There are many reasons students don’t stay in school, but Owens Community College’s growing slate of retention initiatives aims to address as many of those issues as possible.
One program is Bridge to Success, which first-year student Meagan O’Dell of Hoytville credits with keeping her enrolled in college.
“I loved it. I’m glad I did it,” said the 18-year-old, who graduated from Bowsher High School in 2011 and plans to become a neonatal nurse. “If I wouldn’t have done it, I probably wouldn’t have stuck with college. Iwould have quit and found a full-time
job and started my life that way.”
The program begins with a sevenweek summer session that helps recent high school graduates transition to college life, said Tamara Williams, associate vice provost for academic services and retention at Owens. Tuition, textbooks, meals and bus fare are all free during the session.
“Students come in directly from high school and are not sure what expectations we have for them at the college level; the language we speak is so different,” Williams said. “Bridge to Success helps them get acclimated to what is expected of them and makes sure they have mentors they can connect with and courses to make surethey get up to speed on reading, writing and math. It’s really a seven-week orientation program.”
Besides developmental math, reading and writing classes, participants also take a course called First Year Experience, another Owens retention initiative, which introduces them to campus resources and develops a plan for personal academic success.
On average, 89 percent of freshmen who complete the First Year Experience course re enroll at Owens thefollowing semester compared to 66 percent of the general student population, according to statistics provided by Owens. More than 2,000 studentsenroll in the course each year.
More than 200 students have participated in Bridge to Success since its inception in 2008, said Bridge to Success Manager Jacquelyn Jones.
The program started with 20 students from Woodward High School and has expanded almost every year since. This summer, the program will be available to students in Lucas, Wood and Hancock counties as well as parts of Ottawa and Sandusky counties, Jones said. There are about 50 participants per year at the Toledo campus, while Findlay can host up to 25.
“They pretty much set up your academic career and put you on track for being a college student,” O’Dell said. “It taught us how to talk to instructors the proper way; that was probably the most helpful. They also showed us around campus so you weren’t lost the first day of the semester. It just helped out a lot.”
Bridge to Success participants build close relationships during their year together, Jones said.
“From the time they are in high school to the first day of Bridge to Success to the end of the program, there are relationships formed,” Jones said. “Students strengthen their academic skills, build confidence and feel really equipped to start their college career. It’s a wonderful program. We build family here and we build community. That’s what learning communities are all about.”
All of the summer 2010 participants enrolled for the fall semester at Owens, with 92 percent continuing through the spring. That’s compared to a 71 percent retention rate for Owens as a whole, Jones said.
During their first year, participants meet with advisers and mentors and take most classes together.
“The mentors help you out asmuch as they can your first year,” O’Dell said. “They helpkeep you organized and get your foot in the door and make you less likely to drop out.”
Bridge to Success peer mentor Ashley Miklovic-Inbody of North Baltimore works on Owens’ Findlaycampus. She serves as a supplemental instructor for classes and also meets regularly with students one-on-one and hosts a weekly study session.
“Anything they were doing, I’m there with them, just to help and be someone to talk to,” Miklovic-Inbody said. “I fell in love with the studentsand in love with the program. I thought it was so neat how it gave the students a jump start.”
Miklovic-Inbody, a sociology student who plans to transfer to BGSUnext year, said it was satisfying to watch the students mature.
“They were kind of typical high school kids — carefree, kind of immature, joked around a lot,” Miklovic-Inbody said. “Watching them grow over the year into these confident, self-sufficient adults who are working and taking charge of their lives has been amazing. It’s a weaning process. We cut the strings, little by little, and let them go off on their own.”
Bridge to Success RepresentativeJanice Skaggs, who serves as a student success mentor, said she couldn’t ask for a more rewarding job.
“It’s a pleasure to intersect my life with theirs at this key time in their life,” Skaggs said.
Gateway to CollegeOwens’ newest retention initiative is Gateway to College, a partnership with Toledo Public Schools (TPS). The first group of 50 students will start this fall.
