Evidence of Excellence - South Texas College

College Bound/College Connections: STC has partnered with the regional university and thirty-two (32) high schools in fourteen (14) school districts to sponsor college connection events that facilitate face-to-face guidance through the entire financial aid and admissions process for all high school seniors. Each high school hosts a customized event, which includes completion of the online admissions application during the Fall term and financial aid application, during the Spring term. Small-group sessions between seniors and counselors cover a variety of navigation and acclimation topics such as college rigor, readiness, and placement testing; The More You Learn the More You Earn; financial literacy and Credit Smart®; and a college student panel where current college students share their stories with seniors and answer questions about making the best of their first-year experience.

College for Kids and Teens/Academic Camps: In partnership with local school districts, STC provides College for Kids and Teens for select cohorts of students identified by the school districts. The summer program provides students with a challenging and creative curriculum that meets the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum for math, English/language arts, social studies and science. Topics include: Read and Write to Success; Math for Life; Science in the 21st Century Lab; and Computer, the Web and the World.

Dropout Recovery Program: The Dropout Recovery Program was created by South Texas College and participating school districts to target out-of-school adults, ages 18-25, who did not graduate from high school due to high school credit deficiency or were unable to master a portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exam. Dropout Recovery Program students enroll in classes that are contextualized in the areas needed for high school credit recovery and/or the TAKS. As part of the program, through dual enrollment or contract training, students are also enrolled in college courses at South Texas College. After students successfully obtain the necessary high school credits and/or master the TAKS exam, students then transition to STC to complete the requirements for a certificate or associate degree. STC’s Continuing Education department provides additional courses to prepare students for employability. These courses include resume writing, interview techniques, job search, general computer usage, phone etiquette, and other life/work skills. STC’s partnerships include PSJA, Donna, Edinburg, Hidalgo, and La Joya School Independent School Districts. The Dropout Recovery Program has graduated over 2,144 students.

Dual Enrollment Academies: The College’s success with the dual enrollment program led to the creation of the three dual enrollment academies: Dual Enrollment Engineering (DEEA), Dual Enrollment Computer Science (DECSA) and Dual Enrollment Medical Science (DEMSA). These academies encourage high school students to enter STEM careers through early connection to college STEM programs. The academies are two-year dual enrollment programs designed for high school juniors in Hidalgo and Starr counties. Academy students completing the program earn an Associate of Science (AS) degrees in Engineering (74 credit hours), Computer Science (61 credit hours), or Biology (61 credit hours) before the end of their senior year in high school at no cost to the student or their parents. The program has high retention, graduation, and transfer rates. STC broke new ground with the DEMSA program in Fall 2005 with its first graduating class of 16 students in May 2007. As reflected in the following table, 275 high school students have graduated from these academies since the inception of the program. The combined Fall 2011 enrollment for all three academies includes 124 seniors and 186 juniors.

Dual Enrollment Program: The Board of Trustees at STC continues to demonstrate its commitment to access by waiving tuition and fees for dual enrollment students. STC is a leader in the State and nation in creating dual enrollment opportunities for all students. The College recognized early in its history that dual enrollment is a key strategy to accelerate college readiness for high school students. STC also understands that dual enrollment opportunities should be available to students interested in career and technology courses leading to careers in the applied fields. As a result of the College’s efforts and commitment, the dual enrollment population increased from 98 students in 1997 to over 9,300 students from 52 high school sites in 19 school districts in the Fall 2010.

