1. What outcomes are expected from this pilot, quantifiable or qualitative?

The Student Success Pilot Project (SSPP) was specifically designed to be directly responsive to the goals and outcomes set forth in Chancellor Glasper's "Beyond Boundaries" document. The SSPP is also reponsive to both the MCCD Goals and to PVCC's Strategic Issues related to serving under-prepared students and enrollment management.

Definition of the SSPP at PVCC:

The SSPP is a comprehensive reconsideration of core elements of student success and the concomitant re-engineering of PVCC systems, processes, procedures and structures to more effectively support student success. The core elements that are being re-engineering include: 1) placement testing, 2) registration, 3) advisement, 4) orientation, and 5) course placement. In addition, the SSPP includes the development of a new course - Student Success: Changes, Challenges, Choices (COL-101) - that will be prescribed for specified student cohorts. The SSPP's overarching goal is to significantly improve the retention and persistence rates of SSPP student cohorts, and ultimately all students who enroll at PVCC. The project is "outcomes-driven", undergirded by national research and aligned with PVCC's vision, mission and its ten-year experience as a learning college.

The quantitative and qualitative outcomes that PVCC anticipates as a result of the SSPP include:

Quantitative Outcomes:

• Approximately 800-1000 new PVCC students who have been identified as members of two specific SSPP cohorts will successfuly complete the new integrated and comprehensive PVCC Orientation Process. This process prescribes placement testing, advising, orientation, registration, along with the completion of a new, required College Success Course (COL-101). The new process also includes iGoal, PVCC's new web-based goal setting tool.
  
• Approximately thirty to forty sections of COL-101, the one credit hour College Success Course, will be scheduled to accommodate the 800-1000 students expected to participate in the SSPP during Spring semester, 2006. Broad access will be provided to students via alternative scheduling strategies. We expect that this course could generate annualized FTSE (total credit hours divided by 30) in the range of 26.7 to 33.3 during the 2007 Spring semester pilot.
  
• Based on the data reviewed from colleges across the country and PVCC's sharpened focus on degree and certificate completion, along with the attainment of explicit student goals, PVCC expects that the SSPP will increase student retention, (the student's successful completion of all classes in which SSPP students are enrolled during the pilot period) by approximately 30-40% and persistence (re-enrollment from semester to semester) by approximately 40%. In certain sub-cohorts, first generation college students, minority students, etc. we anticipate even higher persistence and retention rates.
  
• As a pre-requisite to teaching the COL-101 course, approximately thirty PVCC employees and a total of fifty-five MCCD employees, including faculty and staff will complete three days of intensive training provided by Dr. Skip Downing, a nationally recognized student engagement consultant. In addition to preparing participants to teach COL-101, Dr. Downing's training will enhance the ability of fifty-five PVCC/MCCD faculty and staff to engage students more effectively in other courses and/or service areas.

Qualitative Outcomes:

• SSPP cohort students will complete the SSPP with vastly improved self-managment tools, including goal-setting, time management, study skills and learning strategies.
  
• The attitudes and opinions of SSPP cohort students relative to PVCC and to the MCCD will be improved.
  
• Partner P-12 systems and universities will recognize that PVCC is committed to student success and to student learning.
  
• SSPP cohort students will be better prepared to succeed in upper-level course work at PVCC and other colleges or universities.
  
• SSPP cohort students, as a resultof using will be much more focused on degree, certificate and/or AGEC completion prior to matriculating at PVCC.
  
• The images of PVCC and the MCCD in our community will be enhanced as a result of our commitment to student success, student engagement and to learning.
  
• More SSPP students will enroll in PVCC's 200 level courses when compared to students not in the SSPP cohort.
  
• Over the longer term, PVCC faculty skill-sets and academic expertise will be more appropriately aligned with student capacity to do college level work.

2. How will success be measured and a determination made that this pilot will continue?

Success will be measured primarily by two key performance indicators (KPIs): Student cohort retention in courses and student cohort persistence from semester to semester. PVCC's Institutional Effectiveness Department will track the cohorts from the inception of the SSPP to completion of the Spring '07 semsester and then forward to the Fall '07 semester. Other measures will include: tracking student evaluations of the integrated orientation, advisment and registration process, the student cohort usage rate and evaluation of iGoal, and the grade distribution of the student cohort in the COL-101 course. as well as in the full complement of courses in which they are enrolled.

