 percent the percentage of students failing a course who receive an early alert prior to mid-term; 6) reduce to 10 percent the percentage of graduates earning excess credits; 7) increase the percentage of students participating in internships to 95 percent; 8) increase the percentage of freshman reporting improved understanding of basic financial concepts and money management to 95 percent; 9) increase the percentage of faculty and staff who participate in professional development opportunities tied to student success best practices to 95 percent; 10) increase annual tuition revenue by $501,816.

Funds Requested: $2,110,050

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# P031A190010 - Southwest Tennessee Community College, TN

The mission of Southwest Tennessee Community College is to provide the citizens of Shelby and Fayette counties and the surrounding Mid-South region with a high quality and affordable post-secondary education that prepares them for associate degrees, future educational opportunities, and successful employment. As a comprehensive, open-access, culturally diverse, public two-year college, Southwest is committed to meeting the educational needs of individual students, communities, and employers.

**PROJECT TITLE:**Inclusive Design for Equity in Academic Success (IDEAS)

**PROBLEMS: AP Problems:**Retention and graduation rates are too low; significant gaps exist for underserved student populations; high failure rates in high-enrollment courses; gaps in academic achievement between races/ethnicities are significant barriers to academic achievement. **IM Problems:**Limited infrastructure to sustain data-informed decision making; professional academic advising, and academic support is inadequate to meet increased enrollment of students with multiple at-risk characteristics. **FS Problem:**State funding for higher education remains below pre-recession levels.

**OVERALL GOALS: AP Goal 1:**Improve successful completion of students’ educational goals, including graduation, transfer, and continuing education; **AP Goal 2:**Close equity gaps in student success for underrepresented minority/majority populations. **IM Goal 1:**Improve advising support to achieve best practice caseload model; **IM Goal 2:**Increase college engagement in equity-related training and development; **IM Goal 3:**Improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness; **FS Goal**: Strategically align the budget and financial support to measured improvements.

**OUTCOMES:**Objectives related to Southwest’s major problems are designed to measure changes in retention (Obj. 1-2); failure rates in high-enrollment foundational and core curriculum courses (Obj. 3-5); graduation (Obj. 6-7); professional academic advisor-to-student ratio (Obj. 8); training in equity and inclusion (Obj. 9); and training in use of data infrastructure for informed decision-making to close achievement gaps and improve student outcomes (Obj. 10).

**STRATEGIES:**Southwest has an opportunity to become a leader in equity and inclusive excellence for its students. This will be achieved through implementation of one comprehensive activity with four related strategies: (1) Improve Academic Advising, Support, and Mentoring; Infuse High-Impact Practices (HIPs) in High-Enrollment, High-Fail Rate Courses; (3) Implement Professional Development Program for Equity and Inclusion; and (4) Increase Capacity for Data-Informed Decision-Making. Supported by best practices and research, implementation of these strategies will result in increased capacity of Southwest to equitably serve low-income students, students of color, and other promising student populations with respect to access, success, and campus climate.

**COMPETITIVE PREFERENCE PRIORITIES**: The project addresses CPP 1 and CPP 2.

**FUNDS REQUESTED: $2,184,533**

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# P031A190011 - District Board of Trustees of Pensacola State College, FL

This Proposed Title III project – *Pirate PATH to Success*– will serve a target population of First-Time-In-College and other at-risk individuals, such as First-Generation-In-College and low-income (Pell eligible). Located in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, Pensacola State College (PSC) – home of the Pirates – is a comprehensive public institution governed by a governor- appointed seven-member local District Board of Trustees. Pensacola State College is a member of the 28-institution Florida College System.

The proposed project is focused on increasing retention and completion for postsecondary students desiring a certificate or degree to immediately enter the workforce or transfer to a university. This will be accomplished through efforts to improve college completion for the target population, students who have been traditionally underrepresented in postsecondary education, by providing a holistic approach to retention efforts. FTIC students will be assigned to a Student Services Advisor for intentional advising and will be required to meet with them frequently and over a longer period of time. This project also includes a tutoring component which would allow the College to greatly increase the opportunities for students to participate in face-to-face in-person tutoring and synchronous virtual tutoring. The College recently won a prestigious Bellwether Award from the Community College Futures Assembly for a pilot program in virtual tutoring which has provided promising early results for course completion.

Students will be encouraged to participate in increased opportunities for work-based learningexperiences, and mandatory financial literacy instruction will be provided in order to better prepare students to make educated financial choices during their time at PSC and then throughout their lives.

Retention and completion – student success – in postsecondary education are the overarching goals and performance indicators. The stated objectives are ambitious, yet attainable. PSC will evaluate the overall impact of the project’s interventions – intentional advising, tutoring, work-based experiences, and financial literacy education – on retention, course persistence, and graduation rates, when the treatment group is compared to robust historical data. The sample will be comprised of three annual cohorts from the target population of approximately 1,500 students each. Data will be collected from internal sources, such as the PSC Student Records System, and externally from the National Student Clearinghouse.

Statistical analysis of impacts will be conducted by the PSC Office of Institutional Research, using a statistical software package such as SAS. Academic achievement and credit accumulation will be tested using multiple outcome measures.

*Pirate PATH to Success*has been designed to fit seamlessly into routine operations and will transform College systems by implementing proven strategies to improve student retention and completion outcomes. Pensacola State College takes full responsibility for integrating the transformative changes, programs, and practices into routine College functions.

**Total Five-Year Project Costs: $2,248,838.82**

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# P031A190012 - Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, KY

Institutional Profile:****Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (Southeast), located in the heart of Appalachia, serves a region that is among the nation’s most distressed. The region has been designated as a Promise Zone, which expands educational and economic development opportunities by receiving preference for funding by federal statute. Classes are offered on five campuses as well as through distance education. Forty-nine programs are offered leading to short-term certificates, diplomas, or two-year degrees. Southeast serves 3,317 students, of which over 90 percent receive student aid, and 70 percent are the first in their families to attend college. The majority of students are aged 18-34.

Problems:*****Academic Programs:*(1) Loss of faculty, staff, and programs; (2) Limited resources for academic programs. *Institutional Management:*(1) Inadequate Resource Development Office capacity; (2) Inadequate Foundation capacity. *Fiscal Stability:*Decrease in enrollment, revenue, and overall budgets; (2) Decreased Perkins funding. Common obstacles that students face are relying too much on student loans and high transportation costs to work-based learning sites.

Project:****Southeast requests support for a Title III Strengthening Institutions Program project: Institutional Transformation through Resource Development Capacity (ITRDC). Resource development work involves a comprehensive plan – including procedures, tactics, and strategies for grant writing and fundraising in order to bring dollars, services, and goods to the institution. The project has three overall goals, using Collins’ Revenue Models Theory: (1) strengthen and improve the College’s Resource Development Office capacity; (2) Increase the College’s institutional capacity to manage relationships to successfully increase the number of gifts and grants awarded; and (3) Strengthen the Southeast Education Foundation’s capacity to manage relationships to increase resource development effectiveness. When met, these goals support academic programs, faculty/staff professional development, innovative programming, equipment, work-based learning (apprenticeships/internships), and scholarships. When each of these areas are strengthened, the College anticipates an increase in student enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates.

Priorities: This proposal includes both competitive preference priorities (CPP) and invitational priority (IP). CPP1 (Fostering Flexible and Affordable Paths to Obtaining Knowledge and Skills) will be addressed by creating a scholarship fund to help alleviate transportation costs. CPP2 (Fostering Knowledge and Promoting the Development of Skills that Prepare Students to be Informed, Thoughtful, and Productive Individuals and Citizens) is addressed by incorporating financial literacy into a mandatory first-year experience course and by creating scholarship funds to reduce the need for student loans. The IP (Spurring Investment in Opportunity Zones) is addressed by describing four Opportunity Zones served by the College.

This proposal****will demonstrate the high need for the project, how the College identified the activity, commitment of College personnel, a sound implementation strategy to achieve activity objectives, and a strong evaluation that will be conducted by an external evaluator experienced with Title III SIP. This proposal will allow Southeast to implement an innovative program that will strengthen the institution at all levels, across all departments, and at all five campuses.

**Funds Requested:**$1,396,300

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# P031A190013 - Daytona State College, FL

**Institutional Background**: Daytona State College (DSC) is a comprehensive public college educating more than 26,000 students annually across six locations within two counties of east central Florida. The College offers 62 certificate programs, 37 associate degrees, and 11 baccalaureate degrees meeting local workforce needs. Flexible day and evening courses are available, in 15-week semesters and 7-week terms, and include face-to-face, online, and hybrid formats. DSC’s student population is diverse. In Fall 2017, students in college-credit programs comprised 61 percent part-time, 58 percent female, 38 percent non-white or mixed race. The average age was 27. More than half received a form of federal financial aid and Pell awards exceeded $25.6M.

**Low retention rate for students in associate degree programs (Objective 1):**DSC’s Fall 2017 to Fall 2018 retention rate for all students was just 61.6 percent, compared to a statewide average of 64.8 percent. Of the 1,488 new first-time-in-college (FTIC) students enrolled in an associate degree program in Fall 2017, only 54.84 percent were retained in Fall 2018. The retention rate was lower for Pell-eligible students at 51.14 percent, and lower still for African American students at 33.64 percent.

**Low graduation rate for students in associate degree (AA/AS) programs (Objective 2):**of the 1,426 new FTIC students enrolled in AA/AS programs in Fall 2016, only 22.23 percent graduated within 150 percent of time to degree. The graduation rate was lower for Pell-eligible students at 18.15 percent, first-generation at 17.36 percent, and African American students at 13.39 percent. A range of academic and non-academic barriers impede the progress of students, leading to low graduation rates for the overall student body and specific population groups.

**Activity, objectives, and strategies:**DSC proposes *Learner Engagement, Navigation, and Support,*a five-year initiative committing both Title III and institutional resources to improve retention and graduation outcomes for first-time-in-college associate degree students through inclusive engagement, navigation assistance and online learning support through integrated new technology, by delivering enhanced resources, and strengthening the campus environment for inclusion and equity. *LENS*is designed as a single activity with three component strategies: **1)**Enrich the college environment to heighten cultural inclusion, social acceptance and community connection among students; **2)**Implement proactive advising navigator services that include integrated career pathway planning; and **3)**Enhance online instruction and support to increase student engagement and success.

**Competitive preference priorities: C**ompetitive preference priorities one and two are addressed, reflecting efforts to implement financial literacy instruction within the first-year student success course, and work-based learning opportunities for students in associate of science degree programs.

Daytona State College requests $2,135,509 over a five-year period to implement the project. The College commits $1,498,610 in additional resources to ensure the project is well-supported and stated objectives can be achieved.

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# P031A190016- Adirondack Community College, NY

**SERVICE AREA:**Adirondack Community College (ADK) is located in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York. The College serves a rural 2,600 square-mile service area, encompassing 3 counties (Washington, Warren, northern Saratoga). Only 20 percent of the population over the age of 25 has a bachelor’s degree or higher.

**PROGRAMS, STUDENTS & FACULTY:**In the fall of 2018, 3,768 credit-seeking students were enrolled. ADK offers nine AA/AS transfer programs (58 percent of enrollment) and 12 AAS career programs (26 percent of enrollment). Most students are female (58 percent), full-time (59 percent), Caucasian (82 percent), and receive financial aid (81 percent). The average student age is 20. ADK has 93 full-time faculty and 165 part-time faculty; 67 percent of full-time faculty hold master’s degrees and 32 percent a doctorate degree. The student-faculty ratio is 19:1.

**PROJECT GOALS & DESIGN:**ADK intends to institute a culture of shared responsibility for first-year student engagement and improve business practices resulting in staff empowerment and the ability to focus on student service in a new way. The Title III project goals are to: 1) improve student success, retention, and completion; and 2) improve efficiency and effectiveness of business processes. The project involves a suite of strategies that will surround first-year students with supportive structures to help them assess, envision, plan, and monitor progress toward their academic and non-academic goals and strengthen the College’s ability to function more effectively and efficiently as an institution to improve academic programs, institutional management and fiscal stability.

**STRATEGIES:**1) Revitalize Freshman Seminar by integrating best practices in student engagement and success; 2) Assist students in assessing strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, academic planning, career exploration, and internship portfolio development; 3) Develop a student success coaching program that provides first-year students with access to professional and peer coaches to address academic and non-academic challenges; 4) Offer supplemental instruction and online tutoring in remedial math; 5) Implement technology enhancements to support timely interventions and improved student follow-up and engagement; 6) Provide professional development opportunities for faculty and staff in best practices supporting first- year student success; 7) Automate and streamline key business processes; and 8) Implement document digitization and storage capabilities.

**OUTCOMES:**1) Increased annual retention rate of first-time, full time Pell students; 2) Increased 3-year graduation rates of first-time, full time Pell students; 3) Increased completion rates in remedial math; 4) Improved satisfaction with student engagement; 5) Increased staff and administrator satisfaction with the efficiency of automated business processes; 6) Increased student satisfaction with registration, financial aid and billing/payment services; and 7) Increased percentage of student records and documents are digitized.

**PRIORITIES:**The project responds to Competitive Preference Priorities 1 and 2.

**BUDGET REQUEST:**$2,249,259

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# P031A190020- Owensboro Community and Technical College, KY

Owensboro Community and Technical College (OCTC) proposes to implement the ***Experience III @ OCTC*(*E3@OCTC*)**Title III project as a key strategy to increase student retention and completion. Through ***E3@OCTC***, OCTC will incorporate evidence-based, on- and off-campus experiential learning opportunities (ELOs), proven to strengthen student academic performance and persistence, in all OCTC degree programs. ELOs will include work experience, service learning, and course-embedded experiences. The project will also deliver related evidence-based supports, including faculty professional development, community ELO forums, an ELO Center, administrative ELO processes, early ELO exploration, and comprehensive ELO advising.

OCTC is located in western Kentucky in the state’s fourth largest city (Owensboro). During the Fall 2018 semester, OCTC enrolled 3,947 students, of which 53 percent were female and 10 percent were minorities (*KY Council on Postsecondary Education*). OCTC students are primarily low- income, with 72 percent receiving some grant aid to attend college (*IPEDS Data Feedback Report 2018*). OCTC is at a pivotal point in its history when a broad expansion of its ELOs is ideal and logical. Based on David Kolb’s experiential learning theory (1984) ***E3@OCTC***is supported by three goals that include:

1) ***E3@OCTC Goal 1*:**Increase the exploration of careers and enhance the relevance of postsecondary education for OCTC students, especially those who are low-income, by introducing and providing on- and off-campus ELOs in the first semester and throughout the educational experience;

2) ***E3@OCTC Goal 2*:**Increase OCTC’s capacity to offer quality ELOs to students by providing ongoing, meaningful professional development experiences for faculty that build upon community partnerships and support continued collaboration and employer engagement; and

3) ***E3@OCTC Goal 3*:**Increase retention and completion rates of OCTC students by providing on- and off-campus ELOs with comprehensive supports that engage students academically, expose them to diverse ideas, and prepare them for future employment and/or transfer.

Achievement of the project’s goals/major activities will lead to the following expected outcomes:

· By September 2024, **60 percent**of OCTC’s degree-seeking students will have enrolled in one or more ELOs (***Baseline:****24.4 percent – Fall 2018*).

· By September 2024, **75**OCTC faculty will have provided ELOs for students, resulting from the delivery of proven faculty professional development (PD) strategies each semester and the arrangement of annual collaborative opportunities (***Baseline:****27 faculty – Fall 2018*).

· By September 2024, the fall-to-fall retention rates of first-time, full-time OCTC students will increase to **67 percent**through offering quality ELOs, supported by an ELO Center and related centralized administrative processes and procedures (***Baseline:****61 percent – Fall 2017-Fall 2018*).

· By September 2024, the completion rate of first-time, full-time OCTC students who graduate within three years will increase to **44 percent**through offering quality ELOs, with opportunities for student exploration and related advising supports (***Baseline:****38 percent – 2015 Cohort*).

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# P031A190023- Holy Family University, PA

**Institutional Profile/Demographics:**Holy Family University (HFU) is a fully accredited Catholic, private, co-educational university in Philadelphia, PA. The university provides liberal arts and professional programs for more than 2,100 undergraduate students. Graduate programs in business administration (accelerated), criminal justice, education, counseling psychology, nursing, and information systems management serve more than 1,100 professional and pre- professional students. Doctoral programs train educational leaders, psychologists, and nurse practitioners.

**Project Title:**Increasing Student Success and Retention by Strengthening Student Support and Faculty Development

**Goals:**HFU is experiencing major and chronic problems of low retention rates and low six-year graduation rates for high-risk students; low pass rates in core and gateway majors, inadequate professional development and the growing need for student financial assistance. HFU’s overall project goals are threefold: 1) improve student success by providing academic support as well as developing students’ non-academic skills; 2) improve student support services and faculty ability to impact student success and retention; and 3) improve fiscal stability through increased tuition revenue. In order to achieve these goals, HFU will establish a Center for Teaching and Learning, offering expanded academic and non-academic support, develop intervention protocols and systems that promote retention and student success, and build faculty competence and culture of student support. Roles and responsibilities within the project will enable the college to offer non-academic supports such as financial aid literacy (CPP#2) and to facilitate work-based learning opportunities such as internships (CPP#1).

