Transcript Arkansas Association of Two

Arkansas Association of
Two-Year Colleges
AATYC Mission
The Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges (AATYC)
is a private, non-profit higher education membership
organization serving the educational needs of two-year
college students and the business/industry needs of
the State.
AATYC represents all twenty-two (22) public two-year
colleges in Arkansas. The Association facilitates the
sharing of ideas, resources, and opportunities among
its members, and advocates on behalf of members’
students.
History of Two-Year Colleges
in Arkansas
Technical Colleges
System Colleges
Community Colleges
All are comprehensive community colleges.
Two-year colleges serve
four main purposes:
1. Preparation for transfer to a four-year
university
2. Technical skills education
3. Developmental or remedial education
4. Workforce training for business/industry
Delivering Economic Benefits
• An associate degree increases earnings by an
average of $7,200 annually.
• Licensees and certificate holders earn 27%
more than those with a BA alone.
• State and local governments reap a 16% return
on every dollar they invest in community
colleges due to the increased earnings of
community college graduates.
Delivering Safe and
Healthy Communities
• 52% of new nurses and the majority of other
new health-care workers are educated at
community colleges.
• Close to 80% of firefighters, law enforcement
officers, and EMTs are credentialed at
community colleges.
Delivering a
Competitive Advantage
• Teacher prep: researchers estimate that 20%
to 40% of the nation’s teachers began their
education at community colleges.
• 44% of students who receive baccalaureates
or master’s degrees in STEM (science,
technology, engineering, mathematics) fields
attended a community college at some point
in their careers.
“These two-year public institutions are present
in most every U.S. community, enrolling 45
percent of the nation’s college student
population, and even higher shares of
students of color and those from lower-income
backgrounds. The education and training they
provide help to fill important labor market
needs, including some in the economy’s
fastest-growing occupations.”
– BROOKINGS INSTITUTE, MAY 2009
“In many respects, community colleges are the
epicenter of the U.S. post-high school
education and training system… they can be
nimble allies of employers and other
workforce partners in providing customized
training that is specific to the needs of a
particular employer or industry.”
– PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC
ADVISORS, JULY 2009
Enrollment in Arkansas
Total Students = 62,522 (preliminary for Fall 2010)
For 2009:
• 1-Year Growth = 9.8%; 5-Year Growth = 26.5%
• In 2009, five Arkansas two-year colleges were named
among the “Fastest-Growing Public Two-Year Colleges” in
the country by Community College Week.
• Public two-year colleges serve 40% of Arkansas
undergraduate students and high school students enrolled
in college level coursework.
• An additional 50,000 Arkansans are upgrading skills at
public two-year colleges via noncredit courses directly
related to business/industry needs.
Arkansas Two-Year College Students
Race
• White = 66.5%
• Black = 21.6%
• Hispanic = 3.7%
• Other Minority = 2.1%
• Unknown = 5.9%
Gender
• Male = 36%
• Female = 64%
Age
•Less than 18 = 3.1%
•18-24 = 48.3%
•25-44 = 38.8%
•45 and over = 9.5%
Attendance Status
•Full-time = 57%
•Part-time = 43%
Student Success Initiatives
Examples:
• Career Pathways Initiative
• Achieving the Dream
• Foundations of Excellence
• First Year Experience
• AATYC Center for Student Success
Career Pathways Initiative
• Established in 2005 with federal Transitional
Aid to Needy Families (TANF) funds
• Administered by ADHE in association with
DWS and is now offered by all 22 Arkansas
two-year colleges
• Goals of the program are to help people get
off government assistance, get education and
training and get jobs
Career Pathways Initiative
•
•
•
•
Average age is 31
91% are female
57% are single parents
86% receive Food Stamps or Medicaid
Career Pathways Initiative
• Since 2005, more than 17,000 Arkansans have
enrolled in CPI, and nearly 11,000 certificates
and degrees have been awarded to CPI
participants.
