Student Success Committee Meeting Minutes – November 19, 2013
Attendees: Judy Graves, Kevin Riley, Kim French, Evan Abatecola, Emily Muniz, Wendy Ayers, Ashley Pearson, Tyler Billups, Tanita Anthony, Lori Bamburg, Josh Oswald, Dion Brinkley
Absent: Lorna Nelson, Candace Ferguson, Joy Adams, Debra Short
Reviewed previous meeting notes; Judy suggested following the process of having the upgrade option removed as opposed to emailing Joy Adams.
New Business:
Reviewed the idea of having faculty teach SDV 101. Suggestions were made regarding training required so that required topics would be covered and possibly having counselors come in to do the required topics to be covered in college success skills classes and having the faculty members focus on the degree fields specific to each SDV 101 course (i.e. Respiratory, engineering, transfer, etc.). Concerns about SDV 101 are as follows:
- Ensuring the student signs up for the right SDV 101 specific to their program of study
- Training and research required
- Including SDV 101 classes with the faculty’s existing classes
- Suggestions for this concern were online or hybrid options
- Having counselors come in to discuss certain topics
- Staffing issues with counselors particularly with going to developmental math courses
Start small once this approved (i.e. developmental English courses, transfer, or one per division, etc.). If we could come up with some ideas for the proposal and have them together by the next meeting in January, then Kim can present it to the governance committee in February. It would be ideal to have this in place by April for the fall 2014 semester.
Reviewed SMARTHINKING stats for August, September, and October (see previous meeting minutes): For November (11/01 through 11/13) 3 live sessions, 173 online writing lab sessions, and 39.03 hours so far. Spanish and the essay seem to be the most popular overall. Math is not being used as much perhaps due to difficulty online. Some English classes are having students submit rough drafts. There are 500 total hours that have been purchased but if it gets close to that number they will likely purchase more hours.
Kevin updated the committee on SAILS. Starting in the spring, only developmental math and English courses, SDV, ENG 111, and BIO 101 courses are required to use SAILS. Ashley suggested changing kudos to a different color.
Goals:
In addition to the SDV 101 idea, having counselors go into developmental classes (starting only with English as there are only 11 in the spring), to go over campus resources, etc. This will hopefully help with retention. The first week of classes is ideal for the students but not for counselors so perhaps have either the student government association or student ambassadors speak.
Increase student activities on campus. Suggestions were more student picnics (two per semester) or ice cream socials, though cost is a concern. Suggestions to incorporate free activities were bringing in dogs from local shelters for students to play with especially during exam time for stress relief, or minute to win it games once a month or every two weeks. Judy suggested that there may already be activities in place for the spring so we should check with the student activities office (i.e. Black History Month in February and International Week in April). An upcoming event is Stop Hunger Now—preparing food to send to Nicaragua.