Fall Speaker Event: College Success Matters & College Success Learning Community Launch Debrief
Posted by PHENND on November 27, 2018
A PDF of this report can be found here: College Success Launch Report Out
On October 30, 2018 at the School District of Philadelphia, over 30 colleges/universities as well as many other nonprofit stakeholder gathered to discuss the pressing issue of college degree completion for underserved students in the Philadelphia region. A special thank you to our keynote speaker, Dr. Tia McNair, from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, for kicking us off and challenging our campuses to be student ready.
Presentations and Resources:
- Resource Guide: Strategies to Encourage Student Completion – created by PHENND graduate student intern Keisha James of Villanova University
- Presentation from Dr. Tia McNair and additional resources from AAC&U.
- College attendance and persistence data dashboards from the School District of Philadelphia (find a high school and click on the college/career tab) – for more information you can reach out to Ted Wills (twwills@philasd.org) or Lucas Westmaas (lwestmaas@philasd.org) from the Office of Research and Evaluation.
Discussion notes
Following our speakers, participants broke into four groups, based on themes from questions gathered during registration, and from previous focus groups of college access and success stakeholders.
How do we identify, measure and track outcomes for low-income/first gen students on our campus? | |
Challenges:
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Strategies/Ideas:
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How do we connect students to resources and support to help them deal with “out of classroom” challenges? | |
Challenges:
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Strategies/Ideas:
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How do we create a more welcoming and culturally-aware campus? | |
Challenges:
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Strategies/Ideas:
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How do we more effectively support under-prepared students on our campus? | |
Challenges:
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Strategies/Ideas:
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Next Steps
Sharing of Best Practices: PHENND will host a series of webinars and/or in-person meetings related to each of the four questions discussed during the event. These will be designed to be one-offs — meaning that you can pick and choose which presentation to attend based on your interest.
College Success Learning Community: Separately from these series of informational presentations, we want to create a high-touch small cohort of campuses that will work more strategically with PHENND on improving outcomes for underserved students on their campuses. This group will work together as a cohort and also get one-on-one support from PHENND throughout the year. This will have an application process for selection due to our limited capacity. This part is in development and will not begin in earnest until next school year with an application and selection process in the spring.
Monthly Newsletter: Everyone participating in the above series of webinars/meetings organized around the four questions and/or the Learning Community will get a monthly newsletter from PHENND with links to new publications and other useful information related to college success. We will also aim to sponsor one large, convening each year.
More in "PHENND Events/Activities"
- Call for Proposals: 2025 PHENND Conference: From Financial Aid to Economic Inclusion – Dec 2
- Campus250 (Higher Ed Celebrates America’s 250th) Info Sessions – Oct 15 or Nov 21
- PHENND Fellows Seeks Non-Profit Host Sites – Dec 2
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