Early College High Schools and STEM Academies: Early College High Schools (ECHS) are designed to provide high school students with the opportunity to earn 60 hours of college credit and/or an associate’s degree as they also earn their high school diploma. STC serves as the higher education partner with Progreso, Mercedes, McAllen, PSJA (3 schools), La Joya, Hidalgo, and Valley View school districts. Weslaco (2 schools), PSJA (2 schools), Edcouch Elsa, and Rio Grande City school districts are in the planning phase working in conjunction with STC for implementation by Fall 2012. Progreso had its first graduating class of 29 students with Associate’s Degrees in Interdisciplinary Studies in May 2011. McAllen, Valley View, PJSA T-STEM, and Hidalgo will all have graduating seniors in May 2012. STC and its partner school districts are expected to serve approximately 2,500 students through these partnerships in Fall 2011. STC provides an array of academic and student support services for all ECHS students. ECHS students are integrated into the college through regular visits to an STC campus throughout the academic year and annually participate in summer bridge programming.

Gateway to College: Gateway to College is an innovative scholarship program designed to help high school students that are not on track to graduate or have already dropped out of high school with a second chance to reconnect and complete the requirements of their high school diploma while simultaneously earning college credits toward an associate’s degree or certificate. By participating in the program, students are given the opportunity to meet all of their educational requirements at an STC campus. To participate, the students must be between 16 and 20 years of age; behind in high school credits for age/grade; or have dropped out of high school. The program will admit its first two cohorts in the Fall 2011.

I am College Bound—Elementary School Adoptions: In 2008, STC expanded the College Bound/College Connection program to include Hidalgo and Starr County Elementary schools. Elementary schools in five (5) neighboring districts were selected to participate in this innovative program geared toward creating a college-going culture whereby attending and completing higher education is expected for all. The program is designed to provide students and their families with the knowledge and resources to realize that it is never too early to start thinking about college. Events and activities included a campus college-bound flag raising ceremony, college and career days, College-Bound t-shirts, campus visits, and other college knowledge building activities. The remaining 200+ elementary and middle schools in Hidalgo and Starr counties receive college-bound book covers each year and have access to the Junior Jaguar portal. The initiative, originally funded by the Lumina Foundation, has now been institutionalized.

McAllen College & Career Transition Initiative (McCCTI): The McCCTI program was developed in partnership with McAllen Independent School District to prepare at-risk students (over age 9th graders) from McAllen ISD for attainment of a high school diploma and transition to dual enrollment courses at STC. The objective of the program is to mainstream the students into the regular dual enrollment population by the tenth or eleventh grade. The program includes a variety of strategies including teaching classes in a college environment, utilizing the small learning communities concept with a low student-teacher ratio, providing instruction using the team teaching approach, offering TEA-approved career and technical education courses, and offering half-day three hour block instruction. In the Fall 2011, STC will welcome Cohort V with 135 additional students. The program has served 219 students over four years with 56 students completing all high school requirements and graduating, 105 are enrolled and on tract to complete all requirements, and 58 students transferred out of the district.

Parent Academies: South Texas College, Workforce Solutions, and the school districts are leveraging contracts for GED, ESL, and vocational skills training to provide onsite education and training opportunities for parents. The program is currently serving over 1,100 parents in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD and over 350 in McAllen ISD. The program was replicated in La Joya ISD and Valley View ISD. The goal is to offer this program to all school districts.

Science and College Knowledge TAKS Workshops: South Texas College partners with Lamar Options High School at Lamar Academy in McAllen to provide hands-on science experiments on the College’s campus. The program included three four-hour Saturday sessions each term and targets 60 students who are deficient in the science TAKS benchmark. The program includes one hour of biology, one hour of chemistry, one hour of physics, and one hour of college knowledge workshops per session. Curriculum based assessments are revealing significant gains by the students who participated in the program.

STC Summer Leadership Institute for High School Counselors and Teachers: The institute is designed to provide ISD counselors and teachers an opportunity to work side by side with student services personnel at the college. This three-week experience provides participants with insight to the community college degrees, programs and services, while providing them with the tools they need to ensure that students are challenged in the college classroom and not the enrollment process. The institute provides a stipend for ISD personnel participating in the institute. To date, the program has served 100 public, private, and charter school counselors, teachers, and administrators.

