Centre College graduates on their way to commencement. Photo courtesy of Centre College.
Student success — helping students complete a quality education, obtain their degrees, and successfully transition to whatever is next in life — is the primary objective of every Kentucky private college.
Yet there is always room to improve student success outcomes, and Kentucky’s private colleges are working strategically to foster these improvements. This list is just a sample of the many initiatives taking place at AIKCU institutions to improve student success.
Alice Lloyd College
Alice Lloyd College utilizes a Freshman Transition Semester which we affectionately call the “Bridge Program.” The program is made up of 12 weekly meetings in which students receive information on topics like how to develop a four-year plan, how to be successful in college courses, etc. All first-time freshmen are required to participate, and the program is staffed by faculty and other key people on campus.
Asbury University
Liberal Arts Seminar: All new students who are first time, full-time in college since high school graduation will be required to attend or participate in campus programs that enhance their liberal arts experience at Asbury University. We want students to know that Asbury University is a place where asking hard questions is not only encouraged, but it’s also essential; and we want to begin knitting our new students into a vibrant community that engages minds and hearts. The seminar is enhanced in part because of the faculty-led small groups.
Bellarmine University
The Bellarmine University Faculty Development Center collaborates with Student Success Initiatives and Student Affairs to help implement high-impact practices in first-year initiatives, student affairs events, and retention efforts. For example, the FDC offers a half-day “Building Resiliency for Student Success” workshop for faculty, staff, and administration who advise and tutor students as well as Freshman Focus instructors who work with first year students.
Berea College
In the summer of 2014, Berea College launched the Berea Bridge pilot program, an innovative, pre-matriculation experience that includes three credit-bearing academic courses, a campus work position, required nightly study hall and check-in, and extracurricular outings and service work for 30 lottery-selected students. Bridge aims to link deep intellectual engagement with personal development to prepare incoming students for the academic, social, and emotional demands of college life in order to seed a culture of success in the larger first-year cohort. Preliminary results from the first year of the pilot show Bridge students achieving both academically and extracurricularly at a higher level than the rest of their non-Bridge peers.
Brescia University
Brescia University’s Student Support Services (SSS) is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This voluntary program serves 160 selected Brescia students who have an academic need and who are either first generation college students, have a disability, or come from a low-income background. SSS provides multiple supports to selected students: academic coaching, advising, tutoring, and other services.
David, a non-traditional student with a wife and small children is just one example of Brescia students benefiting from SSS. David majored in history, a difficult course of study, while working full time. He had many struggles but persevered with the help of Brescia’s Student Support Services Program. David took advantage of tutoring every semester and all the academic coaching and advising that the SSS program could provide. Today David successfully operates his own business.
Campbellsville University
Campbellsville University’s School of Education and Office of International Education, in partnership with Marion County public schools, launched a new program targeting English Language Learners (ELL) struggling academically and socially. Select CU international students will spend time in the ELL classroom and after school providing tutoring and mentoring. The initial contact between college and P-12 students has already shown a dramatic impact on student learning. This is the first mentoring program of its kind in the central Kentucky region. Plans are to include other education majors who need such valuable field experiences working with ELL learners and their families.
Centre College
As part of its ongoing mission to transform the lives of young people, Centre is pleased to have implemented, beginning in the fall of 2015, another premier scholarship—the Grissom Scholars Program, which will provide 10 high-achieving, first-generation college students full tuition scholarships, plus $5,000 in educational enrichment funds (renewable for four years), on-campus programming, individual mentoring, and, if needed, additional aid to cover the cost of room and board, books, and transportation.
This newest scholarship program joins Centre’s family of scholarships, including the Brown Fellows Program, the Bonner Program, the Posse Program, and coming in the fall of 2016, the Lincoln Scholars Program, all of which help to make it possible for students from every socio-economic status to come to the Commonwealth’s highest ranked college or university by rewarding and supporting outstanding students and solidifying Centre as a place of “high achievement and high opportunity.”
Georgetown College
For the past three years, Georgetown College has been developing ways to ensure that its graduates can make an easy transition into the workforce. Georgetown introduced a two-day “Sophomore Summit” that was designed to get students engaged in career planning and preparation activities well before graduation. In the coming year, Georgetown College is expanding the initiative into a full “College to Career Commitment” program that will provide financial incentives for early engagement in career preparation. For more information, please see https://www.georgetowncollege.edu/career/college-to-career/
Kentucky Christian University
Kentucky Christian University has implemented several measures related to reading over the past few semesters under the umbrella of SaBRE–Strategies for Building Reading Excellence. The program has brought a focus on critical reading in curricular classes, devotional reading through campus ministry, and popular reading across the campus community. After a successful two-year pilot program with student athletes, reading labs in conjunction with core Bible classes are being instituted for the first time this fall for all first-year students with low reading scores.
Kentucky Wesleyan College
The Kentucky Wesleyan Sophomore Experience is a grant-funded initiative aimed at increasing the persistence of KWC second-year students by providing them with opportunities to connect to the college, their peers, and faculty while helping them to be better prepared and confident in their future. Signature events include monthly career panels with local alums in specific majors, “Learn More” sessions about majors and careers, “Be More” sessions focused on developing good habits, “Sophomores Serve” projects, Mystery Bus Tours to local attractions, and more. When students complete the program they are eligible for a small grant to be applied to tuition for the next year.
