What’s Up With DEI: North Central State College

In July and August, we’re 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 Ohio’s state policy work; now it’s time to learn a bit more about North Central State College in Mansfield, Ohio.

North Central State College (NC State) serves more than 3,500 students in north central Ohio. 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

• NC State’s adult transition program, Solutions, has already exceeded targets set for number of students served. Relocating the Solutions program next to the tutoring center to share tutoring services has increased the program’s service capacity. The college compared the performance of Solutions students enrolling at NC State with the ATD fall 2009 cohort on developmental course/sequence completion, English gateway completion, and persistence. The performance of the Solutions students far exceeded cohort averages. The college calculated almost $20,000 in savings to students from acceleration through at least one level of developmental course work.
• The student success workshop, part of the Solutions program, is now offered on a quarterly basis year-round, and the college has received a grant through the Ohio Learning Network to expand this program to other locations.
• NC State has also set a target to increase the number of developmental students served in the tutoring center. In 2007-2008, the baseline year, 6 percent of developmental students participated. In 2010-2011, the center served 18 percent of the student group. (Both figures represent duplicated headcount.)

Institutional Policy

• NC State is considering a mandatory referral to Solutions for students under a certain COMPASS math threshold; a similar policy is already in place for low reading scores. The college has also recently eliminated late registration and plans to add a computer literacy assessment for entering students.

Academic and Supportive Service Innovations

• NC State’s Assessment/Placement and Case Management Advising work groups are engaged in work that has the potential to affect every developmental student on the campus. The college’s pre-registration process now more effectively prepares potential students for success by breaking out advising sessions rather than conducting placement testing, results debrief, advising, and registration in one visit. While all developmental students had long been required to meet quarterly with an advisor, the switch to a case management process allows for more effective service.