Engaging Community Colleges A First Look

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• Starting Right Preliminary Findings from fall
  2007 Survey of Entering Student Engagement
• Angela Oriano-Darnall
• Assistant Director
• Survey of Entering Student Engagement-SENSE
• The University of Texas at Austin
• Jeff Crumpley
• Associate Director
• Community College Survey of Student
  Engagement-CCSSE
• The University of Texas at Austin

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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• The Front Door Challenge

Insert Front Door 2 Clip here
Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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Why focus on entering students?

• National data show that
• students of color
• low income students
• academically underprepared students
• are at greater risk of dropping out
• These are our students!

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Why focus on entering students?

• 14 of new community college students leave
  college after their first semester
• Community colleges typically lose about half of
  their students prior to the students second
  college year
• Of 41, 008 students in Achieving the Dream Round
  One colleges (fall 2002 cohort) 86 earned at
  least some credits during first academic term

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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Why focus on entering students?

• CCSSE data show students typically
• described as high risk are more engaged in
• their college experience than their low-risk
• peers
• Why?
• Highly engaged students are the ones who survive
  to the second term!
• Maximizing engagement may be essential to retain
  high-risk students

• When there are differences in engagement
  between low- and high-risk students.

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SENSE offers Quantitative and Qualitative Data

• SENSE survey 4th 5th weeks of the fall
  academic term in courses most likely to enroll
  entering students
• MetLife Foundation Starting Right initiative -
  focus groups interviews with new students,
  faculty, student services professionals,
  presidents

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• 2007 SENSE Pilot Participants
• 22 Pilot Colleges
• 13,300 respondents
• 55 of respondents are entering students

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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• 2007 Student Focus Group Participants
• Developmental gatekeeper classes
• Almost all were entering students
• Like pilot survey, participants skewed young
  majority were 20 and younger

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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• 2007 Staff/Faculty Focus Group Participants
• Faculty teaching developmental, gatekeeper and
  student success classes
• Student services professionals
• One-on-one interviews with the president

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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SENSE - CCSSE Comparison
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SENSE A Tool for Improvement
Helping students succeed through the equivalent
of the first semester (1215 credit hours) can
dramatically improve subsequent success rates.

• SENSE provides data that
• are grounded in research about what works to
  retain and support entering students
• identify and help colleges learn from practices
  that engage entering students, and
• identify areas in which we can improve.

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Selected Preliminary Findings

• What Catches Your Attention?
• First Impressions p.6
• Academic Advising p.7
• Orientation p.10
• Classroom Experience p.12
• Academic Support p.12

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• Classroom Experiences

Insert Not So Good Class Here
Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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Entering v. Returning Students
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Colleges Entering v. Pilot Entering Students
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Full-time v. Part-time Students
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Traditional v. Non-Traditional Age Students
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Non-Asian Minority v. White Students
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First-Generation v. Non-First Generation Students
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Developmental v. Non-Developmental Students
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A Holistic Approach Combining Institutional Data
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A Holistic Approach Combining Institutional Data
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• Students Give Advice
• Insert Advice Video Clip Here
• And it Maps to the Literature!

Survey of Entering Student Engagement
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• They need to remember that they hold this
  person's future in their hands and with one
  wrong action or one wrong word, you can totally
  turn them off and they'll turn around, walk out
  the door and never come back.
• -Student focus group participant

Survey of Entering Student Engagement