The aim of the new initiative, "Developing a Community College Student Roadmap: From Entrance to Engagement in Educational Achievement and Success," is to create programs of academic support that teach students how to become active partners in their quest for educational success. The project seeks to "connect the dots" among the varied student support programs and create "roadmaps" for success. These roadmaps will be anchored in a set of expected learning outcomes essential for all students to succeed in life beyond college.
"This program will help Georgia Perimeter College in its goal to increase retention and graduation among our students," said GPC President Dr. Anthony S. Tricoli. "Student success is at the heart of what we do and we want to use every available resource to ensure the best educational outcome."
The other Roadmap institutions are:
City University of New York Hostos Community College (Bronx, New York)
City University of New York Queensborough Community College (Bayside, New York)
Gainesville State College (Gainesville, Georgia)
Lane Community College (Eugene, Oregon)
Miami Dade College (Miami, Florida)
Middlesex Community College (Bedford, Massachusetts)
Mt. San Antonio College (Walnut, California)
Northern Virginia Community College (Annandale, Virginia)
Prince George's Community College (Largo, Maryland)
Salt Lake Community College (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Tidewater Community College (Norfolk, Virginia)
"The community colleges leading the Roadmap project share a commitment to ensuring that every one of their students achieve the outcomes of an engaged liberal education-outcomes essential for success in today's competitive global economy," said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider. "Many national leaders now recognize that improving student success at community colleges, in particular, is a key component to meeting President Obama's ambitious goals for increasing the number of Americans with college degrees. This project, however, is designed not only to increase transfer and graduation rates, but will tackle the more challenging, but no less important task of ensuring that these graduates achieve a quality education along the way toward attaining degrees."
GPC and the other participating institutions are expected to create best practices and models that can be replicated at other schools across the nation.
"We are very excited to bring together educational leaders at community colleges all working intentionally to become even more learning-centered institutions," said AAC&U Vice President Susan Albertine, who will lead the initiative at AAC&U. "Each of these participating institutions is influential within their districts or systems and the examples and models they are developing will become catalysts for institutional changes across these regions and systems. We look forward to national models emerging from this project that can be widely adapted at institutions of all sorts."
This initiative also builds on the research sponsored as part of AAC&U's Liberal Education and America's Promise initiative, including the research on high-impact educational practices that are proven to increase retention and graduation, especially for students traditionally underrepresented in higher education. For additional information, see www.aacu.org/leap.