Lindsey Wilson College
Lindsey Wilson College serves a high number of low income (65%) and first generation (39%) students (2014-2015 figures). Programs to support success are critical to our students. The College emphasizes student success in its First Year Experience program with intensive advising and multiple opportunities to engage in service in the community and events on campus. Entering students also have the opportunity to participate in learning communities in several popular majors, including business, nursing and health professions. LWC also provides three learning communities (Project Success, Lifelanes and Pathways) for underprepared, often undeclared students at the College. Each learning community includes two or three linked classes and essentially creates a cohort to support students through their first year. The discipline-based learning communities have projected Fall 2014 to 2015 retention rates (based on registration) of 72 to 83%. The retention rates for the other three learning communities are projected to be between 62% and 65%, higher than the historic overall fall-to-fall retention at the College.
Midway College
The Midway College PATH (Providing Academic Transitions to Higher education) Mentoring Program helps under-represented middle and high school female students prepare and transition into an institution of higher education. The students participate in team building exercises on the Midway College campus and at their local schools alongsideMidway undergraduate students. They also learn about the college search/admissions process and how to navigate resources on a college campus. The program has equipped young women to be proactive in achieving their dreams and has helped them to pursue a successful post-secondary education at Midway and other area colleges. At the same time, Midway College undergraduate students have an opportunity to engage in responsible citizenship, which is part of Midway’s mission.
St. Catharine College
In Fall 2015, St. Catharine College implemented a new student success course for all first-time degree seeking freshmen called PAT 101: Patriot Paths.
The course provided an extended orientation for students, assisting them with their transition to college in four major areas: (a) academic skills and goal setting; (b) personal and emotional development; (c) health and wellness; and (d) campus involvement.
The course also serves as an introduction to the Four Pillars of Dominican Life, as SCC is the only Dominican College in Kentucky. Additionally, the course incorporated Freshmen Read, the common reading experience for our first-year students. The main goal for the program is improving retention. Current retention figures show that freshmen retention will increase by more than 10 percent for 2015-2016.
Spalding University
With a renewed focus on retention, Spalding University is developing a layered mentoring approach with all first-year students. Assigned advisors, success coaches, and peer mentors will take a 1:1 approach, engaging each freshman starting with summer registration (beSU), building relationships through fall orientation, and bolstering the Spalding experience with the SU100 course, a student success curriculum exclusively designed for the first 12 weeks at Spalding University.
Thomas More College
Thomas More College hired a full-time director of retention starting in the 2013-14 academic year. That same year, the president of the college instituted a weekly “900” club consisting of stakeholder representatives for retention and admissions to track the college goal of having 900 full-time traditional students. That year’s entering cohort had a 10% increase in first year retention compared to the previous year’s cohort. For more information on success at Thomas More College please see http://www.thomasmore.edu/successcenter/
Transylvania University
In January 2015, Transylvania launched the 100 Doors to Success mentor program which paired 100 students, mostly first-years, with a member of our alumni association. Students met with their mentor once a month to discuss making the most out of college, setting goals, the various professional possibilities they can explore with their liberal arts degree, how to apply their liberal arts education to life after college, and the importance of building a professional network.
Union College
Union College’s Freshmen Seminar program has been in place for years, but in the Summer of 2013 Union started a new program called the Union College Experience (UCE). Freshmen now arrive on campus one week prior to the beginning of the Fall semester.
The program was designed to academically prepare and retain incoming freshmen. The Union College Experience (UCE) helps incoming freshmen acclimate to campus life and establish valuable connections with faculty, staff, and their academic cohort. Students develop the necessary academic skills during the summer component to ease into their coursework and become successful students. In addition to academics, the Union College Experience also provides social activities and team building exercises to promote cohort camaraderie and improve Union College freshmen retention rates.
University of the Cumberlands
The Dual Credit Program at University of the Cumberlands is helping students become more college and career ready by providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate college success at the high school level. Each semester the UC Dual Credit Coordinator tracks student success in the courses and consults with district representatives such as guidance counselors, librarians, district instructional supervisors, and dual credit faculty members, both on-site and online, regarding student needs and student learning outcomes. There are several new and exciting academic support services emerging in the UC dual credit program. As an example, UC recently participated with a local dual credit partner high school in a professional development day to create program and career pathways upon matriculation into University of the Cumberlands. UC is currently launching a tutoring center, free tutoring services and academic advising for dual credit students.
University of Pikeville
The newest and perhaps most significant student success initiative at UPIKE is the creation of a centralized academic advising center for incoming students. Last September, UPIKE was awarded a $2.2 million Strengthening Institutions Title III grant which we are utilizing to fund the Center for Student Success (CSS). The CSS employs four Student Success Advisors who provide academic advising and coaching for all new incoming students. Our main focus is to establish communication with first-time, full-time freshmen early (while they are still in high school), deliver a consistent message about the first year, and provide connections to resources and support services on campus, as well as the greater Pikeville community in an effort to assist students with the transition to university life and lead to solutions for most difficulties encountered in the first year.
For more information on student success programs at the University of Pikeville, please visit: http://www.upike.edu/Student-Services/Student-Success
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