What's Up with DEI: Guilford Technical Community College

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be sharing some of the DEI state policy team and college accomplishments from the last year of work. We’re making our way (alphabetically!) through the six DEI states, profiling the DEI colleges in those states as we go. Yesterday, we introduced North Carolina’s state policy work; now it’s time to learn a bit more about Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, North Carolina.

Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) serves more than 40,000 students in Guilford County, North Carolina. We’ve selected some highlights from their last year of DEI work in three main categories: scaling, institutional policy change, and academic and supportive service innovations.

Scaling 

• GTCC has exceeded its goal for increasing the number of students completing face-to-face or online COMPASS reviews. The launch of an online COMPASS review in April 2010 enabled the college to require a review for any student wanting to re-test. As of April 2011, 1,200 unduplicated, first-time students have completed the reviews and subsequently enrolled in courses. Fifty-nine percent of fall 2010 students who took the English or reading COMPASS test and then retested after a face-to-face or online review, tested at least one level higher. Thirty-five percent of math students tested one or more levels higher. These advancements represent $160,000 in tuition savings for GTCC students. 

• GTCC is currently testing COMPASS Review 2.0, which incorporates high-definition video instruction, better graphics, and greater usability. The college plans to make COMPASS Review 2.0 available without cost to all 58 North Carolina community colleges 

Institutional Policy

• GTCC’s orientation program for developmental education students, SSOAR, has shown higher longer-term persistence among students who complete: first year persistence of completers vs. non-completers was 58 percent vs. 48 percent; persistence to a third term is 50 percent vs. 39 percent. GTCC now requires that new students requiring two or more developmental education courses attend SSOAR to ensure that more of those that can benefit take advantage of the program.  

Academic and Supportive Service Innovations

• At GTCC, DEI has inspired curriculum evaluation and creative thinking about how to effectively accelerate students through developmental education. Since beginning their DEI work, GTCC has:
• modified the college’s math supplemental instruction courses to include one hour of mandatory tutoring every day to lower the number of course repeaters;
• begun offering multiple sections of fast track math and reading courses, so students can complete two levels in one semester;
• begun building a 150 workstation math lab to house a computer-based, modular math curriculum;
• added course options that combine content from both upper-level developmental reading and English courses.