**Expected Outcomes:**As a result of implementing the project, HFU will achieve the following outcomes by September 30, 2024: 1) increase the percentage of at-risk students whose degree audits demonstrate progress towards graduation within six years to 66 percent; 2) increase average fall- to-fall retention of at-risk freshmen to 80 percent; 3) increase average pass rates in five core/gateway courses to 90 percent; 4) decrease the percentage of freshmen on academic probation to 5 percent, 5) increase fall-to-spring retention of freshmen on academic probation to 75 percent; 6) increase tutoring appointment capacity to 1150 per semester, 7) increase to 90 percent faculty participation in professional development topics that address institutional priorities; 8) increase fall-to-fall retention of students flagged as at-risk via StarFish EAS to 80 percent; 9) decrease to 10 the number of students with financial holds that prevent them from registering; and 10) increase annual tuition revenue by $650,000.

**Funds Requested:**$2,147,973.00

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# P031A190029 - Southern Nazarene University, OK

Southern Nazarene University (SNU) is a four-year, private university, located in Bethany, Oklahoma (pop. 19,402) just west of Oklahoma City (pop. 643,648). In Fall 2018, SNU served 2,054 students, offering traditional undergraduate, nontraditional undergraduate (Professional Studies), and graduate programs. Of the 1,014 traditional undergraduate students in Fall 2018, 36 percent were an ethnic/racial minority, 48 percent were female (52 percent male), and the average age was 20. The vast majority enrolled full-time (97 percent), and many received federal need-based Pell Grants to offset financial need (42 percent). Of the 530 nontraditional undergraduate students in Fall 2018, 39 percent were an ethnic/racial minority, 42 percent were female (58 percent male), and 60 percent received federal need- based Pell Grants to address financial need. Pointing to particular need among the University’s nontraditional students, according to a 2019 survey of Professional Studies students, 85 percent work fulltime, 70 percent are parents, 45 percent stopped out of college for five or more years before returning, and nearly a third (32 percent) commute 30 minutes or more one way to SNU.

SNU serves students within the Church of the Nazarene’s South Central Region, which encompasses Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. The region struggles with some of the highest poverty rates in the nation: Louisiana (2nd highest at 19.7 percent), Arkansas (7th highest at 16.9 percent), Oklahoma (8th highest at 15.8 percent), and Texas (14th highest at 14.7 percent) (U.S. Census,  2017). The immediate area surrounding SNU—the area from which the University draws most of its students—is one of “haves” and “have nots”: in Oklahoma City, per capita income levels rise above the state average ($28,365 vs. $26,461) while poverty rates soar at 17.1 percent compared to 15.8 percent for the state. Pockets of highly educated and prospering adults stand in stark contrast to the large swath of area residents who have not been able to complete a higher education degree and whose career prospects are limited by their low educational attainment.

While need is great in our area, so is opportunity. Well-paying job opportunities abound in fields such as technology and healthcare. For instance, in 2018, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce identified Cybersecurity Specialists, Data Analysts, and Rehabilitation Specialists (Physical, Occupational, Speech) as in-demand and hard-to-fill occupations. Such opportunities offer promising options for those who have the education to take advantage of them.

To connect students to the growing opportunities in our area while also strengthening our institution, SNU proposes a Title III project entitled ***Reaching the Marginalized Majority: Access and Success for Nontraditional Students***. Through comprehensive analysis of institutional strengths and weaknesses, SNU has identified the need to invest in academic programs and support services customized to meet the needs of nontraditional students—a growing student population that is currently underserved at the institution. The project includes two inter-related components. The first component is to increase educational access for nontraditional students by creating new and expanding existing academic programs delivered in nontraditional formats that will prepare students for in-demand industry sectors and occupations. The second component focuses on strengthening success among nontraditional students by developing new services—early alert, career, financial literacy, and online tutoring—to address the unique needs of nontraditional students. The project addresses both competitive preference priorities and the invitational priority for the competition.

SNU’s five-year budget request totals $2,249,947.

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# P031A190031- Linn-Benton Community College, OR

**Institutional Profile:**Established in 1966, Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC) is a two- year public college serving the educational needs of residents in Oregon counties of Linn and Benton. LBCC’s 104-acre Albany Campus is located just ten miles east of Corvallis—home to Oregon State University (OSU)—with satellite campuses in Corvallis (the Benton Center) and in Lebanon and Sweet Home (the East Linn Centers). With more than 60 transfer and career technical education programs, LBCC students benefit from smaller classes where they have greater opportunity to interact with faculty and other students, and from faculty who focus on teaching and providing the kind of personal attention that guides and supports students on to success.

**Project Title:**Meeting Students Where They Are: Creating Proactive and Responsive Interventions to Support Student Completion

**Problems:**The retention, graduation and transfer-out rates for Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC) students are low compared with state and national benchmarks. LBCC’s generic first- year experience course does not meet needs of student subpopulations. LBCC also does not effectively identify or adequately support students experiencing barriers to college success and does not adequately track early warning signs like attendance problems, which contribute, to poor academic performance. All of these problems lead to funding insecurity for an institution that relies on tuition/fees for 39.1 percent of its revenue.

**Strategies:**LBCC is proposing one comprehensive Title III activity designed to increase the College’s capacity to address CDP problems impacting student success. This will be achieved through three complementary strategies supported by best practices, evidence-based strategies, and LBCC’s own experiences:

Strategy 1: Implement Early Alert and Attendance Tracking Systems; 

Strategy 2: Establish First Resort Student Help Center; and

Strategy 3: Redesign Destination Graduation/First-Year Experience.

**Objectives:**Increase fall-to-fall retention of full-time and part-time credit seeking students. Increase success rates (graduation and transfer rates combined) for first-time full-time and Pell students, increase faculty/staff satisfaction and use of early alert and attendance technology, increase student satisfaction with support services.

**Funds Requested: $2,144,806.**LBCC’s Title III project budget is designed to ensure full implementation of the project’s comprehensive implementation strategies, to support project management and evaluation activities over the five-year grant period, and to position LBCC to institutionalize initiatives post-grant.

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# P031A190034- Sauk Valley Community College, IL

Sauk Valley Community College (SVCC) is a Title III eligible institution located in rural Illinois. Approximately 70 percent of SVCC students are considered low income. SVCC is challenged by low retention, course completion, and graduation rates. In particular, students need more support in developmental English and online courses. To that end, we created the Title III Strengthening Institutions Grant application to support SVCC’s strategic initiatives:

1. SVCC will investigate and develop a comprehensive online presence while maintaining the high quality, but low-cost education that SVCC is already known for.

2. SVCC will investigate and develop additional innovative techniques that will engage and quickly remediate the developmental learner.

The components of our Title III Activity are:

***Improve and strengthen the academic quality at SVCC:***In the last five years, the growth of SVCC’s online courses has increased by 50 percent. SVCC currently lacks the ability to fully support the growth of our online learners. To address the success, retention, and current completion gap, a College-wide initiative will be launched to redesign online courses and address online learner retention issues. **This will allow the College to pro-actively implement early intervention strategies before a problem becomes serious.**To improve academic quality at SVCC, **we will redesign online courses to meet nationally recognized, evidence- based high quality standards.**Faculty across the curriculum will be provided training and support, including a providing **professional development**for collaborative course redesign. Science and other courses across the SVCC curriculum will be redesigned to meet educational standards and **allow students to complete their Associate in Arts and Associate in Science degrees online.**Online degree completion is especially important to our rural area where transportation issues are major reoccurring issues for our students.

***Improve and strengthen institutional management at SVCC:***SVCC employs three full-time and one part-time academic advisors (an advisor to student ratio of 1-857). These academic advisors provide academic, career, and personal counseling, as well as orientation and testing services for approximately 3,000 community members and students each year. This service is equivalent to a **counselor/student ratio of one counselor for every 857 students. SVCC will fund the advisor positions incrementally over the five-year period beginning in Year 2, so that as the project ends there will be a “Corps” of well-trained academic and mental health advisors and an Advisor Resource Team**. In Years 1-3, advisors will be trained in specific academic programs and innovative approaches to advising. By employing two additional academic and mental health advisors, SVCC will balance the advisor student ratio to the recommended rate of 1-375. ***Increase Endowment:***At the inception of the planning and analysis process, the Title III Task Force emphasized the fact that SVCC is the fifth most underfunded of the 48 communitycolleges in Illinois (Illinois Community College Board, 2019). Due to our strongly positive reputation in the region, SVCC has a robust scholarship program through the Sauk Valley College Foundation (SVCF). **SVCF has recently directed its attention to increasing the endowment fund ($7.1 million).** The SVCF will provide $200,000 in matching funds for the endowment activity project of the Title III program. A conservative investment of this corpus **yielding 5 percent will eventually provide additional funding to support many of the activities in the project.**

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# P031A190035 - Southern Connecticut State University, CT

**Promoting Educational Retention through Collaborative High-Impact Services (PERCHS)**

**Institutional Profile:**Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) is a comprehensive four- year public urban institution located in New Haven, CT, and serves a diverse, high-need, increasingly non-traditional population of approximately 10,000 graduates and undergraduates. SCSU is dedicated to a tripartite mission of “Pursuing Excellence, Fostering Leadership, and Empowering Communities,” yet limited capacity and inadequate support services impede the university’s ability to achieve this mission to the fullest extent possible. In order to better meet the needs of SCSU students, the Academic Success Center (ASC) and Southern Success Center at SCSU propose the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program project “Promoting Educational Retention through Collaborative High-Impact Services” (PERCHS).

**Project Description and Goals:**The PERCHS program proposes one overall goal: to increase the success and retention of at-risk students through enhanced services and the growth of the multi-divisional, comprehensive Southern Success Center, which will address the university’s weaknesses by combining and utilizing its strengths. To achieve this goal, work carried out by both the new and established program staff will:

· Decrease DFW rates in key gateway courses

· Increase persistence rates of first-time, full-time freshmen

· Decrease the percentage of the student body with an overall GPA of 2.5 and lower

· Increase student satisfaction with support services

PERCHS will achieve these interrelated objectives through a collaborative effort between SCSU faculty members, staff, and students within and connected to the Southern Success Center, which is comprised of the ASC, the First Year Experience Program, the New Student and Sophomore Program, the Office of Career and Professional Development, and the planned Southern Opportunity Center. PERCHS will accomplish these goals by growing current academic support services, establishing improved early alert systems and skill-building courses for struggling students and students on probation, optimizing the current ASC space and facilitating a streamlined, campus-wide coordination of services that will help to create a “one-stop” center for all students.

**Funds Requested: $2,181,013**

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# P031A190042- Seattle Central College, WA

Seattle Central College (SCC), serving metropolitan Seattle and its surrounding communities, is an open-access learning institution that prepares each student for success in life and work, fostering a diverse, engaged, and dynamic community. SCC is recognized as an exemplary learning institution that transforms lives, promotes equity, and enriches the community. SCC serves one of the state’s most diverse student populations, with more than 50 percent of the approximately 16,000 students served annually identifying as students of color.

**Project Title**: Seattle Pathways: First Year Experience

**Goals**: 1) Increase rates of retention and completion and decrease the length of time to completion, with a focus on reducing differences in outcomes between white students and historically underserved students of color; and 2) Improve in-class and non-instructional support for students through a coordinated, college-wide professional development program.

These Goals are designed to address identified **Weaknesses**: low retention and completion rates compared to peer colleges; gaps in outcomes between white students and historically underserved students of color, particularly African American males; decreasing state funding, which results in budget cuts that further exacerbate weaknesses due to insufficient and ineffective supports for students who need it; new student orientation and academic advising that are ineffective at helping students choose and enter their pathways and stay on the path; and the number of employees participating in professional development to support college-wide improvement efforts is too low, exacerbating communication silos within and between departments and divisions, and resulting in unclear roles/responsibilities and insufficient support to students.

**Activities/Strategies**: by capturing student voice and grounding institutional change, three main activities will address the identified weaknesses/problems in Academic Programs, Institutional Management, and Fiscal Stability and help SCC become self-sufficient and expand its capacity to serve low-income students:

Activity 1: Launch a First Year Experience Program, A) Develop and implement an equity-based Directed Self-Placement tool that can be expanded to other instructional departments; and B) Develop and teach a mandatory, credit-bearing First Year College Skills course that includes career and academic planning, and college skills.

Activity 2: Implement Activities to Support the First Year Experience, A) Career Exploration-First Year Experience Center that helps Exploratory students choose an area of study and begin planning their coursework; and B) Restructure and redesign New Student Orientation to focus more on pathways and careers to make it more responsive to student needs.

Activity 3: Launch a Coordinated, College-Wide Professional Development Program to ensure that faculty and staff have the tools and skills needed to support students.

These activities/strategies, which are supported by research/studies, will be fully institutionalized by the end of the five-year grant period.

**Funds Requested**: $2,207,882

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# P031A190043- Bellevue College, WA

Bellevue College (BC) is the largest community college in the Washington State in student population, serving 29,658 students in King County in Academic Year 2018. Over the past decade, BC’s student population has become more ethnically and racially diverse, with 47 percent of credit-seeking students reporting a non-white ethnicity. However, student equity gaps have persisted in student retention, completion, and transfer rates. In Fall 2017 BC student’s fall-to- fall retention rate was 62 percent for underserved students (defined as African-American, Latinx, Multi-Racial, Native Hawaiian, Native American, Pacific Islander, Filipino, and students for whom no adequate racial indicator is provided on BC’s application), compared to 67.6 percent for not- historically-underserved students. The 3-year completion and transfer rate for the Fall 2015 cohort was 36 percent for underserved students, compared to 46.3 percent for not-historically-underserved students. Completing college-level math in the first year, a major indicator of completing a credential or transferring, in Fall 2017 was 23.1 percent for underserved students, and 32.9 percent for not- historically-underserved students.

Through its Comprehensive Planning Process, BC stakeholders identified poor communication between college departments; challenging and unclear steps from admission to enrollment; confusing and complex information about programs of study; too many different introductory experiences for students, most not mandatory; slow, poor or absent feedback loops to facilitate student support, inconsistent student advising; and low numbers of students who pass college level math. To address these weaknesses and problems, **BC’s Title III Part A Strengthening Institutions project will improve the retention, completion, and transfer rates of all students while also closing achievement gaps between underserved students and other students.**To do so, BC will focus on achieving four objectives:

1. Increase fall-to-fall retention for not-historically-underserved students from 67.6 percent in Fall 2018 to 74 percent by Fall 2024, and from 62 percent in Fall 2018 to 72 percent by Fall 2024 for underserved students.

2. Increase 3-year completions among not-historically-underserved students from 46.3 percent in Fall 2018 to 51 percent by Fall 2024, and from 36 percent in Fall 2018 to 46 percent in Fall 2024 for underserved students

3. Increase the number and percentage of students who have chosen a program pathway within two quarters (or 30 credits) once the pathway is established and increase annually thereafter.

4. Increase the number and percentage of students completing college-level math in their first year from 32.9 percent in Fall 2018 to 38 percent in Fall 2024, and from 23.1 percent in Fall 2018 to 33 percent in Fall 2024 for underserved students.

**This project meets both Competitive Preference Priorities**. We will improve student support services by *1) Adopting the Guided Pathways model*, 2) *Implementing integrated advising and student supports*through a customer relations management system that allows faculty and staff to collaborate effectively with one another, and 3) *Redesigning developmental math pathways*using co-requisites and a shortened pre-college course sequence. Ultimately, we seek to close and eliminate achievement gaps and better prepare all students to complete degrees, transfer to 4- year institutions, and succeed in high demand high wage careers.

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# P031A190049 - Alpena Community College, MI

Center for Health Sciences, Innovation and Student Success: A SIP Proposal to Strengthen Instructional Quality, Accessible Student Services, and Fiscal Stability at Alpena Community College in Northeast Lower Michigan.

Alpena Community College (ACC) proposes a trilogy of expansion projects through the United States Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Strengthening Institutions Program: (1) expand capacity in Nursing and Health programs; (2) strengthen student services to improve outcomes for low-income students; and (3) advance endowment to strengthen ACC’s fiscal stability.

As the only post-secondary educational institution in rural Northeast Lower Michigan, ACC serves a large geographic region with a high percentage of Pell-eligible students. Challenged by low educational attainment, low per capita income, and high unemployment, the SIP project will provide resources and seed money to institutionalize the following improvements:

1) Expand capacity in Nursing and Health program

· Double enrollment in Nursing Program

· Integrate Advanced Simulation technology throughout curriculum

· Implement distance learning technology to extend STEM dual enrollment curriculum to six regional K-12 classrooms

· Extend career ladder opportunities within the healthcare field

2) Strengthen Student Services to improve outcomes for low-income students

· Increase fall-to-fall student retention rates by 10 percent

· Decrease developmental attrition rates by 15 percent

· Enhance availability of non-academic student services

· Implement career tracking for all occupational students along a Guided Pathways model

3) Advance Endowment to strengthen ACC’s fiscal stability

· Double the College’s Endowment

· Quadruple the database of known College friends and supporters

With the support of the SIP program, the following impacts will be realized: (1) as many as 600 nursing students, six full-time faculty, and hundreds of regional incumbent workers will have access to adequate lab and instructional space, as well as highly technical simulation equipment, providing an exceptional health care workforce; (2) as many as 1500 students per year will benefit from enhanced student services, including enriched veteran’s services, non-academic supports, as well as a renewed focus on developmental education, decreasing attrition among students requiring remediation; and (3) $1 million more dollars raised for student scholarships, $3.5 million in additional resources for institutional enhancements, and, ultimately, fiscal stability.

