Announcing More to Most!

We are delighted to announce the release of MDC’s latest publication, More to Most: Scaling Effective Community College Practices. More to Most is a guide for community colleges that are expanding small or pilot programs into larger, sustainable efforts that serve most—if not all—of the students who can benefit from them. You can watch an introductory slide show and download a copy from www.more2most.org.

As we discuss often on this blog, community colleges across the country have developed unique programs that help students succeed and put them on a path to a better life. The Developmental Education Initiative colleges and states have been vital partners as we’ve learned together about the resources and practices that are required to scale-up effective developmental education programming—and to help students accelerate through or bypass remediation altogether. Much of that learning is reflected in the pages of More to Most, including examples of promising practices from many of the DEI colleges and states. We’ve also included material that’s been featured on Accelerating Achievement, including the SCALERS model developed by the Center for the Advancement of Social Enterprise at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and case examples from Kingsborough Community College, the Academy for College Excellence, and Chaffey College.

Even in focused efforts like DEI and Achieving the Dream, deciding which programs to expand and how to do it is a complex process that can waste valuable time and resources if not conducted thoughtfully. The comprehensive—but not prescriptive!—process outlined in More to Most helps you assess which programs are ripe for expansion, and gives direction on how to design a scale-up plan—and it’s all designed to dovetail with planning structures already in place.

To test out the process, we reached beyond the DEI network to Jackson Community College, an Achieving the Dream college in Jackson, MI. JCC recently used More to Most in its decision to expand three student success initiatives. With the strategies outlined in the guidebook, faculty, staff, and administrators at Jackson demonstrated the program’s effectiveness and connected that success to the college’s strategic plan. They examined the expansion’s budget implications, how it would be evaluated, and created a work plan. Finally, they examined the policy implications of the expansion. The undertaking involved deep conversations among faculty, student services, and business office staff, and the resulting plan is a great example of how the process can be customized to dovetail with any college’s specific needs or culture. (Click here to learn more about Jackson’s experience from a March 1 spotlight session at the recent ATD D.R.E.A.M. event.)

If you want to see how the process might work on your campus, head on over to more2most.org and download your copy. Let us know what you think!

One More D.R.E.A.M.: On the Road Again

Today, one final dispatch from last week's trip to Dallas. Richard Hart, MDC communications director, wrote this after attending one of the fantastic concurrent sessions at D.R.E.A.M.

The most exciting thing I learned during a presentation last week by Zane State College about the college’s innovations in developmental education during D.R.E.A.M. (Achieving the Dream’s inspiring confab on student success), was this: the students seem to really like what Zane State’s doing.

That, and developmental education instructors from around the country are apparently big fans of Willie Nelson.

Becky Ament, associate dean for developmental education at Zane State, and Beth Fischer, director of institutional research and planning at the college, talked about the evolution of the college’s compressed dev ed math courses and their dev ed courses linked to college-level classes, together a program they call “ADVANCE.”  In a nutshell, Becky and Beth walked the packed room through the successes and initial limitations of ADVANCE, which includes voluntary case management, on-campus promotion, and higher retention and completion rates for students who take advantage of the program. (Their PowerPoint presentation will be uploaded to the ATD website soon.)

But one of the less quantifiable benefits of the program seems to be the students’ response. Becky and Beth played videos of interviews done with students after they’d been through the program to record their reactions, and they were remarkably positive (with Becky and Beth reassuring the crowd that the students hadn’t been prompted).

“They develop a lot more friendships and collaborative relationships,” Becky said about students who took dev ed English along with a linked sociology class.

One student interviewed said before classes began she was nervous about her just-in-time dev ed instruction that was paced to meet the needs of her linked college-level course. She didn’t like or understand the program at first, but by the time it was over she realized: “It’s really fun.” Another benefit for students, Becky explained: taking the paired courses at the same time cuts a student’s costs.

There were challenges along the way, such as a shortage of advisers, lower-than-expected enrollment at first, inadequate promotion, some reluctant faculty, and the failure of ADVANCE classes to appear on the “live” course schedule. Dev ed faculty who attended the session offered lots of (solicited) advice, such as: make it mandatory, find out the times that are most convenient for students, and involve more faculty who support the program.
Things were already looking up by the second year, as advisors were fully integrated into the program, courses made it onto the “live” schedule, and promotion was increased. The ADVANCE program was developed with support from the Developmental Education Initiative, and Becky and Beth assured the group that the program would continue beyond the end of its DEI grant this year—and said the courses are even making money for the school.

And what’s that about Willie Nelson? Between breaks in the presentation, Beth hit the “play” button on her laptop and Willie’s voice rang out, singing “On the Road Again.” When she’d occasionally forget to hit the button, the crowd shouted “Play Willie!” By then, the students weren’t the only ones having fun.

I Had the Best DREAM!

We’re back at MDC’s offices in Durham, NC after a great week in Dallas, TX for DREAM 2012. Our brains and notebooks are overflowing with ideas and observations, but here are some quick highlights:

• Thursday’s lunch featured a great student panel—so much ambition and intellect! Our favorite line: when an audience member asked what would make the experience better, one of the students said “They should have an advisor just for old people!” Another student likened his college to an ocean—vast and full of yet to be discovered secrets.
• The student Twitter team and the videographers were energetic, friendly and prolific.
• The student designed tee-shirts? Awesome.
• Learning about Cuyahoga Community College’s Student Ambassadors and how they are becoming peer mentors—and helping their fellow students be more successful.
• Often the first step in promoting financial management strategies at your college is helping students, faculty and administration understand the true financial barriers students face. Phillips Community College has done this through running a poverty simulation for its faculty and CCBC uses a video which explains the financial challenges students face. 
• A presentation from Isaac Rowlett and Jyoti Gupta of Public Agenda highlighted the many ways in which colleges can engage their communities to advance student success. A key challenge to overcome: making sure that you invite the right people to be part of your planning efforts, not just the usual suspects who you have worked with in the past.
• We briefly covered the equity panel discussion in our previous post, but here’s a great recap from the Community College Times.
• North Central State College wins our vote for best session title: Scaling Up Math and English Boot Camps (or Are These Boot Camps Made for Walking?) Apparently, Nancy Sinatra was a featured participant. You can download slides and handouts from ALL of the DREAM sessions here.

Were you at DREAM, too? Share your highlights in the comments section!