You Can Get Involved With Student Success

Promote the Gateway Survey to Students

Now is our chance to truly understand what “success” means to our students.

A new faculty-driven online survey will give ACC valuable information about student success. Focusing on students enrolled in gateway courses, the Pilot Gateway Survey’s goals are to determine how ACC students define success and what supports or interferes with it.

‘We’re hoping this survey will help usher in a new paradigm of success.’

“We’re hoping this survey will help usher in a new paradigm of success,” says Katherine Staples, an English professor who serves as a faculty coach and member of the survey committee.

The survey’s pilot will run during spring 2011, with over 21,000 students invited through their ACCmail accounts to complete the survey. Designed to be completed outside class, the survey is short but thorough.

The pilot survey will target students from gateway courses in English, Math, Psychology, Sociology, Government, and Developmental Math, Reading, and Writing. Faculty members who teach gateway courses are encouraged to inform their students of the survey and its importance as it is developed, released, and extended beyond the pilot stage.

In addition to Staples, the survey committee includes faculty coaches Samuel Echevarria-Cruz, Shirin Khosropour, Mary Leonard, and Caryn Newberger, along with SSI Research Coordinator Richard Griffiths.

The committee hopes to integrate its confidential results with existing success data from SSI and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Accountability to build a comprehensive snapshot of where ACC stands in terms of success.

Join the Mentoring Program and Help a Student

Become a mentor and you could be a student’s personal connection to success.

The Student Success Mentor Program is training more volunteers to work with students, particularly African American males – an underserved group with high SSI priority.

‘Mentors in this program are role models, advisors, guides, and friends.’

“We’re excited to get this up and running,” says Eastview Dean of Student Services Dorado Kinney. “The goal is to let these young men bring forward issues that they want to discuss. Issues could range from relationships with instructors and finding resources on various campuses to being a father.”

Ten African American male faculty and staff members are currently signed up for the program. Meetings with students take place 12-1 p.m. Fridays and rotate between Northridge, Eastview, Riverside, and Round Rock campuses. These sessions differ from the overall Mentor Program in that they serve larger groups of students at once.

In addition to the regular meetings, mentors connect with their students via email and phone, over lunch, and at campus events organized by Student Life. Although not advisors or tutors, mentors are motivators and coaches. When students need help finding college information and resources, or just want to talk, their mentor is there.

“Mentors in this program are role models, advisors, guides, and friends whose primary function is to help new ACC students have a successful first year,” says program co-leader Dana Washington. “The goal is to reduce attrition and increase persistence for ‘first time in college’ students through relationship building.”

The Student Success Mentor Program plays a key role in the greater SSI as well as the First Year Experience (FYE) orientation program at ACC. To learn how to get involved, contact Professional Development Coordinator Christina Michura at [email protected] or (512) 223.7564.

Add Your Voice to the College-Wide Communications Workshop

Help ACC better communicate with new students!

More than 100 ACC employees will attend the “It Takes a College” Communications Workshop, a daylong professional development program aimed at creating a more integrated approach to communicating with new students.

‘Effective communication at all levels of ACC Â is crucial to student success.’

Attendees will review and analyze how ACC communicates with new students, and will work together to conceptualize how the college can better engage with those students as part of the First Year Experience, an SSI program. Â An outside facilitator will guide the discussion.

“Effective communication at all levels of ACC  is crucial to student success,” says Professional Development & Evaluation Programs Director Terry Mouchayleh. “I’m excited about this event because it is a rare opportunity to focus solely on not only how to reach out more effectively to our students but also how to communicate better internally.”

The workshop is scheduled for Friday, March 4, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Midtown across from Highland Business Center. Professional Development credit will be awarded, and participants must obtain approval from their supervisor. Registration information will be shared later.

For further information regarding SSI, visit austincc.edu/success.

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