The outlined proposal addresses a longstanding and socially-important commitment: supporting program growth, student success, and alumni engagement. Alpena Community College looks forward to doing its part to support this important national community college investment initiative.

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# P031A190056- Castleton University, VT

Castleton University requests $2,247,562 over five years from the U. S. Department of Education’s Title III Strengthening Institutions Program. The University will use the funds to implement the *Pathway to Graduation*Project to improve academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability in the long term. Implementation of the *Pathway to Graduation*will develop and expand Castleton’s ability to serve all students, especially low-income students and others at risk of leaving college. The *Pathway to Graduation*will provide the necessary resources to address Castleton’s weaknesses in the areas of staffing, professional development, and support services.

Following a comprehensive analysis of institutional strengths and weaknesses, University leadership identified three overarching goals to frame the *Pathway to Graduation*: 1) increase student retention and satisfaction, 2) increase the four-year graduation rate, and 3) increase student workplace readiness.

The Project Design includes three activities to address these goals: Activity #1: **Strengthen First-Year Student Experience**by a) enhancing registration and orientation, b) revising first-year curriculum, and c) improving advising; Activity #2: **Improve Teaching and Learning Excellence**by a) establishing and utilizing a Faculty Teaching Center, b) establishing and utilizing a Digital Learning Commons, c) building Model Classrooms and upgrading classroom technology, and d) establishing an Office of Institutional Research; and lastly, Activity #3, **Improve and Increase Workplace Readiness**by a) developing financial literacy curriculum, b) increasing workplace readiness infrastructure, and c) coordinating curriculum.

Vital to the Project Design, the University addresses the Invitational Priority to spur investment in the many Vermont Opportunity Zones, along with both Competitive Preference Priorities. Both CPPs are part of Activity #3 with CPP #1 providing work-based learning experiences to prepare students for in-demand jobs, and CPP #2 implementing a financial literacy program based on best practices and delivered via both the Digital Learning Commons and Peer Educators.

The Project incorporates timely and accurate data elements and collection with sound data analysis procedures to document and monitor progress toward specific and measurable objectives. Annual and ongoing evaluation, both formative and summative, by independent evaluators will measure results and outcomes and document them in the Annual Performance Report.

By implementing the *Pathway to Graduation*, the university’s retention rate will increase by 8 percent and the four-year graduation rate will increase by 7 percent. In addition, 82 percent of students will participate in experiential learning by graduation, and 70 percent of seniors will have a full-time post- graduation commitment. Lastly, satisfaction scores will increase regarding first-year programming and student services. The increased revenue from the retention rate increase alone will allow for institutionalization of staff by the end of the grant period, and, most importantly provide students with a meaningful, efficient, and supported path from the day they are admitted until the day they cross the stage at Commencement.

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# P031A190057- St. Catherine University, MN

**Project Title:**St. Catherine University’s Career and Future Readiness Plan

**Institutional Profile**: St. Catherine University (St. Kate’s), located in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, is home to nearly 5,000 students studying a wide array of disciplines at all degree levels. Founded in 1905 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet to make higher education accessible to women of *all*backgrounds, St. Kate’s continues to welcome a rich diversity of students: 36 percent of undergraduates are students of color, 31 percent are first-generation baccalaureate degree seekers, and fully 44 percent receive Pell grants due to low family incomes.

Unfortunately, low-income students persist and graduate at rates that lag behind their better-off peers, and many carry significant loan debt post-graduation. They are often unable to access high-impact education and career-readiness practices like internships unless they are paid.

**Project Overview:**St. Kate’s proposes an ambitious Career and Future Readiness plan to provide undergraduate students with the knowledge, skills, and experience to matriculate successfully and graduate career-ready in their chosen field, with the financial acumen needed to reduce debt and make choices that are fiscally sound now and into the future. The plan has four overarching goals that will ultimately improve enrollment, retention, and graduation rates.

1. A significant expansion of career services, with emphases on early and frequent student and parent engagement and work-based experiences aligned with in-demand industry sectors to foster purpose-driven matriculation and employment pipelines.

2. The launch of an integrated learning initiative, Career Readiness in the Liberal Arts, that embeds career-specific skill building and work-related experiences into the liberal arts curriculum so that students graduate with demonstrated career competencies.

3. The strengthening and expansion of financial literacy and economics education to empower students with the knowledge needed to make sound economic decisions in college and for a lifetime through enhancements to the University’s Money Management Program and the Minnesota Center for Diversity in Economics.

4. Investments in the University’s endowment and a new Major Gift Officer role to build corporate and foundation giving, which will sustain the Career and Future Readiness initiative and other programming key to student success into the future.

The proposal addresses **Competitive Preference Priority 1:**Fostering Flexible and Affordable Paths to Obtaining Knowledge and Skills. The proposal also addresses **Competitive Preference Priority 2**: Fostering Knowledge and Promoting the Development of Skills that Prepare Students to be Informed, Thoughtful, and Productive Individuals and Citizens.

**Key Objectives:**220 paid internships for undergraduates, 75 percent of whom are Pell grant recipients; 25 percent of liberal arts students (138) engage in work experience their sophomore year; 1,000 students engage in financial literacy education delivered by experts; 110 students take a financial literacy course; and 1,600 students engage in economics education.

**Total Funding Request:**The total request for the 5-year budget is $2,072,306

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# P031A190060- University of Houston - Victoria, TX

The University of Houston-Victoria is a public university that recently transformed from a primarily online teaching center that served upper division students to a comprehensive residential four-year university. A member of the University of Houston System, it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges (SACS) and offers 70 bachelor’s and masters’ degree programs and concentrations. The UH System Chancellor has charged UHV with modifying its focus, to include underprepared younger students, many of whom are minorities. Of the full-time undergraduates who have enrolled as freshmen at UHV from fall 2014 to fall 2017, 77 percent are ethnic minorities, 67 percent receive need-based federal financial aid, 64 percent are first-generation students, 49 percent are unprepared by Texas Success Initiative (TSI) standards, 100 percent are seeking degrees, and many have left home for the first time to live on campus.

Though the university must continue to serve its traditional online population, as well as students, many of whom are older and nontraditional, at a teaching center in Katy, the chancellor has encouraged UHV to focus on becoming a destination campus with 6,000 residential students by 2025. The largest challenge is creating a face-to-face environment and modifying the university’s culture in a way that will help all students persist to graduation and thrive in their careers. UHV has begun implementing a University College geared toward supporting the academic needs of the residential students, and it is proposing three interrelated activities that build upon existing resources at the university:

**Activity One**: The Academic Success initiative will develop a summer bridge program with a Financial Literacy component, improve intrusive advising, and high impact supplemental instruction.

**Activity Two:**The Pedagogical Training and Support initiative will be improved and increase the number of corequisite courses, improve pedagogical skills of core and upper-division faculty and integrate high impact practicum techniques and financial literacy into undergraduate courses.

**Activity Three:**The Community Engagement and Peer Mentorship initiative will incorporate co- curricular learning experiences into upper division courses, create a peer mentorship program, identify community-based research opportunities and increase the number of internships.

**Key measures include:**1) 100 percent contact between Success Coaches and at-risk students, 2) 90 percent of summer bridge students meeting TSI standards, 3) 65 faculty will attend national conferences and 128 will attend onsite-teaching training in pedagogy, co-requisite, and experiential learning techniques, 4) inclusion of service learning and co-curricular activities at all levels, and increase internship courses from 18 to 30 and peer mentorship, 5) increased NSSE Campus Environment score means for cohorts.

Total Funds Requested: $2,339,842

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# P031A190061- Southwest Virginia Community College, VA

**“Ensuring Student Success Through Strengthening Advising and Support Services”**

**Institutional Profile:**Southwest Virginia Community College (SWCC) is a public, two-year comprehensive community college and is one of 23 colleges in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). Primary service region population is 113,976 and includes the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson (partial), Russell, and Tazewell, Virginia, located in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields. The College offers the following programs of study: (5) Associate of Arts & Science; (5) Associate of Applied Science; (1) Diploma; (10) Certificate; and (45) Career Studies. Student Headcount in 2017-2018 was 3,056.

SWCC requests $2,250,000 over five years to strengthen the advising and support services students receive in the most formative part of their post-secondary experience. The majority of SWCC students are first-generation and/or low income and need significant support services to be successful. Too few SWCC students are retained from one semester to the next and retention rates of underprepared students are very low. Too few students successfully complete their program of study or transfer. However, SWCC’s current advising process is not effective in meeting these diverse needs and a new, comprehensive advising process needs to be put into place to make a significant impact on the success, retention, and completion rates of students.

SWCC plans to implement a shared/split advising model which combines the strengths of a central Advising Center for first-year students with the advantages of program-specific advising by faculty members. A First-Year Experience (FYE) program will be established, as well as an early alert system to identify at-risk students and proactively refer them to the appropriate advisor so that preventative action can occur before the students withdraw or get too far behind in their coursework. An integrated technology platform will be implemented to help the advising staff and faculty make informed decisions about student supports/interventions. Finally, advising will be institutionalized as part of the teaching and learning mission of the College.

**Expected Outcomes by September 30, 2024:**1) 10 percent increase in fall-to-fall retention rate for first-time, full-time students; 2) 10 percent increase in fall-to-fall retention rate for underprepared students; 3) 9 percent increase in three-year graduation rates; 4) 10 percent increase in transfer rates; 5) 90 percent increase in advisors utilizing new advising strategies; 6) 31 percent increase in advisor training participation; 7) 22 percent increase in advisors who feel adequately prepared to advise students; and 8) 27 percent increase in student satisfaction rates with holistic advising services.

**Competitive Preference Priorities**: SWCC’s proposal addresses both **Competitive Preference Priority 1**: Fostering Flexible and Affordable Paths to Obtaining Knowledge and Skills**;**and **Competitive Preference Priority 2:**Fostering Knowledge and Promoting Development of Skills that Prepare Students to be Informed, Thoughtful, and Productive Individuals and Citizens.

**Funds Requested:** $2,250,000

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# P031A190062- North Shore Community College, MA

**The Institution**: Located in the North Shore region of Massachusetts, NSCC is a two-year comprehensive community college with three campuses offering 71 programs of study to residents from rural, suburban and urban communities.

**Students Served:**The college serves 8,487students of which 66 percent are part time and 62.7 percent are female. Many students are underrepresented and at risk. Approximately 65 percent are first generation and 22.7 percent require some form of developmental education. The amount of NSCC students receiving needs-based aid has grown from 41 percent AY 2014-2015 to 53 percent in AY 2017- 2018, (51 percent are Pell-eligible). As the region has become the home of increasing ethnic communities, NSCC’s student body has diversified rapidly with minority enrollment increasing from 34.8 percent to 43.1 percent since 2014 with nearly 25 percent being Hispanic.

**Key Problem**: Fragmented enrollment and intake services; undefined academic pathways; passive instruction; and limited professional development opportunities have resulted in low student achievement and declining retention and graduation rates. For every 10 students who enroll at NSCC, 4 will drop out within one year and only 2 will graduate in three years. To reverse this troubling trend, NSCC needs to rebuild and transform the student experience.

**Project Overview:**The proposed activity: *Pathways to Success*, represents a significant reform of the student experience. The Activity, composed of two components: Guided Pathways and Integrated Support, weaves High Impact Practices (HIPs) into the classroom and through the delivery of support services to significantly increase student engagement while providing immediate and ongoing analytics and alerts, guidance and interventions to motivate students to achieve their academic and career goals.

Guided Pathways reframes the student experience through contextualized First Year Experience (FYE), and Gateway courses, focused, outcome-oriented curricular sequence and experiential learning aligned to NSCC’s four academic divisions. Integrated Support incorporates a student success management system to support an enhanced assessment and onboarding process, provide degree planning tools, early alert system and data collection and analysis to provide an efficient communications infrastructure for faculty and staff to guide students through their chosen pathway. Re-organization of existing advising centers into Pathway Success Centers staffed by College Navigators who can triage students’ issues and make effective referrals to college, career, community and financial literacy resources.

Underscoring the Activity is a comprehensive professional development program for faculty and staff that provides cross-training, support for faculty refining the Divisional Pathways, integrating high impact practices across the curriculum, and college-wide training on the use and implementation of new technological tools.

**Project Outcomes:**By September 2025, NSCC will decrease change of program by 15 percent and DFW rates in gateway courses by 10 percent; increase first to second year persistence by 10 percent, second to third year retention by 14 percent, and graduation by 8 percent*.*

**Budget:**The $2,247,239 requested federal investment is supported by $758,281 in the college’s investment during the grant period and $714,166 annually thereafter to ensure this effort is successful and sustained.

**Competitive Preference Priorities and Invitational Priority:**The Project addresses Competitive Priorities 1 & 2 and the Invitational Priority (see Attachments).

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# P031A190065- Louisiana College, LA

***Proposed Project*:**Investing in Developing Expanded Access (IDEA)

***Background/Service Area*:**Louisiana College (LC) is a four-year, private, coeducational college of liberal arts and sciences located in Pineville, Louisiana (pop. 14,381) in the central part of the state. With a poverty rate of 19.6 percent, Louisiana has the second highest poverty rate in the country (tied with New Mexico), based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2017). Thus, LC provides postsecondary educational opportunities to many disadvantaged students from economically distressed communities. Nearly half the student population (46 percent) receives Pell grants (Fall 2018).

***Institutional Problems*:**LC students are increasingly requesting access to high-quality, flexible online program options. More than half (57 percent) of students commute to campus and 58 percent live one hour or more away from the campus, according to recent survey results (2019). Moreover, almost half of the students (45 percent) work 20-40 hours per week, with many more working between 5 and 19 hours weekly. Despite the high need for flexible programming among our students, limited financial resources prevent the College from addressing identified obstacles: 1) an inadequate technology infrastructure, resulting in (a) a limited number of online course offerings, and (b) limited access to online student support services; and 2) substantial gaps in skills/knowledge among LC’s faculty related to capacity for developing and delivering effective online courses.

***Proposed Solutions*:**LC’s institutional problems will be strategically addressed through the proposed project (**$2,249,922 request**over 5 years), which includes three initiatives:

· *Initiative 1: Expand Access through Online Course Offerings*—LC will upgrade its technology infrastructure to support dynamic online learning and develop/redesign 35 online courses (General Education and Business) to increase curricular offerings for students in need of accessible, flexible course options. The existing face-to-face BS in Business Administration degree program and a new Project Management Certificate will be made available as 100 percent online options. Course redesign/conversion will adhere to rigorous Quality Matters standards.

· *Initiative 2: Improve Faculty Capacity to Develop Quality Online Courses*—LC will renovate and equip a Faculty Development Center. With the appropriate tools in place, LC faculty will receive training in use of effective methods and tools for online course development/delivery, integrating nationally recognized Quality Matters standards, and in use of new modules/systems for delivery of online academic services.

· *Initiative 3: Expand Access to Support Services*—LC will develop comprehensive online student support services to increase student success (orientation to online learning, tutoring, advising, financial literacy instruction, early alert, academic planning). Online support services will ensure that all LC students have 24/7 access to the support they need to be successful.

The proposed project demonstrates a rationale (as defined in the Notice Inviting Applications). Research results from a peer-reviewed study show a favorable finding supporting faculty development that integrates Quality Matters methodology. A relevant outcome for LC’s project is increased competency among faculty in use of best practices for online course design/delivery.

This application to the Strengthening Institutions Program responds to Competitive Preference Priorities 1 and 2, as well as to the Invitational Priority.

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# P031A190075- Research Foundation State University of New York at Alfred, NY

**Project Title:**A Student-Ready Alfred State: Onboarding through Completion

**Profile:**Located at the northern end of rural Appalachia, Alfred State College is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and is the only College of Technology located in western New York. Alfred State offers associate and bachelor’s degree programs in architecture, business, health, human services, sciences, liberal arts, trades, and applied engineering technologies designed to meet industry needs of the region, state, and nation. The College has two campuses (Alfred and Wellsville), both located in Allegany County, and offers three applied degrees at the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo, New York. Alfred State is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

**Problems:**A comprehensive institutional analysis showed there is an overall decline in first- time, full-time, fall-to-fall retention and at-risk students are even less likely to be retained after one year. Due to the decrease in first-time, full-time, fall-to-fall retention, graduation rates are predicted to fall substantially for the next three cohorts, especially in bachelor’s degree programs. Furthermore, associate degree graduation rates of at-risk students are significantly lower than students who are not at-risk. Advising does not meet student demands and the College’s onboarding process shows unacceptable levels of service to students at peak processing times.

**Outcomes:**Increase retention for all students; increase associate degree completion rates for at- risk students; increase bachelor’s degree completion rates; increase student satisfaction with advising; reduce financial services caller wait times and abandon rate; increase endowment fund.