• The success rate of two-year college students
in Arkansas is 61% after one year.
• Using the same formula, CPI students have a
success rate of 77% after one year.
Achieving the Dream
• National effort to help more community
college students succeed, with a special focus
on students of color and low-income students.
• 82 participating institutions in 15 states,
including four in Arkansas: National Park
Community College; Ouachita Technical
College; Phillips Community College of the UA;
and Pulaski Technical College.
Achieving the Dream
The initiative seeks to help more students reach their
individual goals, which may include earning a
community college certificate or degree, attaining a
bachelor's degree and/or obtaining a better job.
Goals for students include:
• successfully complete the courses they take;
• advance from remedial to credit-bearing courses;
• enroll in and successfully complete gatekeeper courses;
• enroll from one semester to the next;
• earn degrees and/or certificates.
AATYC WorkForce
Training Consortium
Identifies and creates business/industry training
capabilities and best practices at each college,
and collectively responds to local, regional, and
statewide workforce training requests.
All Arkansas public two-year colleges participate
in this consortium.
Sector emphases include aerospace, allied health,
entrepreneurship, and green technology.
AATYC Aerospace Training Consortium
• Airframe and power-plant (A & P) training
• Aircraft refurbishment such as cabinetry,
upholstery, and exterior finishes/painting
• Space/defense industries
• Manufacturing technologies that are
convertible to aerospace/aviation applications
• Includes 13 colleges
Allied Health
• The Arkansas Rural Nursing Education
Consortium (ARNEC) was created to address
the chronic shortage of Registered Nurses in
the state’s rural areas. Member colleges share
faculty and resources.
• Includes 8 colleges
AATYC Entrepreneurship
Training Consortium
• Combines the efforts of two-year colleges to
foster economic development through
entrepreneurship education
• Includes 10 “common curriculum” colleges
Green Technology
• Center of Excellence for Renewable Energy
Technology Education (Phillips Community
College of the UA)
• Building Science Centers of Excellence
(NorthWest Arkansas Community College and
Pulaski Technical College)
• AATYC Heart of Arkansas Regional Training
(HART) Consortium- central AR colleges
Green Technology
Arkansas Energy Sector Partnership
• In March 2010, AWIB (with funding ARRA)
established the Arkansas Energy Sector
Partnership to plan and implement a statewide
workforce training strategy.
• As a partner, AATYC will coordinate the
development and deployment of two-year
college energy training programs.
• 2,200 individuals will be trained for the energy
efficiency and renewable energy industries.
AREON Grant
• UAMS in partnership with AATYC
• Funded through ARRA, the grant expands the
current Arkansas Research & Education
Optical Network (AREON) to the 22 public
two-year colleges in the state.
• Spending from the grant will include $41.2
million for equipment and construction of
fiber optic network routes to serve community
colleges.
AREON Grant
• The network will improve the colleges’ ability to
deliver distance learning.
• Two-year colleges will also have new
opportunities to collaborate to expand course
and program offerings by sharing curriculum and
other resources that benefit students.
• Broadband internet access will improve the
ability of two-year colleges to meet the training
needs of businesses/industries as well as attract
new businesses/industries.
Regional Partnerships
• Arkansas Delta Training and Education
Consortium
• Central Arkansas Two-Year College Consortium
• North Arkansas Two-Year College Consortium
• Southwest Arkansas Community College
Consortium
Regional Partnerships
AATYC and Student Success
AATYC and Student Success
• Higher ed imperative used to be about access;
now it’s about student success.
• Two-year colleges recognize the challenge,
and have been proactively undertaking
initiatives: Career Pathways, Achieving the
Dream, Center for Community College Student
Engagement (CCCSE), Foundations of
Excellence.
Data Driven Decision Making
• Part-time and Full-time students.
• Achieving the Dream.
• WA and MD momentum point
studies.
AATYC Center for Student Success
• Intended to build upon and better coordinate
this collection work: disseminate and scale
what is working, and further experiment with
new strategies.
