Developmental Courses

Team Members

Co-Chairs: 

Evelyn Anderson, Student Success Coordinator, University College

Brian Bowen, Professor of Mathematics

Ilks Sancak-Marusa, Instructor and First Year Writing Director

Members:

Julie Dietrich, Executive Director of External Relations

Ashlie Delshad, Associate Professor of Political Science and CSM Dean's Faculty Associate for Student Success

Nilima Inamder, Director of Quantitative Analysis and Decision Support

Selcuk Karahan, Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance

Clayton Kolb, Director, Sykes Union and Student Activities

Lisa Montgomery, Student Ombuds

Taryn Myers, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media

Diane Santori, Chair & Professor in the Department of Literacy

Christine Siegl, Director of Academic Affairs Contracts and Agreements

Jessica Sullivan-Brown, Associate Professor of Biology

York Williams, Associate Professor of Special Education

Why is this important?

“Each year, more than a million students begin college in remediation – prerequisite coursework that cost thousands of dollars but doesn’t count toward a degree. For most of these students, remediation will be their first and last college experience—a reality that is disproportionally true for low-income students and students of color. Corequisite Support allows students who need additional support in college-level math and English to enroll in those credit-bearing courses and receive extra help. Several states have scaled Corequisite Support and as a result, have doubled or tripled the percent of students who are completing gateway math and English courses in one academic year.” (Corequisite Support, Game Changers, Complete College America)

What are we going to do?

Ensuring faculty governance over the curriculum, replacements for existing developmental education courses will be designed and implemented so that students deemed underprepared for college-level writing and/or math will be enrolled in college-level, gateway English and mathematics courses with mandatory corequisite academic support. Institutions will use evidence-based multiple measures, including high school GPA and course-taking, to assess students’ level of preparation.

Updates from the Team

August 2023: In the area of Developmental Courses, the University has made significant progress. In both English and mathematics there are now pathways for students who would previously have been placed in non-credit bearing courses, to be now enrolled in credit bearing courses with built in academic supports. Our committee's next step is to examine the ways in which the which the Universities academic and non-academic support structure can best be leveraged to support students, specifically underrepresented populations, who are enrolled in these courses.

September 2022: We used the following to help us provide a vision as to the goal of our committee: Ensuring faculty governance over the curriculum, replacements for existing developmental education courses will be designed and implemented so that students deemed underprepared for college-level writing and/or math will be enrolled in college-level, gateway English and mathematics courses with mandatory corequisite academic support. Institutions will use evidence-based multiple measures, including high school GPA and course-taking, to assess students’ level of preparation.