Bainbridge State College Campus Plan Update 2015

INSTITUTIONAL MISSION & STUDENT BODY PROFILE

INSTITUTIONAL MISSION

Bainbridge State College, a state college of the University System of Georgia, provides an accessible, affordable, and excellent education for the diverse population of southwest Georgia and beyond through certificates, diplomas, associate degrees, and select baccalaureate programs as well as through continuing education, adult education, and collaboration with other educational providers, resulting in life‐long learning, economic development, and graduates empowered for success in a global society.

Bainbridge State College, serving nearly 20 counties across southwest Georgia, northwest Florida, and southeast Alabama, enrolled 2,470 students in Fall 2014 who were 57% minority, 69% Pell-eligible, 25% self-identified first-generation college students, and 57% adult, non- traditional students (See Appendix A and B for more demographic information). Satisfying the education needs of such a diverse population of students is at the core of the College’s mission. Accessibility, affordability, and quality education opportunities are what current and prospective students can expect from Bainbridge State College. From transfer degrees to technical degrees, diplomas, and technical certificates of credit, Bainbridge State College empowers its graduates for success in a global society.

The college’s mission, strategic plan, enrollment trends, and demographics influence the college’s focus on completion in a variety of ways. Bainbridge State College’s mission holds the institution accountable for providing quality education, training, and opportunities to promote the success of students and their communities. Bainbridge State College professionals understand how important it is that students are prepared to be self-sustaining and contributing members of society—in their home communities and beyond. Upholding a quality education and ensuring success influences all of the college’s institutional goals and strategies, as well as those for Complete College Georgia (CCG).

Enrollment trends clearly indicate that a majority of our students come to us underprepared. They enter college with distractors that become immediate barriers to their success and retention without our intentional and intrusive interventions. In the college’s first status report submission, several populations were identified as needing attention and resources, including part-time students, minority students, non-traditional students, and students placing into learning support. For Fall 2014, Bainbridge State College had an enrollment of nearly 2, 500 students, of which 662 were new students. Among the first-time enrolled students 92.9% required remediation. Within this population were many of the students identified in the previously mentioned groups needing attention. Amid the efforts devoted to preparing students within these groups, the college’s learning support initiatives, along with progress in early alerts and also the use of best practice teaching methods by learning support faculty, provided the greatest success, with improved success rates for students enrolled in learning support classes (from 34% success rate in Fall 2011 to 62% in Fall 2014).

In addition to the initiatives focused on learning support, the college also found success in its continuation of the Quick Start program first implemented in summer, 2014. The program focuses on preparing prospective students—many falling into populations described as needing additional attention—for gateway math courses, along with the opportunity to complete the First Year Experience (FYE) course through a workshop and competency testing for two (2) institutional credits upon completion of the program. This year (Summer 2015), the college welcomed a total of 11 participants (increase of one since last year).  One hundred percent (100%) of the participants increased their math scores as a result of the program; and 60% of the participants existed learning support altogether.  Participating in the FYE portion of this summer program, participants learned early in their college education journey about the many support resources available to them and how these resources would support their success at the college and beyond. Participants were awarded 2 credits for completing the course.  An equally qualifying success as a result of this program is that participants from last year (Summer 2014) all remain enrolled at the college.