**Implementation Strategies:**The implementation strategies include transforming academic advising through a fully staffed and engaged Advising Center with a student-focus through timely advising interventions. Funds are allocated to increase advisor, faculty, and staff training through professional development opportunities that will sustain the efforts beyond the grant period. The second strategy is to streamline the student onboarding process through orientation and improved assistance in financial services. The final strategy is to build a Title III endowment fund at Alfred State**.**

**Funds Requested: $2,248,614.**Alfred State’s Title III project budget is designed to ensure full implementation of the project’s comprehensive implementation strategies, to support project management and evaluation activities over the five-year grant period, and to position Alfred State to institutionalize initiatives following the grant period.

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# P031A190081- Seton Hill University, PA

**Activity Title**: Expand access to high-demand careers in STEM through the development of academic programming and support structures that bolster enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of underprepared and STEM students.

**Institutional Profile:**Seton Hill University (SHU) is a private, Catholic, liberal arts institution located in the northern Appalachia mountains southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. SHU enrolls more than 2,000 students, where 75 percent of the incoming freshman class comes from southwestern Pennsylvania. In this primarily blue-collar, rural region, median household income and number of bachelor-degree residents fall below national levels. Reflecting this demographic, an average one-third of all SHU students are first-generation, and 81 percent are awarded need-based financial aid. Approximately 75 percent of all SHU students stay and work in southwestern Pennsylvania and seek majors that will provide favorable career outcomes in the region.

**Problems and Strategies:**SHU is a highly tuition-dependent institution, with 86.3 percent of the operating budget funded by tuition revenue in FY18. Enrollment has decreased to a level lower than it was nearly a decade ago (2,112 students in 2010 to 2,072 in 2018). SHU proposes one comprehensive activity to increase enrollment by developing academic programs in high-demand STEM fields and strengthening support structures that assist their retention. Four strategies shape a comprehensive approach to SHU’s project, which will strengthen fiscal stability and provide long-term sustainability, including:

1. Expand Mathematics Enrichment Center to improve success of academically underprepared students and those in math-intensive STEM majors;

2. Develop a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program to increase number of professional registered nurses in Pennsylvania’s workforce, including rural underserved areas;

3. Develop high-tech learning environments and instrumentation, including an Instructional Data Analysis Hub, to serve multiple disciplines in the sciences; and

4. Increase undergraduate research and build a research endowment to increase students’ competitiveness for science careers or graduate school.

**Outcomes:**The proposed project will meet the following objectives: **1)**8-percentage point decrease of students with introductory math grades of C or below; **2)**100 percent faculty trained in math assessment, advising, and support services; **3)**14 new academic STEM degree programs, increased from 10; **4)**120 additional students enrolled in STEM programs; **5)**500 students engaged in high-tech science learning (from 237); **6)**Double the number of students engaged in undergraduate research (from 10 to 20 per year); **7)**Build undergraduate research endowment to $250,000, including SHU’s 1:1 non-federal match; **8)**Increase first, second, and third-year retention of underprepared students by 8 percentage points each year; and **9**) Increase 6-year graduation rates of underprepared students by 6 percentage points.

**Funds Requested**: The total request for the 5-year project is $2,163,871.

Through **Competitive Preference Priorities 1 and 2**, SHU will increase opportunities for experiential learning through undergraduate research and nursing practicum experiences as well as develop and conduct financial literacy education through its Mathematics Enrichment Center.

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# P031A190084- McHenry County College, IL

**Institutional Profile:**Established in 1967, McHenry County College (MCC) is a public, two- year college located in rural northeastern Illinois. With an annual enrollment of over 10,000 students, the College has a high percentage of part-time and working students. MCC’s mission, “Our focus is learning, student success is our goal,” reflects the College’s aspiration to achieve student-centered excellence in learning, equity, and completion.

**CDP Problems Addressed:**A disjointed onboarding process does not provide students with guidance to help them choose an academic program of study. A generic first-year seminar is not relevant to students’ academic or career goals, and gateway courses are not contextualized to academic programs of study, leading to low success rates. The college has no process for identifying and helping students who are struggling academically or financially. Combined with inadequate advising, students are making poor decisions, taking more credit hours than needed, resulting in low completion rates. For every ten first-time students who enroll, only five return in their second year, and only two complete a degree or certificate within three years.

**Project Description:**MCC’s proposed project, *Pathways to Persistence and Graduation,*will increase retention, persistence, and completion rates through the implementation of a guided pathways model designed to support students both academically and through integrated student services. It includes two key components: 1) **Pathways Academies**are focused fields of study to acclimate students to college and prepare them for their future career. Pathways Academies will provide students with a clear route to success, with regular feedback to keep them on track to complete their programs on time. 2) **Pathways Centers**, encompassing a central Commons and pathways-specific Hubs, are one-stop locations for integrated student services to improve student engagement and provide a continuum of support, including career exploration and guidance, success coaching, assigned academic advising, financial literacy, work-based learning, and expanded faculty interaction via pathways-related co-curricular activities. The proposed project addresses both **Competitive Preference Priorities**and the **Invitational Priority**.

**Project Goals:**The overarching goals are to increase student achievement by 10 percent, fall-to-fall persistence by 10 percent, and completion rates by 7 percent by 2024.

Project Objectives:

1. Increase successful completion of gateway courses from 70 percent to 80 percent.

2. Decrease average number of excess credits earned by students from 22 to 11.

3. Increase student perception of the use of active and collaborative learning strategies from 47 percent to 59 percent on the CCSSE.

4. Increase fall-to-fall persistence rates from 45 percent to 55 percent.

5. Increase student perceptions of support for learners from 48 percent to 58 percent on the CCSSE.

6. Increase student satisfaction with academic advising from 5.35 to 6.35 on the SSI.

7. Increase student perceptions of student-faculty interaction from 48 percent to 59 percent on the CCSSE.

8. Increase three-year student completion rate from 24.12 percent to 31.12 percent.

**Funds Requested:**$2,250,000 in grant funding, or $450,000 per year for five years.

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# P031A190091- Community College of Baltimore County, MD

**Project Title**: Pathways to the Future: Increasing Achievement, Persistence, and Retention to Graduation

**Institutional Profile**: The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) is a comprehensive community college that provides access to affordable, high-quality education. Each year, more than 29,000 credit students enroll at the college’s main campuses, extension centers and online. As of fall 2017 credit student enrollment statistics, fifty-six percent of student enrolled at CCBC identify as a minority population. Most credit students are enrolled part-time (72 percent), need developmental education (63 percent), and 28 percent of students are the first generation in their family to attend college. Nearly half of credit students receive need-based financial aid such as scholarships and Pell grants (45 percent). CCBC has over 200 associate degree and certificate programs to choose from - the most of any college in the region – and offers over 4,500 sections of courses per year.

**Significant Problem**: CCBC’s retention and graduation rates significantly impact problems impacting nearly all facets of the organization. Indeed, only 11 percent of students graduate within three years at CCBC. For every 10 students who enroll at CCBC, 5 students are retained after two years, and of those 5 students only 1 graduate within three years. CCBC’s analysis of strengths, weaknesses and problems revealed that the College’s organizational and business structure inhibit students from persisting. CCBC’s size is as much of a weakness as it is a strength. Students reported that course scheduling and program confusion impede their progress; operational siloes create an uneven student experience and produce challenges in supporting student advising and services; career services are nonexistent; and technological systems are outdated and inefficient for guiding students in common college tasks. As a result of these issues, CCBC has inadequate operating funds to improve academic processes and has had to budget for revenue decline every year since 2010 due to downward enrollment trends.

**Activities**: CCBC has created the Title III Activity in response to findings in data and surveys, which revealed that students struggle to graduate and persist due to CCBC’s own instructional, support, and technological inconsistencies or inadequacies. To address poor student persistence, retention, and graduation, CCBC has constructed a three component, comprehensive Activity:

1. Guided Pathways Instruction and Curriculum creates meta-majors, “Guided Pathways”; streamlines scheduling to reflect new program maps; and contextualizes freshman seminar and introductory courses with career exploration, financial literacy, and internship information.

2. Guided Pathways Co-Curricular Support creates orientation parallel to Guided Pathways and careers; restructures advising to infuse career exploration and financial literacy; proactively helps students attain early work experiences; and supports students through programming.

3. Guided Pathways Technology that supports faculty, staff and students through the creation of a constituent relationship management system; a new interfacing capability of existing databases; and a student portal to allow students to easily self-advise and complete tasks digitally.

**Objectives**: As a result, in addition to a decrease in extraneous credits, student achievement, or successful course completion will increase by 10 percent over the baseline, while persistence from semester-to-semester increases 15 percent, retention from year-to-year increases 10 percent and graduation increases 5 percent.

**Funds Requested**: $2,201,307

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# P031A190092 - Davidson County Community College, NC

Davidson County Community College (DCCC) is a public, two-year community college serving Davidson and Davie Counties (pop. 205,884) in North Central North Carolina. Annually, nearly 14,000 students attend classes on our main Davidson County Campus in Thomasville, NC (pop. 27,178) and on the Davie County Campus in Mocksville, NC (pop. 5,051), a 30-minute drive away. DCCC is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and offers more than 45 certificate and associate degree programs.

Socioeconomic indicators for our service area reflect North Carolina’s “great divide” between thriving regions such as the state’s “Research Triangle” anchored by prestigious research institutions and other regions of the state where traditional economic drivers, such as our area’s furniture industry, have declined. Across Davidson and Davie Counties, 13.2 percent of adults aged 25 and above hold bachelor’s degrees compared to a 25.3 percent bachelor’s completion rate for the Research Triangle and 19.2 percent for the state. Our service area’s per capita income ($25,246) is just 76 percent that of the Research Triangle, and 15.2 percent of area residents live in poverty. Among minorities – 18.4 percent of service area population – per capita income dips to $15,070, with 30 percent in poverty.

DCCC’s strengths include visionary leadership and a well-prepared, dedicated faculty and staff committed to the success of DCCC students (27.5 percent minority, 52.6 percent Pell-eligible, 46.1 percent self- reported first generation in college). We have embraced and benefited from collaborations with national partners including Achieving the Dream (AtD) and Completion by Design (CbD) and made institution-wide progress toward becoming a more data-driven culture.

Comprehensive analysis and planning, however, have confirmed problems and weaknesses that undercut student success, particularly for underrepresented and minority populations. Among first-time, full-time minority students entering in Fall 2014, just 18.5 percent graduated in 150 percent time, compared to an overall rate of 29.6 percent. Shorter-term outcomes include poor first year persistence for minority and underrepresented students (42.6 percent one-year persistence for first-time, full-time minority students enrolling in Fall 2017; 45.4 percent one-year persistence for low income students enrolling in Fall 2017). Contributing factors include low success in courses required for completion of key academic pathways and limited faculty expertise in high-impact instructional strategies and tools promoting success. Key weaknesses also include gaps in systems for providing timely, comprehensive guidance to our most at-risk students and insufficient ability to employ real-time, actionable data to tailor timely, proactive interventions for at-risk students.

In response, DCCC proposes ***Project DIAL Success (Differentiated Instruction and Intervention for Academic and Life Success)***, a five-year activity to (1) improve course-level success through professional development and curricular revision and (2) implement intensive Completion Coaching driven by predictive analytics – the use of disaggregated outcomes and other data to anticipate and proactively address students’ risk factors in a timely way.

Anticipated outcomes include increasing persistence and three-year graduation rates by at least 4 percentage points over baselines, with achievement gaps narrowing to no more than four points between overall rates and those of underrepresented minority students. Outcomes will also include a sustainable professional development system and increased capacity for data-driven support. Our project addresses all Competitive Preference and Invitational Priorities for the competition. Our Year 1 budget request is $449,966.

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# P031A190094 - Bellingham Technical College, WA

**Institutional Description:**Bellingham Technical College (BTC) is a two-year college located in the northwest corner of Washington State. The institution is open-admission and offers low-cost educational opportunities in **high-wage, high-demand career areas**. BTC also provides adult basic education, English Language Acquisition (ELA) programming, academic courses, community education, and direct transfer degree opportunities, including new Baccalaureate of Applied Science degrees. While BTC offers many professional technical programs that provide critical technician training and boast high placement rates, there are **serious issues with enrollment, progression and achievement rates**of non-traditional students in these programs. Over time, these students lose heart, lose interest, and ultimately lose their way. The county is lacking an effective pipeline to help its diverse population attain the education and training needed for the high-wage, high-demand jobs available in the region.

**Title III Project**: ***Improving Non-Traditional Student Outcomes Through Guided Pathways***The institution has selected a core intervention model to address non-traditional student access and success issues, which will blend and replicate multiple evidence-based strategies. BTC will implement the **Guided Pathways**model to support low-income, first-generation, academically underserved, and part-time (non-traditional) students. The college will restructure its educational programming, provide students with intrusive, proactive support services, and develop its faculty and staff to support accelerated progression and success of these students. Project funds will provide support for multiple strategies to improve non-traditional student enrollment, retention and completion. Two strategies are based on WWC studies that document moderate to strong evidence of effectiveness: 1) creation of Guided Pathways meta-majors (CUNY’s ASAP program) and 2) intrusive navigation services (the *InsideTrack*student coaching model).

The project also addresses **tie-breaker priorities**in response to **(1)**faculty development, **(2)**administrative management, **(3)**development and improvement of academic programs, and **(4)**strengthening student services. This Title III proposal addresses the **Competitive Preference Priorities,**modelling project activities based on U.S. Financial Literacy and Education Commission financial literacy education guidelines and best practices in work-based learning.

**Five-Year Project Budget:**$2,250,000

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# P031A190097 - Big Sandy Community and Technical College/KCTCS, KY

**Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC**) is seeking Title III, Part A, SIP funding to improve academic advising, develop apprenticeships, and encourage instructional innovation which will result in higher rates of retention and timely graduation of students.

**The project meets the criteria of the invitational priority and both competitive preference priorities for the grant competition.**

**Institutional Profile: Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC**) is an open enrollment, two-year, public institution located in Kentucky and is one of sixteen such colleges in the state’s Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). The institution currently offers 30 academic and technical programs, along with more than 200 industry-recognized credentials, at four campus locations throughout a rural five-county service area – Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin, Martin, and Pike counties in eastern Kentucky. Programs offered at BSCTC include associate degrees, pre-baccalaureate education to transfer to 4-year institutions, adult education, continuing and developmental education, online learning, and Career Education and Workforce Development that focuses on customized training, credentials and programs for business and industry. BSCTC is accredited by the Southern Association of College and Schools (SACSCOC).  BSCTC’s fall 2018 enrollment was 4,347 students.  The IPEDS graduation rate for the 2014 IPEDS cohort (150 percent normal time) was 22 percent and the retention rate of full-time, first- time students for the 2014 cohort is 64 percent. Approximately 99 percent of full-time, first-time degree seeking students at BSCTC received grant aid; 82 percent receive Pell grants. Historically, more than 63 percent of the student body is first-generation college students; more than 60.6 percent of students are underprepared for postsecondary course work (developmental need).

**Challenges:**BSCTC’s major challenges include: (1) Unsatisfactory levels of students success, specifically low retention and graduation rates; (2) Many of BSCTC’s students face significant academic problems or are underprepared for postsecondary education; (3) Academic advising is inconsistent and does not effectively meet the needs of faculty/students; (4) Early alert indicators (STARFISH) systems are ineffective; and, (5) insufficient revenue to launch new initiatives and innovation.

**Overall Goal:**Engage in transformational strategies to address identified institutional deficiencies and gaps that contribute to low levels of student success (student persistence, retention, and completion).

**Outcomes:**(1) Significantly increase student success for at-risk students, student retention, graduation and transfer; (2) Reimagine and restructure advising systems and locations to support improved levels of student success; (3) Strengthen fiscal ability to initiate rapid transformative change for short term projects and innovative resources; (4) Graduation rates increased;(4) Fall-to-Fall retention rate increased; (5) Increased overall fiscal stability for the future in both revenue and endowment.

**Strategies:**1) Establishing Academic Success Center and the development of a college-wide, case-managed intrusive, “at-risk” advising program; 2) Developing new work-and-learn registered apprenticeship pathways that align with high-wage, high-demand occupations; and, Develop sync classrooms to diversity delivery of instruction. **Funds Requested:**$ 2,750,000

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# P031A190100 - Morton College, IL

Morton College is a public, two-year community college with a 63 percent low-income student population that serves six suburbs located just 12 miles from downtown Chicago. This area is sometimes referred to as the inner suburbs due to its history as a working-class area and for proximity to manufacturing companies that formerly were the prime sources of employment and economic development in the vicinity. The proposed project, ***Morton College – Stronger Undergraduate Courses, Curriculum, and Enhanced Student Services*(MC-SUCCESS**), has the goal: For Morton College to increase autonomy by providing enhanced services for low-income students through high quality academic programs, institutional strengthening, and fiscal stability.

MC-SUCCESS focuses on best practices that increase the effectiveness of college programs including a STEM Resource Center based on the “emporium model” for student success with technology-enabled learning, STEM Clubs, STEM program development including a new Engineering Associate of Science degree program that will provide a strong STEM foundation and career pathway, joint use facilities for hosting university classes and local school STEM activities, outreach materials, tutoring, mentoring, advising, summer boot camp, community engagement including work study programs, and a new endowment fund for STEM scholarships.

