Moon Shot for Equity

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

“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)

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.

April 2024:

Results from Inquiry

• 17% Equity Gap in 2nd Year Retention
• Multifaceted need to enhance academic support for WCU students
  • National data recognize learning loss associated with COVID-19 pandemic. Academic support is needed to augment the classroom experience to support students in meeting course student learning objectives.
  • As the campus moves away from developmental courses, we need to enhance the academic support of students who would have previously been placed into a developmental course. 
• As student academic strengths shift, there is a need to adjust academic supports to meet students where they are and engage them in learning that speaks to their strengths and supports areas in need of growth. 

Recommendations

• Sunset Developmental Courses
  • Create co-curricular courses to replace developmental courses
• Increase & Augment Student Academic Support
  • Create larger network of academic support through peer tutoring & other supplemental instruction models
• Monitor Data
  • Review disaggregated data regarding student success for students in co-curricular math & WRT courses

Next Steps

• Monitor data regarding intro of MAT112
• Create additional co-curricular courses & pathways allowing for transition away from Q20 & Q30 courses
• Develop base funding sources for academic support programs

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.