A particularly valuable measurement, one that MCCD has struggled with for years, is the number of students who achieve the goal(s) they establish upon admission to a MCCD college. By using iGoal PVCC will be able to track student progress to specified goals including the attainment of degrees, certificates, AGEC, career up-grading, etc.

A specific component of the SSPP budget request includes the external evaluation of the SSPP by an outside evaluator. The benchmark data from the pilot will be analyzed over a 3-year period and then used by the SSPP Committee and PVCC leadership to continuosly improve the Student Success Project.

3. When will pilot results and outcomes be measured and reported and how does this relate to continuation of the pilot or to permanent implementation of this program? In other words, will results be available in Spring '07 to determine if the pilot will continue in the Fall '07 semester, or if it will be eliminated, modified, expanded or reduced? If no results will be available in Spring '07, is there an assumption that the pilot will continue anyway in some form and then be evalutated?

PVCC will measure and report the results of the SSPP by focusing those core elements that will be available at the completion of the Spring'07 semester. These elements include: 1) Student cohort retention rates as compared to all enrolled students and to the MCCD average, 2) Student evaluations of the integrated orientation, advisement and registration process, 3) Student evaluations of iGoal, 4) "Student Voices" focus group conversations with SSPP student cohort represntatives. Specifically, SSPP results will be available by the end of the Spring semester. Informed, data-driven decisions relative to the modification and/or future status of the pilot will be made in at the conclusion of the semester pilot.

PVCC will also measure SSPP student cohort Spring '07 to Summer and/or Fall '07 semester persistence rates during the summer and fall registrations periods.

4. What are the expectations for funding in FY07-08 from the district or how is the college starting to institutionalize these costs into their budget through reallocations?

PVCC has been very intentional and thoughful about scoping and scaling the pilot in a constrained financial and human resource environment. The SSPP's eighteen member committee has dedicated both their expertise and time over the three year planning period so that the pilot has a reasonable probability of success in terms of student success. With organizational learning as a foundational concept of PVCC learning college philosophy, the committee and the colleges' leadership has already initiated conversations relative to the sustainability of the SSPP during the Fall '07 semester and in the longer-term. The SSPP has prescribed the re-engineering of five core college processes (placement testing, registration, orientation, advising and the additional of COL-101 as a required course). As a result of these process changes, PVCC expects increased level of productivity and efficiency in key areas of the college.

Given a successful Spring '07 pilot, PVCC anticipates a similar or moderately increased level of funding for the continuation of the SSPP in the Fall '07 semester. Fall enrollments are typically higher and thus require increased levels of concentrated services in the five core college process referenced above. Should the full SSPP be expanded to the three or four other MCCD colleges (SCC, CGCC, Gateway, PC and most recently GCC) we believe it would be prudent to invest in a full-time SSPP coordinator.

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8/15/06

1. Can we implement this project at Phoenix College differently than Paradise Valley? Yes. Paradise Valley would like to share data for comparison purposes.
   
2. What about students who don’t pay for the classes which prevents other students from enrolling? This issue has not been addressed but there is a possibility of creating a waiting list.
   
3. What financial aid is available and are there payment plan options? Not sure. There is financial assistance for the COL course at Paradise Valley through a grant.
   
4. What if there is a drop in enrollment from this project, will the college be held harmless? Paradise Valley has an agreement with the District that they will be held harmless during the pilot. Other colleges that have implemented a similar plan did not experience a drop in enrollment. There may have been a slight drop, but the increase in retention during the semetester and persistence in enrolling the following semesters more than made up for any minor drop in enrollment.
   
5. How many orientations will be offered and who will be doing them? There are planned to be two orientations per day and one on Saturdays during the heaviest enrollment times, with about 35 students in each group. There is expected to involve 800-1000 new students in in the new integrated orientation sessions and result in an anticipated 30-40 sections of the COL 101 course in Spring 2007.

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