The college’s learning support redesign effort has gained a steady momentum over the last year, with a full implementation of the foundation and remedial-corequisite pairing placement based on COMPASS test scores. Since the full-implementation in Fall 2014 the college has been recognized as a Vanguard institution by the University System of Georgia. In Fall 2014 the college had 161 students who required English remediation and 125 needing math remediation; of these 105 (65%) were placed into the foundation level of remediation in English (65%), 47 (35%) in co-requisite English, 105 (84%) placed into the foundation level of math and 15 (16%) placed into co-requisite level math. Of the 105 students who entered into English learning support at the foundations level 74 (70%) successfully passed the course in the first semester and of those entering into foundation math 51 (49%) passed at the conclusion of their first semester.  Students enrolled in co-requisite English resulted in 29 (62%) of them successfully passing the college-level portion of the co-requisite pairing. Accounting for student interested in non-STEM or STEM program, of the 5 students who enrolled into co-requisite learning support and MATH 1001 (non-STEM) 100% of them successfully passed. For students (10) aspiring to complete a STEM program of study, 90% of the students enrolling into co-requisite learning support and MATH 1111, successfully completed the college-level portion of the pairing. (See Appendix C) The successes realized over the past year naturally lend themselves to the overall focus of the Complete College Georgia initiative and upholds the institution’s mission to ensure a shortened time to degree in spite of initial placement into learning support and, increase graduation and retention. Learning support staff, advisors, success coaches, and peer tutors have worked hard to ensure that students are successful and have a clear understanding of the many resources available to them to ensure their continued success.

In addition to the efforts focused on identifying best practices in the area of learning support, the college has remained diligent in its efforts to promote the early and always alert process that was mentioned in the institution’s initial campus report in 2012. The college has witnessed the initiative evolve into a process that has resulted in the contact of students for more than 1,400 negative and positive alerts in Fall 2014. The effort has proved beneficial for our students and faculty and staff. Upon contact, students are made aware of the many resources they have available to them and reminded of the consequences of not putting forth effort and striving to be successful. The process provides faculty with a continuous opportunity to share with advisors throughout the semester the status of their students (positive and negative) with the understanding that advisors will make contact with students to share with them ways that they can improve and be successful or to encourage if the student was doing well. Advisors throughout this process remain informed of their advisee’s status and have a constant stream of communication from faculty about the status of their advisees. This initiative continues to show promise, and a portion of students’ success can be attributed to the interventions put into place early, and are ongoing, throughout the semester. 

Bainbridge State College is located in one of the most agrarian regions in the state of Georgia, and has a very high farming population. One of the issues that has been identified among the college’s population of students is the fact that many students are heavily involved in farming activities at various times throughout the year. The need for students to split their time between being a student and attending class, while also providing their share of farm work results in students not achieving the highest level of success (e.g., grades and completion). Recognition of this challenge lead the institution to identify and implement the use of various instructional delivery methods and techniques that would provide students the flexibility of being a student and still dedicate the time needed for harvesting. One mode of delivery that has proved quite beneficial is the offering of online classes. During the 2012-13 academic year 13% of all class sections were offered online. By Fall 2014 the college‘s online offering had increased to 17% of the total class section offering. While an increase in the number of course offerings may offer an idea of the popularity of this instructional delivery method, success rates serve as a true determinant of whether the online instruction method is one that would promote student success and encourage completion. Collaboration among faculty and the director for the Center for Teaching Excellence to create and pilot online classes that would provide the same quality of instruction found in face-to-face. For example, in Fall 2013, student success rates (earned A, B, C, S) in online classes was 62.86%. In Fall 2014 the overall success rate for online classes was 67%---a little more than 4% increase.  During the same semesters, face-to-face success rates were 55.94% and 69.47% respectively.

In addition to the challenges inherent with living in an area rich in farming, the institution’s main campus location in conjunction to the counties in its service region, many students find it challenging to travel the distance to the main campus where the greatest variety of courses are offered more frequently than at campus centers, such as the Early County Center.  Although a number of class sections are offered at the center, there are several instances in which course enrollments may be too low and result in the class being canceled; nevertheless, students may need the classes to complete their program. To overcome this challenge, two new instructional delivery methods were employed that would increases the likelihood of students being able to enroll in the classes needed to progress: flex scheduling and telecourses. Telecourse and flex scheduling are scheduled to be offered in Fall 2015.  Flex scheduling is designed for classes that traditionally have low enrollment. This type scheduling offers students at least two periods of time on a given day(s) from which they can choose to attend. If for some reason a student is unable to attend the AM session, they may choose the PM session (or vice versa)---or both sections.  For Fall 2015 a total of two (2) flex courses are being offered with a combined enrollment of 15 students. Telecourses, another option students can take advantage of, are intended for student who unable to physically make a class offered on the main campus or at a center it is being offered.  This fall (2015) a total of four (4) telecourses are being offered with an enrollment of 76 students.  Students on our main campus or at the Early County Center are able to attend class via classroom teleconference technology where the instructor is physically present at one location, yet can interact and engage students in real-time at another campus location. These methods provide students with flexibility and additional options that will assist them in maintaining their success and completing their desired program(s) in a timely manner. The institution is hopeful that the results of this implementation will show success over time and can be extended to other campus centers in the future.

