Mission Critical Mission Impossible

1
Mission Critical-Mission Impossible

• Celia Esposito-Noy
• Vice President, Student Services
• Cosumnes River College
• CACCRAO Annual Conference
• May 1, 2006

2
Our Students

• See no relevance in educational experience
• Poor experiences in K-12
• Participants of social promotion
• Limited interest in process of learning

3
Managing the Student Experience

• Student experience cannot be entirely left up to
  students
• Student experience must be purposeful,
  choreographed, and intentional
• Must be relevant for them
• We must create opportunities for students to
  discover relevance

4
Managing the Student Experience

• We want and need to know who our students are,
  but dont know how to find out
• Students in cohorts feel a greater connection to
  the campus community, sense their education is
  relevant, develop stronger ties to faculty and
  other students, and utilize support services
  (examples Puente, Student Athletes or
  tutoring/group study)

5
Managing the student experience

• We are (still) struggling with low course
  completion and retention rates, low transfer
  numbers, and extended time to degree completion.
• We are faced with changing demographics, a new
  generation, and high expectations for success.

6
Teachable moments are everywhere

• Lessons on civility
• Completing administrative tasks
• Reading is fundamental
• Negotiating bureaucracy
• Self advocacy, self reflection
• Reframing the problem and knowing what questions
  to ask

7
Perspectives on Student Retention and Success

• Student engagement- what do we mean
• Who defines student success
• Student Services responsibility for retention
• Consider educational success a public health
  initiative

8
Managing the First-Year Experience

• Too many choices
• Loss of accountability
• No shared experience to connect with other
  students
• Unfamiliar expectations in the classroom and on
  campus
• Changing the student paradigm- This is what
  college students do

9
Creating Campus Community

• What role do we play in creating a sense of
  community
• What does the college community value and how is
  that communicated by staff
• Creating opportunities for student/faculty/staff
  interaction outside of class

10
What can we do

• Create opportunities to connect the curriculum
  and the co-curriculum
• Create opportunities for students to utilize
  their skills and knowledge
• Establish office and program standards and stick
  with them
• Participate in the development of the First-year
  student experience program
• Talk about student services as an instructional
  unit
• Develop methods for measuring outcomes