• 3 Year Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation Grant.
Additional investment by Southern Bancorp.
Center’s Primary Objectives
Promote activities and raise funding to:
• Build upon and take to scale best practices for
student success currently underway.
• Pilot new practices, particularly in critical areas
such as developmental education.
• Develop and promote supportive policy change.
Gathering Information on
Best Practices
• Established faculty/administrator Advisory
Committee to help identify what works and
guide Center.
• Visited colleges in state and out (visited three
of OH’s Developmental Education Initiative
colleges and met with state policy team).
• Worked with UCA Mashburn Center to help
identify best practices (report forthcoming).
Information Gathering cont….
• Attended strategic conferences
– Gates Foundation I-BEST convening
– Achieving the Dream/DEI policy meeting
– National Center for Postsecondary Research
conference at Columbia University titled
Developmental Education: What Policies and
Practices Work for Students.
• Reviewed Community College Research Center
work and other research.
What Have We Learned?
• Foremost: No Silver Bullet!
• Certain practices are showing promise:
student orientation, college success courses,
mandatory advising, learning communities,
student mentoring.
• Developmental education is a particularly
critical barrier to student success, and more
experimentation with innovative approaches
is needed.
“Developmental Education is a Moral
Imperative” – Kay McClenney UT Austin
• It will always be critical to access for certain
students:
– Certain students, particularly underserved
students, will always need it, even with improved
K-12 learning.
– Non-traditional students will always need it;
almost 50% of all students in remedial courses are
25 or older.
• However, it’s equally critical that it be done
better.
What Do We Know
About Doing it Better?
• Rigorous research on successful practices is
limited.
• Promising reforms fall into 4 categories:
prevention, acceleration, contextualization,
supplemental supports.
Source: Zachry, Elizabeth, and Emily Schneider.
2010. Building Foundations for Student
Readiness: A Review of Rigorous Research and
Promising Trends in Developmental Education.
New York: MDRC.
Prevention
• Interventions that help students avoid
remediation:
– Early assessment and intervention (e.g. Arkadelphia
College Prep Academy).
– Summer bridge programs (e.g. Career Coaches
Summer ACT Prep program).
– Assessment pre-test seminars and practice tests (e.g.
Pretesting, Retesting Education Prep Program at El
Paso Community College).
– Dual enrollment.
– ABE partnerships.
Acceleration
• Interventions that speed up students
completion of remedial courses:
– Modularization or shorter sequencing of
traditional courses (TN, VA, KY).
– Fast track (intensive, compressed instruction).
– Mainstreaming: Let students near college-ready,
start college with some extra support (Community
College of Baltimore County).
Contextualization
• Interventions that integrate basic skills
curriculum with vocational or college-content
coursework:
– Contextualizing basic skills instruction within
short-term vocational coursework (I-BEST).
– Learning communities (students take dev ed and
college course as cohort).
Supplemental Supports
• Interventions that enhance the supports for
remedial students:
– Tutoring and supplemental instruction.
– Advising.
– Student Success Courses.
Bottom Line: More Experimentation
and Rigorous Evaluation Needed
• Developmental Education Redesign
Demonstration Project.
• Test most promising models and other innovative
practices in AR, with third party rigorous
evaluation.
– Also look at alternative assessment, classroom
instructional, and professional development practices.
– Radical curricular redesign (Statway Initiative).
Dev Ed Redesign Demo Project
• Workgroup established with dev ed faculty
representatives from all colleges.
• Craft proposal(s) for federal and private
foundation funding (Gates Foundation, federal
CC initiative).
• Identify models and practices that work and
can be taken to scale, and identify needed
supportive institutional and state policy
change.
Dev Ed Just Piece of Larger
Student Success Puzzle
• Center is striving for identification and
dissemination of larger collection or menu of
student success practices that work and that
colleges can select from and implement to suit
their particular needs.