This $2,240,163, 5-year project will serve 2,273 students by year five and will address the Invitational Priority and well as both Competitive Priorities 1 and 2. The project is based on the College’s 5-year Strategic Plan and a statewide Illinois Equity in Attainment Initiative. It has a rigorous evaluation plan to guide the implementation of a strong STEM program.

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# P031A190103 - Athens State University, AL

Athens State University is a baccalaureate and master’s degree granting, co-educational open-admissions institution located in north Alabama in the city of Athens. Athens State is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC). As the only institution in the state offering exclusively upper-division (junior/senior) and graduate coursework, Athens State University is the destination college for transfer students. The University consists of 3 colleges; Arts & Sciences, Business, and Education. Students can choose from 34 undergraduate and 3 graduate programs of study. In addition, the University offers minors and certificates designed to prepare students for the expanding and unique job opportunities available in the north Alabama area.

**Project Title**- Pathways to Success – Improving Campus to Career Success through a three-pronged approach.

**Problems**– Students at Athens State University are not representative of traditional students who pursue college in our communities in North Alabama. As a result of our distinctive mission, students come to Athens State with highly diverse educational backgrounds and experiences that cannot be easily slotted into traditional baccalaureate programs of study. Although all students come to us with some college credit, many of them do not have the essential academic, financial, or career skill sets demanded by employers, and they do not represent the racial and ethnic makeup of our region.

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# P031A190104 - Monroe Community College, NY

**Monroe Community College (**MCC) is a two-year associate-degree granting public institution in Rochester, New York. Part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, MCC offers more than 100 degree and certificate programs and enrolls over 29,000 students from diverse backgrounds, abilities, and ages. Sixty-one percent of MCC’s students attend full time, 40 percent of students are first-generation students, and 53 percent of students are Pell eligible.

**Significant Problems**: Too few students obtain a credential, especially in high-demand fields. The path to completion is complicated by a lack of integration among multiple technological packages and platforms leading to limited efficacy; flat college-level math and English completion rates in students’ first year; a weak student pipeline in Career and Technical Education; and significant equity gaps in program choice, completion, and post-completion earnings. Additionally, while MCC students experience substantial non-academic needs and low financial literacy, the College does not systematically prioritize financial and career planning during the onboarding process.

**Project Description**: MCC APPLIED is designed to confirm active career pathway, engage high impact practices, increase completion of college-level math and English, and increase credential completion through targeted academic advising and holistic assistance supported by integrated technology. The model is designed to decrease student loan default rates by integrating student career and financial plans with academic pathway planning and promote financial literacy through understanding financial outcomes of careers and implications of student debt. Integrated technology will provide students with a curated view in order to support the guided pathways model and financial literacy in order to increase student success.

**Project Outcomes:**This project will increase the number of students with a documented enhanced academic plan to 50 percent, a career plan to 40 percent, and financial plan to 20 percent; it will increase participation in a variety of student success supports by 30 percent, and increase first year completion of college level math and English by 10 percent. Additionally, the project will increase persistence for all students, for under-represented minority students, and for first-generation students, each by 5 percent; increase enrollment in pathways that lead to in-demand careers by 10 percent; and decrease the 3- year student loan default rate by 3 percent.

**Allocation of Budget:**The grant request of $2,250,000 will increase self-sufficiency by creating integrated technology that enables all students to have the most relevant information to support their success.

The MCC Title III project, MCC APPLIED, addresses both Competitive Preference Priorities and the Invitational Priority.

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# P031A190105 - Montclair State University, NJ

Advising 2025: Creating a Coordinated Care Network for Student Success

Montclair State University was founded in 1908 as a teachers college. Montclair State has grown from an institution of about 12,000 students in 1999 to 21,115 students in the fall of 2018. A senior public research institution, Montclair State has Carnegie R2 designation. Serving a majority population of African American and Hispanic students (42.5 percent) Montclair State University remains committed to educating the citizenry of New Jersey and prides itself as an access institution.

Nevertheless, we face serious challenges going forward with respect to retaining first-year, first- time freshmen and graduating students at higher rates in four years. Over the past six years Montclair State University has experienced an 8.5 percent decrease in retaining first-time, full- time freshmen. Hence, Montclair State University proposes **Advising 2025: Creating a Coordinated Care Network for Student Success.**The proposed project will:

1. Develop Student Success Centers that enhance the advising model by providing students with highly personalized and proactive attention to educational and career planning.

2. Strengthen the New Student Seminar through building a mentoring program at each of the University’s colleges that will support first year students and creating a locus for financial education that will continue through students’ careers.

3. Develop a sustained, strategic, integrated, proactive and personalized approach to student success throughout the coordinated care network of student support providers.

Advising 2025 is an institution-wide endeavor, which aims to achieve the following objectives:

1. Increase the proportion of undergraduate students served by direct student services supported by the grant by 25 percentage points.

2. 85 percent of undergraduate students in three colleges will receive enhanced advising services through Student Success Centers and will report satisfaction with services and technology provided by Student Success Centers.

3. Increase fall to fall, first-year first-time freshman retention to 89 percent by 2024.

4. 85 percent of undergraduate students participating in New Student Seminar featuring the Cash Course curriculum will demonstrate an understanding of basic financial concepts and demonstrate increased understanding and application of basic financial concepts.

5. 90 percent of first-year undergraduate students participating in New Student Seminar will report an increased sense of belonging.

6. 90 percent of undergraduate students needing internships are matched in the appropriate semester.

7. 90 percent of undergraduate students who are matched to an industry partner, complete an internship, and meet the internship requirement for the degree.

8. 90 percent of respondent’s report that a SSIPP-informed coordinated care network guides support services for undergraduate students.

The power of Advising 2025’s approach is the way its activities work in concert. When deliberately and systematically implemented, Advising 2025 will create a transformative student experience yielding increased first year retention and four-year graduation rates.

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# P031A190106- Clackamas Community College, OR

**Program Abstract – Prepare to Learn and Navigate to Success (PLAN) Project Overview.**Title III funding will empower Clackamas Community College (CCC) to expand a Guided Pathways model to improve student retention and graduation. Specifically, *PLAN*will optimize the college’s potential and faculty commitment to undertake the following:

Structured Navigation from First-Term through Graduation to help with critical onboarding tasks; (2) Revitalization of Peer Assistant Program to support services to first-term students; (3) a Weekly Start Lab, a series of ten workshops to help students learn about and navigate CCC to become successful, including work-based learning experiences; and (4) First-Year Experience Course, a critical course where students learn how to take notes, plan their education, reach their career goals (i.e., choose a path), discover college resources, create a financial plan, and build relationships. These program components will increase retention and completion rates, allowing the college to recapture student FTE and tuition otherwise lost through attrition.

CCC’s Guided Pathways program will allow the college to improve retention from 54.5 percent to 65 percent and graduation from 20 percent to 29 percent for first-time, full-time degree-seeking students. Other objectives include increased retention for part-time degree-seeking students from 38 percent to 45 percent, a 10 percent increase in enrollment, increased student access to the student support platform from 19 percent to 60 percent, increases in staff helping students choose a program of study from 33 percent to 50 percent, increases in staff helping students choose a career path from 40 percent to 70 percent, and increased use of onboarding services from 0 percent to 70 percent. These measures will help CCC recover 3 percent student FTE and lower the per-student cost by 2 percent over time. The table below provides a summary of CCC’s key demographic statistics.

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# P031A190107 - Northeast State Community College, TN

“Inclusive Excellence at Northeast State”

Northeast State Community College (NeSCC) is a comprehensive two-year community college serving a population of almost 400,000 in a five-county area (Carter, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi and Washington) of northeast Tennessee. NeSCC is one of thirteen community colleges under the governance of the Tennessee Board of Regents and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

Northeast State offers more than eighty Associate of Arts (A.A) and Associate of Science (A.S.) degree majors for students desiring transfer to a four-year institution. The College also offers 35 Associate in Applied Sciences (A.A.S.) degree majors and 21 Certificate programs for students planning to enter the workforce immediately upon graduation. NeSCC also provides continuing education and community service programs for professional growth and personal enrichment.

NeSCC serves an annual unduplicated headcount enrollment of 7,407 (2017-18) across five campuses. Full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment was 4,066 in 2017-18. Northeast State employed 128 full-time and 311 adjunct instructors in 2018-19.

NeSCC requests **$2,178,494**in Title III grant funds to: (1) centralize and realign student services; (2) scale-up a successful peer mentoring program to serve student populations with demonstrated success gaps; (3) create a multi-cultural student center; (4) support professional development for faculty and staff focused on inclusive excellence, holistic student supports, and work-based learning; (5) upgrade security and network infrastructure; (6) increase institutional capacity for effective grant management; and (7) build institutional endowment.

NeSCC anticipates that the proposed strategies will: (1) increase retention and completion rates for underprepared students, Pell-eligible students, and students of color; (2) build a sense of community and belonging among students of color; (3) increase faculty knowledge and engagement with work-based learning; (4) improve institutional capacity to ensure security and network stability; (5) enable the College to effectively manage a growing grant portfolio; and (6) provide a sustainable source of long-term support for high priority programs.

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# P031A190111 - Lakeshore Technical College, WI

**Project Title:***Lakeshore Technical College (LTC) Student Centered*

**Project Overview:**The Title III project, *Lakeshore Technical College (LTC) Student Centered*addresses academic, institutional, and financial problems to make LTC self-sufficient through a student-centered approach. The project serves as a transformational change agent to make LTC’s instruction and student services student-centered through procedural, attitudinal, and structural across the institution.

**Project Goals:**The project includes four goals:

(1) Develop program delivery that will address higher skill sets that employers and students are demanding in order to increase enrollments and retention and reduce core expenses per FTE.

(2) Close the gap in retention and graduation for low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities.

(3) Implement holistic student support system beyond academic advising to improve retention and graduation rates.

(4) Reduce barriers to student access and success to increase enrollments, reduce core expenses per FTE, and increase student satisfaction.

**Project Activities:**The project contains three major components:

· **Holistic Student Support**: LTC improves its onboarding processes through two activities: (1) an intake survey and (2) a student success tutorial. The most significant activity for this component is holistic student support redesign (HSSR). HSSR maps the entire student experience from admission to graduation and creates an institutional plan for redesigning the entire student support model. Major improvements include first year student support; advisors’ role from clerical to relational to scale successful TRiO interventions including financial literacy, career development, and 4-year transition services; facility redesign; and formalization of faculty’s role in student support.

· **Competency-Based Education:**Seven programs convert from traditional credit hour to competencies. Program conversions and specialized support remove systematic barriers for vulnerable populations and working adults to access and succeed in college.

· **Business and Technology Systems**: Examination and improvement of business processes and technology used to onboard, instruct, and track student records make LTC operate and maintain technology efficiently and effectively in responding to student preferences and technological needs.

**Expected Outcomes**: With a Title III investment of $2,058,154, LTC *Student Centered*will increase total FTE enrollment by 31 percent, increase retention and graduation rates by 3 percent, and reduce cost per FTE by 9 percent. Retention rates will improve 4 percent for low-income students and students with a disability, and 3 percent for students of ethnic and racial minority. Graduation rates will improve 3 percent for low-income students, 3 percent for students of ethnic and racial minority, and 2 percent for students with a disability. The project will affect more than 10,000 students, including 4,500 degree-seeking students, each year.

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# P031A190117 - Union College, KY

Union College (Union) is a liberal arts, private four-year institution in Barbourville, Kentucky (pop. 3,125). In Fall 2018, Union enrolled 1,012 undergraduate students. Accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College (SACSCOC), Union offers 32 undergraduate degrees, including education, business administration, nursing, and psychology. At least 30 percent of 2018 bachelor’s degree completers continued to graduate study, many in Union’s well-regarded master’s programs in psychology, education, and business administration. Our students (99 percent degree-seeking, 30 percent first generation college, 94 percent on financial aid) reflect the socioeconomic realities of our Appalachian region, which comprises both a federally designated Opportunity Zone and a Promise Zone.

Union’s many strengths include our commitment to educational access, an outstanding faculty, visionary leadership, strong internal controls, and a history of prudent financial management. Comprehensive analysis, however, has revealed problems and weaknesses that must be addressed. Among first-time students enrolling at Union in Fall 2017, 61 percent persisted to Fall 2018, a rate significantly below U.S. and state averages of 74 percent and 71 percent respectively for four- year private institutions. Attrition takes a toll on degree completion. Of first-time students enrolling in Fall 2012, just **19 percent**graduated by 2016 (100 percent time) and just **26 percent**earned bachelor’s degrees by 2018 (150 percent time), far below state and national rates of 50 percent and 52 percent (150 percent time), respectively, for peer institutions. Problems and weaknesses contributing to poor persistence and graduation include failure in key courses across high-demand bachelor’s programs, gaps in the types and level of advising guidance we are able to provide, and insufficient capacity for using real-time Student Information System (SIS) data to inform proactive support and interventions.

To address these problems and weaknesses, we propose ***Intentional Engagement to Succeed,***a single Activity with two initiatives. Through the first initiative, we will revise key high-failure undergraduate courses, infusing high-impact instructional strategies and tools to promote engagement and success. Curricular revision will be driven by professional development, and revised course pilots will be supported by technologically updated, reconfigured classrooms. We will further increase capacity for engaging instruction through annual, thematic, cross-discipline professional development. Our second initiative will increase capacity for comprehensive, data- driven guidance and support for engagement. A new **Navigation**system will provide individual progress tracking, service referral and follow-up, and proactive intervention for at-risk students. Navigation will incorporate a new Early Academic Alert system and a redesigned Degree Audit, both linked to real-time Student Information System (SIS) data. Through Navigation, students will engage in a **Union College Experience**designed to improve engagement at every stage of the journey to degree completion. New/redesigned services will be rooted in **predictive analytics**– the use of real-time student data and data analysis to anticipate and proactively respond to factors that put students at risk for failure and non-persistence.

Key project outcomes include improved success in high-risk courses, increased faculty capacity for engaged instruction, improved term-to-term and year-to-year persistence, and increased graduation rates. Project initiatives demonstrate a rationale, in that all proposed activity components are informed by research suggesting that components are likely to improve relevant outcomes, as demonstrated by our project’s Logic Model. Our project responds to both Competitive Preference Priorities and the Invitational Priority established for this competition.

Proposed Year 1 Budget: $449,925

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# P031A190118 - Bay Path University, MA

**Bay Path University**is a four-year institution dedicated to the education of women. Founded in 1897, the University offers 21 baccalaureate degree programs and 25 graduate degree programs. In Fall 2018, the University enrolled 3,445 students with an undergraduate population that is 54 percent low-income Pell-eligible, 45 percent first-generation and 40 percent women of color.

**Significant Problem:**The confluence of incoherent curricular pathways, traditional instructional practices, siloed support services and systems that are not integrated across the University results in students disengaged from the undergraduate experience and leads to significant attrition.

To strengthen institutional self-sufficiency, Bay Path University developed a response that is designed to guide students along the academic pathway leading to the career they envision, align and deliver services holistically to support their success, and integrate new and existing systems to streamline communications and information-sharing to better serve and support students. As a result, persistence, retention and degree completion will increase as students achieve more clarity about where they want to go and how to get there, with improved and proactive supports.

**Project Description:**The proposed Activity, the *Learning for the 21st Century: Reshaping the Student Experience*project promises to improve student achievement and engagement through three inter-related components driven by Guided Pathways (GP). Faculty will develop and validate a GP Framework, clarify 4-year curriculum maps, and enhance instruction in milestone courses through high impact practices, adaptive learning and career contextualization. Reframed support revitalizes the continuum of student support, centering on the new role of Navigators who will guide students through onboarding, enrollment, advising, goal setting, career exploration and internships. Finally, a robust integration of existing systems along with a new Customer Relations Management system will streamline and facilitate communications, faculty and student interaction, and administrative and support services through a virtual “One-Stop Center.” Enhanced predictive analytic capabilities will identify at-risk students who can be better supported through proactive intervention.

**Project Outcomes:**The project is designed to increase first-to-second year persistence by 6 percent, second-to-third year retention by 10 percent, a four-year graduation rate by 5 percent, a 10 percent decrease in changes in majors, a 6 percent decrease in DFW rates, a 15 percent decrease in excess credits, as well as an increase in selected NSSE benchmarks by 3 points over the 2017 baseline by Spring 2023. These results will contribute to institutional self-sufficiency and respond directly to GPRA’s higher education goal and the intent of the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program.

**Allocation of Budget:**The request of $2,248,908 over five years includes 47.1 percent in Personnel (including fringe benefits), 0.3 percent in Travel, 2.8 percent in Equipment, 0.3 percent in Supplies, 21.8 percent in Contractual, and 27.7 percent in Other. Additional cash and in-kind University contribution to the project totals $2 million. By dedicating institutional and Title III resources to this initiative, the University expects to significantly improve its self-sufficiency and its capacity to educate women as 21st century learners who graduate well-prepared with the right experience for career success.