Summer Bridge Math Program: STC developed and implemented a collaborative strategy with its partner school districts in Hidalgo and Starr Counties with a special focus on dramatically increasing the percentage of college-ready high school graduates, specifically in the core academic fields of math, reading and writing. The Summer Bridge Math Program began with mathematics to prepare 100 under-prepared High School graduates for College Mathematics. The program worked with 2007 high school graduates who met the TAKS exit requirements but did not meet the TSI college readiness standards. The program was replicated in the 2009. The college is awaiting the National Center for Post Secondary Research’s publication Stepping Ahead: Implementation and Early Impacts of Texas Developmental Summer Bridge Programs which documents the impact of summer bridge programs in Texas.

South Texas College is one of two institutions of higher education selected to participate in a pilot program with Public Agenda and MDC to help colleges and the community work together to help more students succeed in college. The initiative involves the creation of a Leadership Team at the college, made up of a diverse group from the community. The Leadership Team works together to reflect and assess the community’s history, assets, and current leadership culture. The Leadership Team also received training and related materials to utilize Public Agenda’s community conversation model to engage the community in a dialogue about creating a college-going culture and helping student succeed in college.

South Texas College was one of six community colleges in the nation selected to participate in Phase two of the Excelencia in Education Latino Student Success (LSS) at Hispanic Serving Institutions initiative. Starting Point: Community College engaged six selected community college HSIs and build on their partnerships with the baccalaureate granting HSIs that comprise the LSS coalition.  These two-year HSIs in California, Texas, and New York were asked to use the LSS model to:

1. Analyze institutional practices on persistence of Latino students at selected community colleges.
2. Engage the campus leadership, including the community college presidents, in a dynamic and productive dialogue about how their institutions serve Latino students academically.

The purpose of the initiative is to assess the data capacity of the participating community colleges as well as identify community college practices and qualities of institutional leadership that enhance Latino student success. The study of institutional practices that promote Latino student success in community colleges is important, as almost 60% of Latino students today begin their post secondary education in community colleges.

Accelerating Latino Student Success (ALASS) at Texas Border Institutions:

South Texas College was one of eight institutions of higher education selected to participate in the Excelencia in Education initiate, Achieving Latino Student Success. The initiative required the institutions to examine, benchmark, and design plans to accelerate Latino student success.

Beacon Mentoring Program Study:

South Texas College is one of a select group of Achieving the Dream colleges chosen by MDRC to participate in a national evaluation of innovative strategies to increase student success. The STC Beacon Mentoring Program is a collaborative initiative by the divisions of Academic Affair and Student Affairs & Enrollment Management to increase success rates in gatekeeper courses. The program assigns a trained Beacon Mentor to a gatekeeper course. The faculty member and the mentor work together to provide a support structure in and out of the classroom. The program requires at minimum four mandatory visits by the mentor with the students. Preliminary results indicated that they program has a positive effect on student retention and completion.

Male Ethnographic Qualitative Study:

South Texas College is one of five colleges nationally chosen as a site for a MDRC Male Ethnographic Qualitative Study. The purpose of the study is to provide details and depth of understanding to the experiences of minority male community college students who are taking developmental coursework. The study is focused on learning more about factors that affect student engagement and retention in their developmental coursework and in college more generally.

Achieving the Dream Cost Study:

South Texas College is one of a select group of colleges chosen to participate in the MDRC Achieving the Dream Cost Study. The purpose of the cost study is to learn more about the real expenditures that colleges are making in both staff time and hard costs to launch and maintain their Achieving the Dream initiative. Understanding the true costs of the initiative is a critical component to understand how Achieving the Dream will be sustained over time and adopted by those outside of the initiative.

MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award:

South Texas College is one of two colleges nationally to be selected for the MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award. The award recognizes community colleges that demonstrate significant success in student outcomes, particularly for students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. To be considered, colleges had to demonstrate institution-wide commitment and achievement in helping high-need students enter and succeed in postsecondary education.