A $325,000 startup grant from the Gateway to College National Network allowed Owens to become the first academic institution in Ohio to offer the program, which will serve up to 150 TPS students over three years.
Gateway to College serves young adults age 16 to 21 who have dropped out of high school or are significantly behind in credits and unlikely to graduate. Students are dually enrolled at TPS and Owens and complete their high school diploma requirements while simultaneously earning college credit. Tuition and books are free until a high school diploma is obtained, Williams said.
The program evolved from a single-site program launched in2003 to a national network of 35 colleges in 20 states with more than 125 school districts, according to the program’s website.
“That’s an exciting one,” Williams said. “It’s an opportunity for students to re-engage with school.”
Brian Murphy, assistant superintendent of K-12 education with Toledo Public Schools, said the program is “a perfect fit” for TPS and will be “the chance of a lifetime” for students.
“It’s a second-chance effort for those students who haven’t made all the right decisions,” Murphy said.
“What an opportunity, to go froma situation where you aren’t going to graduate to an opportunity to be dual-enrolled in college and highschool at the same time. We really look forward to seeing the results of this program in its first year of implementation. We think it’s going to be successful.”
Students interested in applying for Gateway to College should contact James Jackson at james_jackson11@ owens.edu.
Other retention initiatives at Owens include:
O Project DE gree: Launched in fall 2010 and funded through a grant from the Gateway to College National Network, Project DE gree operates at ninecolleges in nine states, with Owens theonly location in Ohio. Students who have tested into developmental level courses at Owens become part of a learning community with 20 to 25 other students. They take classes togetherand receive intensive individualized academic and social supports to helpthem achieve their academic goals. The integrated, project-based curriculum is coordinated so what students are learning in one class will complement what is being covered in another class, Williams said. Project DE gree participants have a 70 percent retention rate compared to a 52 percent retention rate for nonprogram students.
O Connect2Complete: Ohio was one of three states chosen to pilot Connect2Complete and Owens is one of three community colleges in the stateto implement the program. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Connect2Complete, which combinespeer-to-peer advocacy with service learning and civic engagement activities, is open to low-income students enrolled in developmental education courses who experience significant barriers to obtaining a post-secondary education. Each student is assigned a peer mentor, who helps them transition to college during their first year. For their second year, participants then serve as peer mentors for incoming students.
O Student success mentors: Since spring 2011, more than 78 percentof the 1,500 students who utilized student success mentors re-enrolled for fall 2011 classes, compared to 54 percent of students initially enrolled during the same time period, according to figures provided by Owens.
O Supplemental instruction: Supplemental instruction provides outsideof-class studysessions for traditionally difficult classes, led by students who successfully completed the course. Supplemental instructors also provide in-class assistance in developmental level classes. Early data suggests the average GPA of participants exceeds that of nonparticipants (2.55 compared to 2.14) as did course completion rate (75 percent compared to 62 percent) and next-term retention rate (86 percent compared to 75 percent).
Goals Retention initiatives such as the First Year Experience course, student success mentors and supplemental instructors originated from a five-year $1.68 million Title III Part A Strengthening Institutions grant from the U.S. Department of EducationOwens received in 2006 to implement a comprehensive retention effort for first-year students.
“We’ve really focused on retention and are dedicated to retention initiatives,” Williams said. “All of our programs are very, very important and each touches a specific target market.” The goal used to be making sure students got into college, Williams said; today, focus has shifted more to helping enrolled students complete their educational goals, whether that’sto take a few classes in order to be eligible for a professional promotion, to obtain a two-year degree or to transfer to a four-year school.
Williams said Owens’ ultimate goal is to expand retention initiative programming to serve more students.
“Our ultimate goal is any student who wants to participate in a learning community can because we know the programs are working,” Williams said. “That’s the vision, to be able to scale up.”
For more information, visit www.owens.edu