The *Learning for the 21st Century: Reshaping the Student Experience*project addresses the Competitive Preference Priorities 1 and 2, as well as GPRA and GEPA requirements.

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# P031A190119- Pima County Community College District - West Campus, AZ

PCC West Campus (PCC-WC) is home to the institution’s health professions programs, awarding certificates, credentials and degrees. Our existing academic programming and instructional facilities, particularly in nursing professions, are limiting enrollment growth at a time when demand for individuals with degrees in nursing and health professions is on the rise. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that nurses are in high demand with as much as 16 percent growth forecasted in specific nursing career areas through 2026. The Arizona State Office of Economic Opportunity indicates that the “aging population in Arizona will sharply boost the need for health workers,” particularly since the population of Arizona is growing at twice the rate of the national average. Finally, PCC-WC is turning away nearly 300 individuals each semester from their AAS-Nursing program and is not able to support students in entry-level nursing professions to pursue and complete degrees.

Title III funding will allow PCC-WC to: 1) Improve educational outcomes through intrusive advising (guided pathways); 2) Support the redesign of our AAS-Nursing degree program, reducing the required credits to graduate from 76 to 60 (thereby improving both time to completion and affordability), 3) Improve teaching and learning environments (particularly the nursing skills labs) including adding nursing simulators and other technology that are essential in today’s learning environment; and 4) Launch a new degree program -- the Associate of Liberal  Arts in Health Professions.

Our project is responsive to both Competitive Preference Priorities and the Invitational Priority. Competitive Preference Priority #1: Our program focuses on in-demand health professions, with students gaining work-based experience while engaged in flexible and affordable educational programs.

Competitive Preference Priority #2: Students participating in our Guided Pathways program will provide in-person and on-line seminars that address a number of topics needed in the health professions meta-major, including financing higher education including policies and program details.

Invitational Priority: Our program provides services to individuals living in qualified Opportunity Zones. Specific census tracts are provided in the invitational priority response attached to this proposal.

Our comprehensive development plan identifies the strengths and weaknesses of our institution and offers creative solutions. The strengths of our institution include: a) national and state accreditation; b) transfer and articulation agreements; c) innovative programming; d) strong advisory councils; e) well-qualified faculty; f) strong, data-driven, planning processes; g) effective administrative systems; h) an institutional commitment to collaboration and transparency; i) diverse funding sources; j) established accounting guidelines; and k) sound financial practices.

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards

Our weaknesses include: a) declining enrollment; b) loss of state funding; c) inability to tap into additional funding due to constitutional limitations (without an increase in headcount); d) and programming weaknesses. We are confident that with the support of Title III funding we can implement new programs and practices that strengthen our institution, improve student outcomes, and boost enrollment.

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# P031A190122- Lane Community College, OR

Project Overview. Title III funding will empower Lane Community College (Lane) to undertake a Guided Pathways model to improve student retention and graduation. Specifically, *PLAN* will optimize the college’s potential and faculty commitment and existing Guided Pathway structures to undertake the following (1) an expanded credit-based First Year Experience program in which nearly all degree-seeking students will select a career path, choose an academic program, and develop a financial plan to be successful; (2) augmented career services with stronger linkages to work-based learning experiences, career assessments, and in-depth career exploration; (3) redesigned “holistic” student supports to meet the needs of students where they are; (4) an enterprise software to map student success plans, provide on-boarding and institutionalize an early alert system for students in academic jeopardy; and (5) improved institutional research capacity with new tools, dashboards, and repositories. 

CAREERS will allow Lane to improve retention from 55 percent to 63 percent and graduation from 12.3 percent to 21 percent a 10 percent increase, in full-time degree-seeking students. Other objectives include increased retention for part-time degree-seeking students. Other objectives include increased retention for part-time degree-seeking students from 43 percent to 51 percent, increased student participation in credit-based FYE from zero percent to 80 percent, increase in students preparing career/academic/financial plans from zero percent to 80 percent, increase in mandatory advising from zero to 60 percent, decreases in academic notification (e.g., probation) from 15 percent to 11 percent and cost recovery of three percent from increased retention. The table below provides a summary of Lane’s key demographic statistics. All components and objectives will be integrated with Lane’s ongoing work in its Guided Pathways model. 

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# P031A190123- Portland Community College, OR

**Institutional Profile:**Portland Community College (PCC) is the largest postsecondary institution in Oregon that provides training, degree and certificate completion, transfer options to four-year universities, and lifelong learning opportunities to more than 70,000 full- and part-time students. PCC has four comprehensive campuses, ten education centers, and approximately 200 community locations in the Portland metropolitan area. The College offers certificates and degrees in career technical and lower division collegiate degree programs, as well as adult basic education, GED, English as a Second Language (ESL), workforce development and continuing education. Nearly half of PCC students are individuals of color, and 64% receive some form of financial aid. Approximately one in five PCC students complete graduate within three years, and 18% transfer to a four-year university upon completion of their Associate degree.

**Project Title:**PCC RISES – Reimagining Integrated Support for Equitable Success

**Problem Statement:**PCC needs clearer academic pathways with integrated student guidance that lead to career, employment and transfer options reflective of the labor market demand in order to increase student success and support a thriving regional economy. PCC must also achieve systemic integration of changes to implement comprehensive, holistic reforms at scale that are college-wide and impact equity and student success.

**Project Overview:**The project will clarify a sector strategy approach to academic pathways and integrated student guidance (guided pathways) that lead to career, employment, and transfer opportunities reflective of regional labor market demand in order to increase student success and support the regional economy. Three interventions are proposed: 1) Creation of a **first-year experience (FYE)**for all First Time in College (FTIC) degree-seeking students that incorporates evidence-based practices to promote equity; orient new students to PCC and guided pathways; encourage community building; integrate academic, career, life and financial planning; and introduce ePortfolios for student development, engagement, and assessment of student learning outcomes; 2) Creation of student **on-ramps to postsecondary guided pathways**that are designed to prepare vulnerable students to access and success in higher education; align with in- demand industry sectors; increase academic and workforce preparation of students; provide coaching support for participants; and connect underserved students to work-based learning experiences; and 3) Establishment of consistent and effective **use of labor market data and institutional data**for data-informed decisions related to guided pathways and other college- wide practices.

**Implementation Strategies:**Comprehensive implementation strategies are: 1) improving equity and student success through implementation of interventions shown to increase credit accumulation, retention, persistence, and attainment while decreasing disparities among student populations; 2) aligning implementation of project components with PCC’s guided pathways implementation; and 3) achieve systemic integration of successful interventions with the ultimate goal of establishing processes and practices that are essential elements in PCC’s educational ecosystem.

**Funds Requested:**$2,250,000. PCC’s project budget is designed to ensure full implementation of project objectives, to support project management and evaluation activities over the five-year period, and to position PCC to institutionalize initiatives post-grant.

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# P031A190140- University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, AR

The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith was established as Fort Smith Junior College in 1928, and then transformed into a community college before becoming, in 2002, the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith. UAFS is now a regional university, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association for Colleges and Schools. As of Fall 2017, enrollment was 6,620 undergraduate students, 67% of them full-time. UAFS enrolls many non-traditional students, with 22% of the student population age 24 or over. In addition, 89% of the students attending UAFS are Arkansas residents; many of them come from the Arkansas River Valley area, including Sebastian, Crawford, Franklin, and Logan counties. The faculty to student ratio is 1:18. Offering a total of 75 undergraduate degree and certificate programs and 1 master’s degree (with 2 more pending approval from HLC), UAFS employs 228 full-time faculty members and 142 adjunct faculty members. In Fall 2017, 93% of all first-time, full-time students received financial aid. In this same cohort, 57% were Pell Grant recipients. 

**Activity**: Increase student success, retention, and graduation rates by improving academic support for writing and literacy. The strategies UAFS will implement to accomplish the activity include (1) providing accelerated (Summer Bridge Program) and corequisite remediation pathways; (2) enhancing faculty development in academic literacy pedagogies; (3) developing a writing center space with adequate resources and access for all UAFS students. 

**Sample key measures**: (1) the overall success rate of students enrolled in ENGL 0263: Transitions to College Writing and Reading and ENGL 0201 College Writing Workshop will increase 9% over five years; (2) the average fall-to-fall retention rate of students enrolled in ENGL 0263 and ENGL 0201 will increase 7% over five years; (3) The percentage of students who successfully complete their first college-level English course will increase 8% over five years; (4) Student use of a writing tutor on campus will increase by over 500% over five years (to reach 3,500 student visits to the writing center during the final year of the grant cycle); (5) 100% of full-time faculty and at least 50% of adjunct faculty who teach ENGL 0263, ENGL 0201, ENGL 1203: Composition I, or ENGL 1213: Composition II will attend a workshop or conference per year by the end of five years. 

**Project management and evaluation**: The project will be managed by the Title III Coordinator for this grant, Dr. Cammie Sublette, and the Title III Activity Director for this grant, Dr. Monica Luebke. An external evaluator will monitor, review, and report on the success of the project annually.

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# P031A190142- SUNY College at Old Westbury, NY

A member of the State University of New York system, College at Old Westbury (OW) is a primarily undergraduate Minority Serving Institution. OW served 4,635 undergraduate students in Fall 2017. Almost 80 percent of the students are commuters and 57 percent are undergraduate transfer students. The student population is composed of approximately 28 percent African American/Black, 26 percent Hispanic/Latino, 11 percent Asian, 1 percent Native Hawaiian/American Indian/Native Alaskan and 30 percent White/Non-Hispanic and 59 percent of full-time beginning undergraduate students receive PELL grants.

OW’s Title III SIP Project:  Ensuring Student Success is a targeted response to significant institutional strengths and weaknesses identified through a campus-wide process of strategic planning and institutional analysis. In this process of self-reflection, we have affirmed three institutional goals: (1) Increase student support services for student achievement and success; (2) Increase faculty pedagogical development opportunities and; (3) Increase retention and graduation rates.

This proposal provides a comprehensive plan to achieve our institutional goals and support the academic attainment, persistence and degree completion of all students. The project will do this through four targeted best practice activities: (1) Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction, (2) Proactive Advising, (3) Faculty Pedagogical Development, and (4) Sophomore Initiative. We address Competitive Preference Priority 1 through work-based learning initiatives and Competitive Preference Priority 2 in implementing a campus-wide Financial Literacy initiative.

Achievement of the institutional goals will be indicated by the following project outcomes: (1) 50 percent decrease in D/F/W rates for select gateway courses; (2) Increase in second- to-third year retention rates for First Time to College (FTC) and Transfer Students by 5 percentage points; (3) Increase 6-year graduation rates for FTC by 3 percentage points; (4) Increase 4-year (since entering OW) graduation rates for Transfer students by 3 percentage points.

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# P031A190163- Technical College of the Lowcountry, SC

**Institutional Profile**: The Technical College of the Lowcountry (TCL) is a public, two-year, multi-campus, comprehensive community college that serves Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties in South Carolina’s coastal low-country. TCL has a fall enrollment of 2,300 students and is part of South Carolina’s sixteen technical college system.

**CDP Problems** Addressed: Convoluted and fragmented academic programs, disjointed and bureaucratic student services, outdated technology, and inadequate software integration have led to low enrollment of admitted students, a problem that continues in decreasing persistence, retention, and graduation rates. Only three out of ten students admitted to The Technical College of the Lowcountry complete the onboarding process and enroll in classes; of those who do enroll, only two in ten will graduate within three years.

**Project Design**: The proposed Title III project, Pathways to the Future: Increasing Persistence and Retention to Graduation, consists of a single activity with three components: Enhanced Curriculum and Instruction, Expanded Student Support, and Comprehensive Technological System. The funding requested is $2,202,111 over five years to support project implementation.

Enhanced Curriculum and Instruction will include the development of eight guided pathways that include courses infused with high impact practices and workplace learning options connecting students to their career choice while facilitating intentional student advising.

Expanded Student Support will establish a Pathways Hub that will offer one-stop services that include intake, coaching and advising, career assessment, monitoring and interventions, and referrals to other campus resources.

A Comprehensive Technological System, EAB Navigate, will integrate technology with services. Students will access electronic learning plans that clearly map their journey to completion with real-time communication. An embedded early alert will ensure timely notification of students experiencing difficulty, connecting the student, faculty member, and Hub Navigator (staff trained in coaching and intentional advising aligned with pathways).

**Project Goals and Objectives**: The overreaching goals of the project are to increase student engagement and achievement through enhanced curriculum and instruction, increase persistence and retention through expanded student support, and increase the graduation rate.

1) Increase the number of guided pathways from 0 to 8.

2) Increase student engagement from 49.1 to 55.1 (CCSSE).

3) Increase student achievement in gateway courses from 73 percent to 78 percent.

4) Increase the percentage of admitted students who enroll in the fall term from 22 percent to 32 percent.

5) Increase student satisfaction with support for learners from 51 to 56 (CCSSE).

6) Increase fall-to-spring persistence from 73 percent to 78 percent.

7) Increase fall-to-fall retention from 48 percent to 58 percent.

8) Decrease the percentage of students with excess credits at graduation from 94 percent to 84 percent.

9) Increase 3-year graduation rate from 13 percent to 18 percent.

This Title III project also includes Competitive Preference Priority 1, Work-based Learning and Competitive Preference Priority 2, Financial Literacy.

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# P031A190167- Madisonville Community College, KY

**Improving Student Access and Success**

**Contact:**David Schuermer, Coordinator of Grants, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness, 2000 College Drive, Madisonville, KY 42431; (270) 824-8633; david.schuermer@kctcs.edu

Madisonville Community College (MCC) is a two-year public comprehensive community college in western Kentucky. In our rural, six-county service area, 16.5% of adults have no high school diploma, and almost 60% have never attended college – a legacy of the abundance of high-wage, low-skill jobs that defined the coal boom of the 1970s and 1980s. Half of MCC’s student body consists of first-generation college students, and over 75% of first-time freshmen are underprepared for college-level coursework in at least one core academic discipline. 

Recurring budget cuts and Kentucky’s new performance-based funding (PBF) model have prompted MCC to balance its budget through faculty and staff attrition and an increased reliance on adjunct faculty members. The College now struggles to provide a consistent classroom and student support experience for students at multiple points-of-entry (dual credit, adult learners, transfer-bound, etc.) MCC’s old “one-size-fits-all” advising and student support models have become obsolete, and the College’s human and financial resources are too strained to update them effectively. Available technology solutions, such as early alert and predictive analytics, can help the College’s support services operate more efficiently, but not without sufficient planning and training in their use. The effects of this struggle are becoming clear in the College’s student success data, where metrics like course completion, retention, persistence, and credential completion – once among the highest in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) – have fallen dramatically in the past five years. The impact is magnified by the implementation of performance-based funding, where the metrics with which MCC is now struggling are weighted most heavily in determining the College’s state funding allocation in future years. Without effective interventions, this will create a downward spiral of worsening student performance and decreased state funding. 

The three primary foci of the proposed project are to: 1) improve coordination, communication, and professional development support for adjunct faculty to improve course completion rates and learning outcomes; 2) develop a contextualized advising model based on students’ point-of-entry and their academic and career goals to improve long-term persistence; and 3) establish effective training and coordination of student support tools and functions to create intervention protocols for efficient, effective responses to student support needs. 

MCC will use grant funding to release some of its most experienced and effective faculty members to tend to the updating and improvement of training and support processes that promote student success. Advising will be tailored to students at various points of entry, improving their retention. Adjunct faculty will be developed and better integrated into the life of the college, improving their instruction and the success of students in their courses. New personnel will be onboarded to help the College make intelligent use of the technology-based student support solutions at its disposal, so that its limited human resources can be allocated more efficiently. 

**Requested award:**$2,154,394

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards

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# P031A190168- Lorain County Community College District, OH

**Title:**	Scaling for Inclusive Opportunity: Access Equity and Career Success for Diverse and Non-Traditional Students at LCCC

**Applicant:** Lorain County Community College (LCCC) is an open admissions community college located in Elyria, OH. LCCC provides postsecondary education and training to citizens of Lorain County in northeast Ohio. Fall 2018 unduplicated enrollment was 10,706.

**Requested Funding:** $2,142,090

**Institutional Problems:** LCCC is experiencing declining enrollment and low retention, graduation, and transfer rates, particularly due to lower enrollment of students 25 and older and low success rates for non-traditional students. The current online orientation and First-Year Experience classes fall short in serving adult and non-traditional students and do not provide extensive financial literacy education or information on career opportunities. Course schedules and program delivery modes also do not meet the needs of non-traditional students. Fewer than 8 percent of adult learners finish an academic program within six years, and struggles begin early: only 16 percent complete college-level Math and 40 percent finish college-level English in their first year. With no dedicated career center, only 14 percent of adult learners transfer within six years of entry.

**Project Summary:** LCCC has designed Scaling for Inclusive Opportunity with an overarching goal to increase adult student success through three project objectives:

· Objective 1: Develop flexible and accelerated format programs with embedded work-based learning to attract adult learners and meet industry talent demand.

· Objective 2: Support adult learners’ entry and progress in academic programs leading to credentials in in-demand careers. 

· Objective 3: Increase support for transfer to bachelor’s degree programs in in-demand careers. 

