Before administrators at Salish Kootenai College created a new Department of Academic Success, completion rates among developmental education students hovered at about 40 percent.
But after the Pablo, Montana-based college got the department up and running, reached out to faculty and intensified efforts to help underprepared students succeed, pass rates in developmental education courses increased to nearly 70 percent.
The increased completion rates led to more tuition, which in turn generated the revenue needed to justify the continued existence of the new department, an official at the tribal college says.
“I have no doubt that we’re going to continue with that department,” Dr. Stacey Sherwin, Director of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, told Diverse.
Salish Kootenai College’s experience is one of several featured in a new policy brief released Thursday by the Institution for Higher Education Policy, or IHEP, a Washington, D.C.-based policy and research organization that focuses on postsecondary access and success.
The brief — titled Supporting First-Generation College Students Through Classroom-Based Practices — highlights various outcomes of the Walmart Minority Student Success Initiative, a three-year program designed to help Minority Serving Institutions, or MSIs, boost their ability to serve first-generation students.
Through the initiative, which began in 2008, a total of 30 MSIs were given a $100,000 “capacity-building grant” to put practices and processes in place to help more first-generation students of color achieve academic success, the brief states.
