Overview

The college’s goal is to improve student success and retention. J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College has aligned its strategic plan with Dateline 2009, the strategic plan of the chancellor of the Virginia Community College System. During the college’s strategic planning process in FY 04, the Student Success and Retention Plan emerged as its focus. The college has utilized a number of internal and external resources including participation in CCSSE in spring of 2004 and 2005 and CCFSSE in spring of 2005 to determine best practices for implementation of the Student Success and Retention Plan.

Knowing that a major factor in student success is engagement, the college has refined its Professional Development and Renewal Plan to assist faculty with strategies for improving teaching and learning. This will provide a significant opportunity for improving effective communication across work cultures and with students. Conversations among administrators and other units of the college have led to the realization that learning communities incorporate best practices for success and retention. Therefore, JSRCC is beginning the process of launching learning communities in which students will register as a cohort for a two-year program.

We envision a five-year implementation plan resulting in a comprehensive, integrated program that will build engagement and academic success through Learning Communities. They will consist of specialized SDV (Student Development) courses where first-time students will be grouped according to interest, academic support and mentoring, and career counseling. The college plans to implement two or three communities in fall semester 2007. Two more communities will be instituted in 2008. Within a period of five years, we anticipate that up to one-third of all entering first-time students will participate in a learning community.

Team Plans for Summer Institute

Our team plan for the Summer Institute is to participate in the team process and to refine an action plan for starting and evaluating our new learning communities program. We hope to learn about successful practices for implementing learning communities in community colleges.

Issues for Discussion

• First-Year Implementation Models
• Associated Start-Up Costs
• Maintaining Costs (Technology, Training, Personnel, etc.) of Learning Communities
• Why Would a Student Join a Learning Community? (i.e., from the student’s point of view)
• How Do We Market to Students? To Parents?
• What are some of the characteristics that make a student a good prospect for a member of a learning community cohort?
• What are some of the characteristics that make a faculty member a good candidate as a learning community team member? Faculty Incentives?
• Types and levels of support for students in an LC

LC Directory Profile

Increasing Student Retention, Engagement, and Success