**Selected Project Outcomes:** Scaling for Inclusive Opportunity will be assessed via measurable performance indicators aligned with the project goal and three objectives. Some key outcomes to achieve by the end of funding period are the following:

· Increase enrollment of first-time, full-time (FTFT) students by 15 percent from 906 to 1,042 and increase enrollment of adult learners by 20 percent from 938 to 1,125.

· Increase the 150 percent graduation rate for FTFT students from 26.9 percent to 36.9 percent and increase the six-year completion rate for adult learners from 7.9 percent to 20 percent.

· Increase fall-to-fall retention of FTFT students from 66.3 percent to 71.4 percent and increase the share of adult learners earning 15+ credits in their first year from 19.7 percent to 30 percent.

· Increase the number of students completing work-based learning, for-credit courses in in- demand programs from 5 to 145.

**Competitive Preference and Invitational Priorities:** Scaling for Inclusive Opportunity responds to Competitive Preference Priority 1, Competitive Preference Priority 2, and the Invitational Priority regarding service in federally designated Opportunity Zones.

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards

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# P031A190169- Walla Walla Community College, WA

**Project Title**: Bringing Student Success to Scale: developing and better connecting students to appropriate programs, supports, services, and information from first contact through graduation.

**Institutional Profile**: Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) is a public, primarily two-year institution of higher education providing service to its district of Walla Walla, Columbia, Asotin, and Garfield counties in rural, remote, southeastern Washington State, as well as border counties in Oregon and Idaho. The College opened its doors in 1967 and was first accredited in 1969. The main campus is located on approximately 120 acres in Walla Walla, WA. WWCC’s Clarkston Center, located in Clarkston, WA, is the hub of educational activity in Asotin and Garfield counties. The College also offers classes at two correctional facilities in Washington State: Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla and Coyote Ridge in Connell, WA. The College offers associate of arts and associate of science degrees that prepare students for transfer, as well as 43 workforce program degrees. The College began offering baccalaureate of applied science degrees in fall 2018.

**Project Overview**: Walla Walla Community College aims to take highly successful but decentralized and disconnected practices that lead to student success and bring them to scale through better coordination, organization, and communication. To do this, the College will reorganize its segregated advising and success coaching units that spread out across educational areas to create a centralized, coordinated advising division under a Dean of Student Success to provide true wrap-around services to all students. It will implement a coordinated engagement strategy using two-way texting and just-in-time “nudges” to increase retention. It will bring financial literacy education to scale by incorporating it into a mandatory first-year experience course. It will create a Student Career Center to bring work-based learning experiences to all students and not a select handful of workforce students. To support this effort, the College will also increase data literacy and use by faculty, staff, and decision-makers and increase its resource development capacity. All activities are grounded in evidence-based research and recognized best practices.

**Significant Problems**: 1) Unequal access to student supports negatively affects persistence, 2) students lack knowledge and skills to prepare them for future employment and 3) the skills to be informed, thoughtful, and productive individuals and citizens, 4) inadequate resources for institutional research and effectiveness hampers data-informed decision-making, and 5) inadequate financial resources to support student success.

**Outcomes**: Activities under the project will increase student retention and completion, provide comprehensive access for students to work-based learning experiences and financial literacy education, and increase institutional research and resource development capacity.

**Long-term Impacts**: The College will become fiscally stable due to increased FTE enrollments and development resources and will harness greater data-informed decision-making to the betterment of students, who will complete at higher rates and with the skills and work-place connections needed to secure high-earning employment.

Funds Requested: $2,250,000 over five years, with $405,913 strengthening its endowment.

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# P031A190170- American International College, MA

APEX: AIC Plan for Excellence is a shared curricular experience, designed to achieve four main learning goals in students: (1) Intellectual Development and Lifelong Learning, (2) Personal Growth, (3) Social & Cultural Competency, and (4) Career & Professional Development. The APEX program intends to strengthen the institution by solving the institutional weaknesses of subpar student persistence and low retention and graduation rates. The APEX program synthesizes three proven strategies for improving student success through graduation: (1) systematizing a cohort-based, shared curricular learning experience across the student body, (2) developing student identity through holistic experiential and co-curricular education, and (3) leveraging predictive modeling to proactively deliver intrusive advising and wraparound support to students.

The APEX Program is composed of three connected components: (1) four 1-credit APEX courses, (2) the co-curricular experience, and (3) the general education core curriculum. APEX will improve the value of an AIC education by creating synergy between practical real-life skills and academic knowledge. The program will blend traditional classroom learning with co-curricular experiences and other experiential learning opportunities. By making participation in APEX a requirement for all undergraduates, including online learners and transfer students, every student will be afforded the resources to persist, succeed academically, and graduate complete with a set of tools to ensure lifelong personal and professional success.

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# P031A190172- Alvernia University, PA

**Alvernia University -*Improving Student Success: Doing Well and Doing Good***

To increase the level of student achievement, persistence, and retention, particularly in the formative first two years of the baccalaureate, Alvernia University, located in the City of Reading, PA, will forge a strategy to increase student engagement and career connections from the point of admission, creating a thruway to graduation and lifelong success. The Project entails a multipronged approach: 1) Redesigned the onboarding process (admissions, connection and orientation) to include a “Navigation Program” and a reconfigured FYE, to reshape the student experience and 2) enhance key courses employing American Association of Colleges and Universities’ high impact practices - all bolstered by robust professional development and supported by technology in a new Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) to ensure engaged teaching and learning. 

***Integrated Student Services:***To strengthen student engagement, the admissions, connections, orientation and FYE will be restructured and directly aligned with goal attainment: graduation and career success. New students will receive services and supports that spark career interest, exploration, and goal setting to include financial. Advising will be redesigned as Navigation and deploy dedicated Navigators that will help students chart a path and then “Navigate” the path by connecting individual student interests and skills to their life goals. This restructuring will build a framework for program of study validation, advising, course selection, and educational financial and career planning, ultimately providing a pathway to lifelong success. 

***Engaged Teaching and Learning:***With an emphasis on multi-section core courses that comprise the first-two years, faculty, representing a range of disciplines, will form design teams to contextualize and reframe gateway courses using the AAC&U high impact practices as a framework for engagement. Integral to this instructional evolution is a robust professional development structure for faculty and staff delivered through a new Teaching and Learning Center. The addition of an Instructional Designer and a major upgrade of technology will assist with the transformational change in the teaching and learning process. 

***Projected Resources:***With an annual budget of $450,000 per year for five years, Alvernia University will implement these initiatives and deliver improved student success. 

***Goals:***Through a strong focus on student engagement and career connections from the point of admission, advanced technology, an enhanced, interconnected system delivering support and services, plus a vigorous reform of classroom practice, the project will create synergies that make a significant impact on student performance and achievement. As a result, by the end of the five year project: student engagement will improve by 5%, student satisfaction with instruction will improve by 10%, student failure in gateway courses will decrease by 10%, retention (first-to-second **and**second-to third year) will increase by 10% , subsequent 4-year graduation rates will increase by 6%. Alvernia University has also responded to Competitive Preference Priorities One and Two which will seamlessly integrate with the Project to achieve student success.

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# P031A190173- University of Maine - Presque Isle, ME

The University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI), is a public university located in Presque Isle (pop. 9,692) along the Canadian border in rural Aroostook County, an area larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined with a population of just over 72,000. Chartered as a teacher’s college in 1903, in 1968 UMPI joined the University of Maine System (UM-System) and is one of seven campuses of the UM-System. Aroostook County is home to sweeping vistas, lush forests and lakes. However, the human landscape bears tarnishing flaws in the form of high poverty and low educational attainment. The economic disparity is so great that Aroostook County is also called “The Other Maine” because of the stark contrast to the wealthier, more urban areas to the south.

Aroostook is also home to two Native American tribes, the Micmacs and the Maliseets, a population with markedly higher rates of poverty and low levels of education. Almost all (92 percent) of UMPI students come from the state of Maine, most are residents of Aroostook County and thus reflect the region’s socioeconomic characteristics -- a region where 37.3 percent of families are low income and 84 percent of adults do not have a bachelor’s degree.

Despite the hard work and dedication of UMPI’s faculty, staff, and administration as well as the university’s many strengths and accomplishments, we are currently facing unprecedented challenges to our long-term stability due to declining enrollment, a flat tuition rate for six consecutive years, and increasing personnel costs. Increases in operational costs have prohibited UMPI from starting new high-demand academic degree programs which would provide avenues for prosperous careers for our students and offer an avenue for UMPI to tap into new enrollment markets. Likewise, our limited financial and personnel resources prohibit implementation of high impact instructional practices such as career readiness activities and experiential learning in the form of high-quality internships, practicum, or service-learning projects which, as research results demonstrate, have the ability to significantly improve the quality of postsecondary education.

This application has been prepared after a careful analysis of challenges facing UMPI. We submit this proposal for a project titled Expanding Access, Increasing Success, and Improving Career Readiness and request $2,249,710 over five years to implement initiatives that will result in:

· Improved academic and career opportunities for UMPI's current and future student populations via creation of new Bachelor of Science programs in the high-demand fields of Computer Science and Health Administration. Curriculum will be developed incrementally with specific courses for each program developed one project year and pilot tested, evaluated, analyzed and modified/further refined the year following development.

· Improved instructional resources and equipment including a Computer Science lab and Health Administration Learning Center to support the new academic programs.

· Enhanced career-readiness of UMPI students and graduates via creation of the University Experience and incorporation of career competencies identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) throughout the college student life cycle.

· Improved instruction via creation and implementation of experiential learning strategies inclusive of internships, practicum, service learning, or other hands-on activities for UMPI's existing high-demand humanities degree programs.

· Cadre of faculty trained in effective implementation of experiential learning strategies.

· Increased enrollment as a result of new program development, pilot testing, and implementation leading to improved long-term fiscal stability for the university.

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# P031A190179- JC Calhoun State Community College, Inc., AL

Calhoun Community College (AL). Calhoun Community College (CCC) is an open-admission, comprehensive two-year college and a member of the Alabama Community College System.

With campuses in Decatur and Huntsville, CCC serves approximately 10,000 students each semester that are primarily from Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, and Morgan Counties in North Alabama.

Contact Person:	Dr. Debi Hendershot

Title:	Dean for Planning, Research and Grants

Email:	debi.hendershot@calhoun.edu

Phone:	256.306.2581	FAX: 256.306.2877

Federal Funding Request: $2,116,047 over five years. Pathways to Success: Developing a Well-Trained, Flexible, and Productive Workforce

Project Overview:

In the past decade, CCC and the region it serves has experienced significant growth in a number of areas. Population in the Huntsville metro area has grown 11 percent from 2010-2018 due to an influx of high-tech defense and manufacturing companies and the opening of the FBI Tennessee Valley Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory housed at Redstone Arsenal. This economic boom has resulted in low unemployment rates and a shortage of skilled workers in Cyber- Security, Networking, and Industrial Maintenance. To address this shortage, CCC has increased enrollment in Dual Enrollment Career/Technical Programs, established a Career Services Department, and opened a new building on the Huntsville Campus to expand academic programs in nursing, welding and computer information systems. Unfortunately, and despite CCC’s deliberate efforts to increase capacity in career/technical programs, the recent evolution in workforce education is producing a wide variety of activities and initiatives well beyond courses or programs.  The workforce mission is not a separate, stand-alone mission but must be integrated into all aspects of the college. Pathways to Success provides the framework for CCC’s transition from fragmented a-la-cart scheduling to a structured, employer-driven model that includes work-based learning (WBL) components in Associate of Applied Science degree programs beginning at the high school level. Work-based learning not only bridges theoretical knowledge and practice, but also enhances graduate employability.

Project Management:

The Title III Project will be managed by Dr. Alan Stephenson and Ms. Kelli Morris as Project Co-Directors reporting to the President. Dr. Stephenson currently serves as Academic Vice President and Ms. Morris serves as Director of Career Services. Grant-funded staff supporting the Title III Project include an Administrative Assistant, Career Advisors, a College Readiness Specialist, an Employer Relations Specialist, and a Work-Based Learning Coordinator.

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# P031A190185 – Auburn University at Montgomery, AL 

Low retention, persistence, and graduation rates for the institution, particularly for the financially disadvantaged students, underscore the critical need for student success programs that draw upon high impact practices and facilitate persistence and timely graduation of at-risk students. This proposal signals the next step in AUM’s history of developing a support system to foster student success and reflects the student engagement goal the 2019-2024 AUM Strategic Plan. The proposed Experiential Education and Engagement Center (EEEC) will serve as a communication hub for all experiential (including service learning) education and undergraduate research opportunities at the university with experiential and undergraduate research opportunities will be developed in collaboration with faculty within specific programs and through partnerships with community organizations and firms.

Proposed expenditures include a Program Coordinator who will manage the daily operation of EEEC, a Learning Specialist/Research Coordinator who will assist faculty in identifying opportunities to incorporate best practices for experiential learning and undergraduate research within the classroom and Data Analyst/Assessment Specialist who will work with representatives from Office of Institutional Effectiveness to build an on-demand system of student information.

An important component of the grant proposal will be a peer mentoring program established as part of the Freshman Success course and student Success Coaches who work closely with advisors within advising offices across campus. These students will serve as an additional point of contact for students as they move through their academic careers.

The total funding requested is $ $2,166,937.00 over the five-year span of the grant.

FY 2019 Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) New Awards 

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# P031A190186- Mountain Empire Community College, VA

**Project Title:**New Pathways to Student Success 

**Institutional Profile:**Founded in 1972, Mountain Empire Community College (MECC) is a two-year, comprehensive public community college offering more than ninety career studies certificate and associate degree programs with majors designed for both college transfer and technical education leading directly to employment. The College serves approximately 3,560 credit students (1,619 FTE) and 2,398 noncredit students each year in a service region that covers Dickenson, Scott, Lee, and Wise counties as well as the City of Norton in rural southwestern Virginia. 

**Activities and Objectives:**

1. By 2022, the College will hire four new full-time faculty members;

2. By 2023, MECC will renovate several traditional classroom spaces, converting them into two new laboratories to be used in biology, anatomy, phlebotomy, and pharmacy tech courses;

3. Between October 2019 and September 2024, the college will advance a comprehensive, intrusive advising system; all faculty will be trained in the system by 2024;

4. By 2024, the College will reduce the number of FTEs taught by adjunct faculty by at least10% from 2018-2019;

5. Prior to the start of the Fall 2022 semester, the College will implement new, more flexible scheduling opportunities for students in Health Science programs;

6. By September 2024, MECC graduates will improve their Quantitative Literacy skills by100% on the STAGE assessment;

7. All full-time faculty members will receive quantitative literacy training by September 2024and will learn to integrate quantitative literacy skills into their courses.

8. Beginning in November 2019, the college will assess campus-wide technology related to academic and administrative functions and update all areas as needed in order to streamline processes and make better use of staff time;

9. By 2024, the MECC Foundation will have raised the dollar-for-dollar match of $225,000 to fully utilize the Title III endowment challenge of 10% of awarded funding.

**Outcomes:**When comparing enrollment and success results for the 2018-2019 academic year to those for the 2023-2024 academic year, MECC will show a 5% increase in enrollment, an 8% increase in fall-to-fall retention, and a 10% increase in completion rates. The College will show an overall 5% increase by 2024 in both student and employee satisfaction surveys. By September 2024, the MECC Foundation will have increased its unrestricted endowment by at least $450,000 to help the College meet operating needs, provide student financial assistance, and invest in student success initiatives. 

**Funds Requested:**$2,250,000

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# P031A190187- Illinois Eastern Community Colleges -Frontier Community Coll, IL

Illinois Eastern Community Colleges–Frontier Community College (FCC) is one of four two-year, public community colleges comprising the Illinois Eastern Community Colleges. FCC is located in Fairfield, Illinois (pop. 5,024), a town situated in rural southeastern Illinois within a few hours of St. Louis, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Louisville, Kentucky. FCC’s service area includes all or parts of twelve counties: Clark, Clay, Crawford, Cumberland, Edwards, Hamilton, Jasper, Lawrence, Richland, Wabash, Wayne, and White counties. FCC service area residents are highly disadvantaged; most possess low levels of educational attainment –only 13.0% of adults have a bachelor’s degree—and support themselves and their families with little income—the area’s per capita income is only $24,044 compared to $31,502 for Illinois. 

FCC’s mission to “*deliver exceptional education and services to improve the lives of our students and to strengthen our communities*,” is critical to the region’s residents. In Fall 2018, FCC served 1,931 students, offering Associate in Arts, Science, and Applied Science Degrees and Certificates in 35 transfer and occupational programs. 

Fall 2018 Student Profile: Sixty-seven percent of FCC students are female (33% male). Most enroll part-time (86%), commute 20 minutes or more to campus (59%), are first generation college students (55%), and work (65%). Nearly half (46%) juggle college with parenting responsibilities. The average student is 34 years old. FCC serves students from several qualified opportunity zone census tracts (*Invitational Priority*). 

To build on opportunities for increased enrollment and offset the institution’s slow recovery from the dire impacts of the Illinois state funding crisis, FCC is looking to expand access to high demand health science programs that can connect area residents with promising employment options. However, institutional analysis has revealed that FCC’s health science programming is underdeveloped and inflexible, and the institution’s capacity to offer science lab instruction is limited. FCC also identified inadequate student support as an institutional weakness. 

