DCC Title III Grant

Abstract

Institutional Narrative

Comprehensive Development Plan Narrative (CDP)

Activity Description

Implementation Strategy

Key Personnel Narrative

Project Management Plan Narrative

Project Evaluation Plan Narrative

Calendars 

Directories

We are very pleased to announce that the College has been awarded a $1.8 million Title III grant from the U.S Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education under the Department’s “Strengthening Institutions” program.

The grant will provide DCC with approximately $365,000 per year for five years starting on October 1, 2004. Over 200 institutions nationwide applied for this grant, and DCC’s was one of only 55 grants awarded.

The project, “Improving Student Academic Success, Retention, and Institutional Effectiveness,” allows the College to address four goals: increasing the academic success and persistence of remedial students; increasing enrollment and persistence of part-time, non-traditional students (students ages 23 and over); developing a management information system to improve institutional effectiveness and fiscal stability; and creating and financing an endowment fund for technology and faculty development.

The first goal aims to increase the persistence of remedial students, improve their academic success, and increase their retention. Under the Title III grant, DCC will expand a successful, free, summer remedial program, SmartStart, to include fall and spring semester sessions.

Offered since 1998, SmartStart was created to improve the educational outcomes for students who score low on placement tests in English, reading, and math. The program includes a computer lab period for work on individual learning modules, and classes in writing, reading, mathematics, study skills, college orientation, and career exploration. After completing the four-week program, SmartStart students re-test, many increasing their scores enough to enter directly into college-level, credit classes. In addition to making SmartStart year-round, the Grant would allow DCC to create learning communities –groups of linked classes that students attend as a cohort – and add computer assisted instruction with the purchase of 60 computers and the installation of the computer-assisted learning program software, PLATO.

Title III funding will also be allocated to help DCC increase enrollment and persistence of part-time, nontraditional students. National, regional, and college data indicates that these students would prefer much more flexibility in their learning environment, due to the demands placed on their time by family and work responsibilities. DCC plans to develop more online learning opportunities to help this group of students reach their educational goals. Steps including hiring an Instructional Design Specialist to assist faculty in developing online courses; increasing the number of faculty who are trained to teach and actively develop online courses; and increasing the number and types of courses offered, with an emphasis on core courses, general education requirements, and degree-program courses popular with non-traditional students.

The third goal is to improve institutional effectiveness through the purchase and installation of a new administrative computer system, SCT Banner. Banner will replace DCC’s current system with one compatible with the SUNY standard for integrated data sharing, enabling DCC to collect, retrieve, and analyze data more easily. Banner will facilitate the registration and advisement process for faculty by providing advisors with web-based applications such as degree audits, faculty rosters, grade reporting, and student records. The Banner scheduling module will allow the College to create block-scheduling classes, forming the “learning communities” called for in the first goal. Banner will also help the Institutional Research office better track students while at DCC and after they transfer, and it will help the DCC Foundation more effectively track alumni.

The final goal, to create an endowment for the support of technology and faculty development, was initiated through the DCC Foundation’s Maintaining Excellence Capital Campaign. Title III awards $315,000 to the endowment with the stipulation that the College match those funds. The Foundation has already achieved this goal with a student referendum last June to add a per-semester contribution to the DCC Foundation’s technology endowment.

To be eligible for a Title III grant, an institution must be accredited or pre-accredited by a nationally-recognized accrediting agency or association; be legally authorized by the state in which it is located to be a junior college or to provide an educational program for which it awards a bachelor’s degree; have an enrollment of needy students where at least 50 percent of its degree students receive financial assistance under one or more programs; and provide assurance that not less than 50 percent of its Hispanic students are low-income individuals.

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