The priority of completion to the college is evident not only in the initiatives described in this report but is also demonstrated by its inclusion as one of the three goals in Bainbridge State College’s Strategic Plan for 2015-2020: increasing  the number of students who complete academic programs and degrees. Therefore, the college will continue to pilot programs to determine which resources, instructional methods, and processes will have the greatest impact on student success; while continuing the support of recently implemented programs for which student success is evident. 

INSTITUTIONAL GOALS, STRATEGIES, AND ACTIVITIES

Bainbridge State College’s goals and strategies are drawn from the goals and associated strategies highlighted in Part I: Campus Plan Strategy Survey that match our needs, mission, and resources.  The following is a summary of the work and resulting outcomes through Fall 2014.

Bainbridge State College has worked tirelessly to promote student success through high-impact strategies, stronger enforcement of academic progress standards, and a significant expansion of support services; yet retention, progression, and graduation rates remain lower than desired.  It is clear that we must do more, and effective July 1^st of this year, we completed an organizational restructure that we are hopeful will provide expanded and focused leadership and support for completion and retention, and that will enable us to better organize and assess existing strategies and develop new approaches as needed. The reorganization included combining academic and student affairs underneath one vice president, the addition of an assistant deans for academic affairs, and an associate dean for student affairs.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

Bainbridge State College prides itself on upholding its mission and ensuring students success. The college recognizes the importance of maintaining processes and programs that prove to be significantly successful, while also understanding that some processes may need to be tweaked or abandoned after review. One of the resounding themes throughout this evaluative process was an increase in communication. Recently, the college underwent a reorganization change that resulted in the loss of some positions and the creation of others.  The college anticipates that the new organizational structure will strongly support the college’s mission, the goals associated with Complete College Georgia, and support  increased communication. One way in which the college can achieve increased and consistent communication is to develop a data governance team of interested campus professionals to determine which data will be used and this information will be used to best represent the college and identifying a tool that will provide real-time or up-to-date information in one location that is available to all interested employees upon request.

This evaluative period not only brought to light the need for increased communication, but also the need for meaningful, continuous tracking of data that will more easily and directly lend itself to reporting information as needed to requests such as those required by Complete College Georgia.  Additionally, the level of attention given to tracking will easily identify whether current strategies are resulting in student success and support decisions to continue or abandon current strategy activities. Again, with a reorganization and the loss of individuals rich with institution knowledge over the past few years, the consistent tracking of data over time seems to have been lost. Although this has been somewhat of a set-back, the college plans to move forward, again, identifying key personnel that will serve as data governance members and that will help ensure the constant and continual tracking.

In addition to the resounding theme of increased communication and the need for greater attention to tracking every aspect of current strategies, it is in the college’s best interest to focus mightily on fewer initiatives given a dearth of resources.  The college’s faculty and staff are wonderful in their respective areas and beyond; however, reality informs that even the most capable and engaged are only capable of performing most efficiently when not overextended. The college is eager to see what the following year will bring, with an increased focus perfecting fewer items that will aid our students in being successful. With equal amounts of eagerness, the institution looks forward to current practices becoming norms and for opportunities to redirect its focus on identifying and implementing new strategies that will benefit the college community as a whole.