To address the institution’s identified problems and weaknesses, FCC proposes a project entitled **Promoting Health Science Pathways**that is composed of two components and addresses both competitive preference priorities (CPP): 

Component 1: Expand Access to Health Science Programming. Through this component, FCC will equip a Faculty Studio and establish procedures for creating high quality online and hybrid courses. Using the new resources and procedures, FCC will target the revision and/or conversion of online/hybrid math and science courses that serve as prerequisites for health science programs as well as online/hybrid health science program courses for the Certified Nursing Assistant certificate, Phlebotomy certificate, and the Health Informatics associate degree. FCC will also develop a new Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) associate degree program to be offered face-to-face and in hybrid format. To ensure sufficient capacity for science instruction, FCC will update its existing science lab, develop a new science lab, and create a new MLT Lab. Target programs will offer work-based learning experiences supporting in-demand occupations (*CPP1*). 

Component 2: Strengthen Online Services. Through this component, FCC will develop a robust set of online services, including orientation to FCC and online learning, tutoring, advising, intake services, degree mapping, and financial literacy instruction (*CPP2*) over the five-year project period. FCC will also redesign its existing early alert services. 

To support project development work, FCC requests a total five-year budget of $2,249,961.

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# P031A190190- Jefferson Community College, NY

**Project Title:***Jefferson Pathways Project*

Jefferson Community College (SUNY) is a two-year public college located in Northern New York, with a primary service area spanning four rural counties. Jefferson is a medium-sized college with an annual FTE of approximately 2,490. It is the only college campus within a 50- mile radius and is considered the sole option for many area residents, particularly for low-income residents seeking a degree or certificate. This year, the college engaged in a reflective strategic planning process and committed to the Guided Pathways framework for institutional transformation.

**Project Summary**: The unifying goal of the *Jefferson Pathways Project* is to increase the graduation rate at the college, and thus increase outcomes for retention, persistence, and credit attainment. Key to building and supporting these outcomes are:

· Establish a systematic, integrated advising model that focuses on creating comprehensive academic plans and includes career counseling. This model will include technology upgrades and adaptations for communication, student and data tracking, and long- distance advising methods. Early and robust advising is a key goal of the new model.

· Connecting educational and career goals from the ground up, incorporating career counseling into advising, realigning course, program, and institutional goals, and reassessing course schedules and college programs to create meta-majors. Meta-majors will provide students with a career focus and the freedom to explore within an area of interest with minimal credit and time lost.

· Creation and institution of an Experiential Learning Program (CPP #1) and a First Year Experience program (CPP #2) that are inextricably tied to the tenets of Guided Pathways and the *Jefferson Pathways Project*. These programs will increase relevant student outcomes--persistence, graduation, and credit attainment. They will also provide a clearer connection between education and career and add a more deliberate and well-rounded financial literacy component to the college’s intake process.

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# P031A190193- Montgomery County Community College, PA

Montgomery County Community College (MCCC), founded in 1964, is an open-access institution serving the third-largest county in Pennsylvania. The College has two campuses—Central Campus, located in Blue Bell, 25 miles northwest of Philadelphia, and West Campus, located in Pottstown, 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Student access and success are at the heart of MCCC’s core mission and are the hallmarks that drive the College to explore new ways to help students attain access to higher education and successfully complete their educational goals. 

**Project Title:**West Campus College Connection Experience (CCE) 

**Problems:**MCCC’s West Campus, the focus of this Title III project, is especially impacted by an increasing number of first-year students who are academically underprepared and face challenges to progression and goal completion. They have lower pass rates for developmental courses, lower retention rates, take too long to finish or transfer, and sometimes do not finish. Limited academic advising touchpoints result in missed courses and/or taking too many courses, impacting financial aid and time to completion. 

**Overall Goals:**Goal 1—Improve student success, retention, and completion on West Campus; Goal 2—Position MCCC for long-term financial stability. 

**Outcomes:**The objectives related to MCCC’s identified problems are designed to measure changes in persistence and retention of College Connection Experience students (Obj. 1-2); retention and graduation of West Campus students (Obj. 3-4); increased percentages of faculty and staff trained in best practices for advising and student success (Obj. 5); and decreased performance gaps related to advising (Obj. 6). Achievement of the related objectives will help alleviate fiscal issues by increasing student retention/revenue and promoting fiscal stability. 

**Implementation Strategies:**MCCC’s one comprehensive activity is designed to positively impact student persistence, retention, and completion through implementation of two interrelated strategies based on best practices, results of MCCC’s own experiences, and evidence-based interventions: **Strategy 1**: Establish an immersive College Connection Experience academic pathway program for first-time college students encompassing all years of a student’s career at MCCC; and **Strategy 2:**Develop College Connection Experience wraparound support services with intrusive advising. 

**Competitive Preference Priorities**: MCCC’s project addresses CPP 1 and CPP 2. 

**Funds Requested:**$1,972,882. MCCC’s Title III project budget is designed to ensure full implementation of the project’s comprehensive strategies, to support project management and evaluation activities over the five-year grant period, and to position MCCC to institutionalize the project’s practices and improvements.

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# P031A190194- Grand Rapids Community College, MI

Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) is a two-year public institution accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. GRCC offers associate s degree programs, transfer options, and certificates of completion through its School of Arts and Sciences and School of Workforce Development. Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 73 percent of the 13,825 credit students enrolled in Fall 2018, lived in primary service area of Kent County.

Increasingly, a greater number of GRCC students are attending classes part-time (70 percent in Fall 2018). The average age of students was 23.8 years, and 27.8 percent of all students were 25 or older. Student ethnicity was 61.9 percent Caucasian, 8.6 percent African American, 3.9 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, 13.8 percent Hispanic, .5 percent Native American, 3.6 percent two or more races, and 7.7 percent unreported.

GRCC s faculty is made up of 233 full-time instructors and 196 part-time adjunct instructors. The average faculty to student ratio is 21:1, with an average class size of 22.9 students.

GRCC’s Title III activity, the GRCC Integrated Student Support Redesign, will focus on establishing and implementing a new model for how the college conceives of, and delivers, academic advising and student support. As part of this work, the project will also address two of the Competitive Preference Priorities: 1) Fostering Flexible and Affordable Paths to Obtaining Knowledge and Skills; and 2) Fostering Knowledge and Promoting the Development of Skills that Prepare Students to be Informed, Thoughtful, and Productive Individuals and Citizens.

Through its Title III activity, GRCC will seek to increase the retention of new, degree- and certificate-seeking students, and three-year completion rates of new, full-time degree and certificate-seeking students. Project activities include engaging cross-college stakeholders in re-thinking and re-designing processes, practices and policies to better support student completion; streamlining the student experience by aligning the college’s student success efforts: transitioning from a transactional to an intentional, personalized advising approach to motivate students to engage in academic, career and financial planning; leveraging new technology for improved student tracking and to create efficiencies that will enable differentiated, individualized support for all students; and delivering robust professional development for faculty and advising and student support staff to assist them in transitioning to a holistic advising approach.

By 2024, Integrated Student Support Redesign will achieve the following increased student success outcomes: 1) Increased fall-to-fall retention rates of new, degree- and certificate- seeking students from 53 to 63 percent; and 2) Increased number of new, degree- and certificate- seeking students who graduate within three years from 19 to 24 percent. Increased revenue from tuition and fees of additional retained students, combined with current and continued strategic budgeting for incrementally increasing financial support will, by 2024, lead to self-sufficiency and institutionalization of project strategies.

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# P031A190201 – Notre Dame of Maryland, MD 

**Institutional Profile**: Established by the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1895, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) is the first Catholic college for women in the U.S. to award the baccalaureate degree and the only remaining women’s college in Maryland. NDMU’s Women’s College today continues to reflect its mission to serve the underserved: 31 percent of students are first- generation college students, 51 percent are eligible for Pell grants, and 96 percent of undergraduates receive financial aid. Over 57 percent of students are from minority backgrounds. Located in north Baltimore City, NDMU’s 58-acre wooded main campus and small student to faculty ratio of 12:1 make it an attractive choice for local students, with over 91 percent attending from within Maryland.

**Project Title**: Specialized Technology to Advance and Renew Teaching and Learning (START-L) at NDMU

**Significant Problems**: NDMU is challenged by an infrastructure which is unable to serve the demands of a rapidly diversifying student population; many incoming students are underprepared for the rigors of a college environment, requiring additional learning supports; outdated technology is unable to provide the comprehensive student support services necessary for faculty and leadership to make informed, data-driven, and timely interventions to ensure students succeed; and faculty require training in the use of student support and advising programs to better serve at-risk students. Through its strategic plan and reaccreditation self-study, NDMU has identified strengths and weaknesses and defined problems facing its ability to operate effectively; among those problems are the need to: reverse declining enrollment, retention and graduation rates, improve efficiency and delivery of student learning resources and support, strengthen institutional management, and improve fiscal stability. The success of START-L holds the promise of addressing many of NDMU’s challenges and enabling growth for the University.

**Goals**: (1) Increase student enrollment, retention and graduation rates overall and in the undergraduate education program through curriculum revision, enhanced technology, and renovated learning spaces; (2) Improve efficiency and delivery of student learning resources and support by expanding technology-enhanced advising and academic support services to all NDMU Women’s College undergraduates; (3) Strengthen institutional management by developing and implementing a comprehensive, technology-integrated institutional system of student success support programs and investing in faculty professional development for advising, technology, and student success best-practices; and (4) Improve fiscal stability through increased tuition revenues. 

**Project Outcomes**: Key measures of success include: (1) increasing fall-to-fall full-time retention 8 percent to 77 percent; (2) increasing new transfer students by 43 percent to 46 students; (3) increasing student participation in Early College and accelerated-degree options 100 percent to 62 students; and (4) increasing the overall graduation rate 10 percent to 63 percent.

**Total Funds Requested**: $2,101,310 over five years.

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# P031A190202- Lourdes University, OH

Lourdes University (formerly Lourdes College) is a private, non-profit four-year institution located in Sylvania, Ohio. The university became an independently incorporated entity in 1973. Lourdes students are enrolled in 30 majors in four colleges: Arts & Sciences, the Nursing, Business and Leadership, and Social Sciences. In addition to undergraduate and pre-professional programs, Lourdes offers four master’s degree programs in Education, Business, Organizational Leadership, Nursing, Liberal Arts, Social Work, and Theology and a Doctoral Nursing degree.

The expansion of traditional age student enrollment has presented both challenges and opportunities to the university. As the traditional-age population of the university has grown, so too have resources been added to support student needs. The academic and career success of this younger population depends on the identification of their unique needs, careful analysis the university’s strengths and weaknesses related to these needs and the implementation address these weaknesses.

These activities will result in a number of outcomes for students and the institution. Long-term outcomes include increased retention and graduation rates through improvements to academic quality. These outcomes will in turn, improve the institution’s fiscal stability, increasing self-sufficiency and expanding the ability to serve low-income students.

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# P031A190205- Concordia University Ann Arbor, MI

The goals of Concordia University Wisconsin-Ann Arbor (CUWAA) are to increase retention and graduation rates, increase support services for students with disabilities and behavioral health concerns, grow diversity among faculty, staff, and students, reduce controllable expenses, funds. Completing these goals, will strengthen CUWAA to better attract, retain, and graduate first-generation, low-income students.

This project is a cooperative agreement between Concordia University Ann Arbor (CUAA) and Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW); herein referred to as CUWAA. The elements in which the two institutions are collaborating address institutional management to respond to the need to increase faculty and staff diversity, which will increase retention and graduation of undergraduate students; procurement, addressing the risks associated with the lack of consistent and comprehensive policies and procedures; and fiscal stability, to address the problems related scholarships to middle-low income students is likely to increase their retention and graduation; and increasing diversity among faculty and staff is also likely to increase retention and graduation of all students, especially our diverse student population. Further, while student retention and graduation are strong at CUW, CUAA struggles to retain and graduate specific student populations, including those with disabilities and those who come from lower-income families.

To increase retention and graduation rates, CUAA will renovate its Academic Resource Center (ARC), allowing students better access to the services the ARC provides. The renovation of the ARC will also increase support services for students with disabilities and behavioral health concerns as they will have access to the tools and professionals who will be able to assist them. CUAA also proposes to create a Student Health Center and hire a Nurse Practitioner, with a specialty in psychiatric care, who will assist students with behavioral and physical health needs. Finally, CUWAA proposes to purchase a Comfort Dog, which research has shown has helps individuals overcome traumatic experiences.

To grow diversity, CUWAA will hire two Directors of Diversity and Multiculturalism; one for each campus. The Directors will assist in increasing diversity among faculty, staff, and students and creating new policies and procedures. They will also assist in workshops and trainings for current faculty and staff as well as chairing support groups for diverse faculty and staff, which will help retain these new hires. To reduce controllable expenses, CUWAA proposes to hire a Purchasing Manager who will assist CUWAA’s Business Office by reviewing current policies and procedures, revising them, and assisting in purchases CUWAA makes. Finally, CUWAA will hire a Major Gifts Officer who will help the Advancement Office increase their number of scholarship endowments and value of endowed scholarship funds.

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# P031A190214- Notre Dame College of Ohio, OH

Notre Dame College (NDC) is a suburban, private, non-profit, regionally accredited, four-year institution located near Cleveland, Ohio. Despite the similar name, Notre Dame College has no golden dome, but instead has built a reputation for educating underserved students currently NDC serves 52 percent low income, 47 percent minority, and 36 percent first- generation. In total, NDC serves over 1,300 students annually.

Activity Title: Building a Center for Intelligence and Security Studies. To address the  needs of our underserved population and meet local and national needs, NDC proposes a two- component activity to (1) develop two new Bachelor of Arts (BA) programs in Cybersecurity and Emergency Management Studies, while revitalizing an existing BA program in Intelligence Studies, and (2) develop program-specific career pathways resources, including mandatory internships and advisement, plus financial literacy modules to prepare students for professions in these fields.

Completion of activity objectives will result in the development of curricula for and delivery of three high-tech, high-demand security and intelligence programs to both ground and online students, while providing expanded career pathways resources including advising, internships, and financial literacy modules. To accommodate these programs, NDC will construct a high-tech Situation Room and two specialized classrooms with simulation technology, designed for collaborative learning. Our activity also meets Competitive Preference Priorities #1 and #2.

Total Request: $2,148,501

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# P031A190229- Community College of Rhode Island, RI

**Institution/Applicant**The Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) is a two-year, public institution of higher education. The college is the only community college in the state of Rhode Island and the largest of the 44 community colleges in the northeast United States.

**Requested Funding**$1,698,072 over five years.

**Project**	Promoting Pathways to Progress

**Significant Problems**	CCRI is experiencing low rates of degree completion that threaten institutional viability. Issues stem from insufficient advising and intake processes that are hampered by organizational and technological limitations. In addition, degree programs do not provide sufficient career advising or opportunity for work-based learning experiences.

**Project Description**	The overarching goal of Promoting Pathways to Progress is to improve degree completion at CCRI through 1) full-scale implementation of the guided pathways model, 2) strengthening of the first-year experience, and 3) integration of work-based learning across the academic programs. The project goal is operationalized through a single activity objective to increase three-year first-time, full-time degree completion from 18 percent to 35 percent.

The activity objective is made measurable via 17 key performance indicators with annual targets. The specific tasks aimed at achieving the activity objective are as follows:

Task 1	Implement a coordinated approach to the full-scale implementation of the guided pathways model.

Task 2	Launch a new First Year Seminar course across the guided pathways that exposes students to career exploration and financial literacy awareness.

Task 3	Embed a work-based learning experience in all programs via a new capstone course.

**Competitive Preference Priority**	The project responds to Competitive Preference Priority #1 and Competitive Preference Priority #2.

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# P031A190239- Klamath Community College, OR

**Careers, Learning, Innovation, and Motivation against Barriers (CLIMB)**

**Project Overview.**Title III funding will help Klamath Community College (KCC) to undertake the implementation of a strategic Guided Pathways model that provides (1) First-Year Experience courses to degree-seeking students, which will provide students with targeted career, academic, and financial programming to help student succeed on their career/educational path; (2) establishes a true career center where students can engage in career exploration to match their skills and passions with occupational opportunities and career expectations, including work-based learning experience (e.g., internships); (3) augments KCC’s Instructional Innovation unit to support students through the implementation of new instructional strategies within courses and across programs, including FYE; and (4) equips the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)—the home of Instructional Innovation—with new technology to support professional development and student instruction with equipment designed to improve educational delivery. 

*CLIMB*will allow KCC to improve retention from 47% to 57% and graduation from 24% to 29% for first-time as well as increase enrollment by 10% for full-time degree-seeking students. Other objectives include increased retention for part-time degree-seeking students from 32% to 40%, increased student participation in credit-based FYE from 0% to 70%, increase in students doing mandatory career exploration and preparing a career plan from 0% to 95%, decreases in academic notification (e.g., probation) from 31% to 19% and failure in gateway courses by 25% over the baseline. KCC also expects cost recovery of 3% through these retention programs. All components and objectives will be integrated with KCC’s growing work in its Guided Pathways model.

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