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Two-year colleges to benefit from study, grants Friday, Jun 8, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A pair of programs funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation will help the state's two-year colleges do a better job of teaching and retaining students, education officials said Thursday. One of the programs, a year-long study of the way two-year colleges treat first-year students, has produced action plans for each of four participating schools, Ed Franklin, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges, announced at a news conference at the Little Rock Hilton. Also Thursday, state Department of Higher Education Director Linda Beene announced that four two-year schools in the state have been selected to receive $450,000 each in grants through a separate program. Franklin said schools participating in the Foundations of Excellence in the First College Year program spent a year assessing the overall experience of first-year students on their campuses. The schools conducting the studies were Rich Mountain Community College in Mena, Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, Cossatot Community College in De Queen and Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, which has campuses in Helena, Dewitt and Stuttgart. Representatives of the schools were in Little Rock Thursday to attend a summit with teams from the state's 18 other two-year colleges and six four-year universities to share their findings and plans for improvement. In an interview, Franklin said different colleges learned different lessons, but some lessons were common to all, such as the importance of having good student orientation and academic advisers. The retention rate of first-year students at two-year colleges in Arkansas is 46.9 percent, well below the national average of 52.5 percent, according to information on the Department of Higher Education's Web site. At four-year schools, the retention rate in Arkansas is 68 percent, compared to the national average of 72.3 percent. "It's very serious. It's something that we've got to pay attention to," Franklin said. Part of the problem is cultural, according to Franklin. He noted that 44 percent of all college freshman in Arkansas attend two-year colleges, and of that number, more than half are the first person in their family to attend college. "If that's what we're dealt ... we've got figure out what we're going to do with it," he said. The answer, Franklin said, is not lower standards but honest self-evaluation. "The big thing was getting the entire campus engaged in, 'What is it we do well and what is it we don't do well when it comes to a brand-new student coming to our campus?'" he said. Beene announced that four schools will receive grants through the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges County program. The schools are National Park Community College in Hot Springs, Ouachita Technical College in Malvern, Pulaski Tech and Phillips Community College. The colleges will receive $50,000 grants to plan and launch the program on their campuses, then will be eligible for implementation grants of up to $400,000. Beene said the grants will enable the schools to help more students, particularly minority and low-income students, get into college, succeed academically and go on to continue their education at four-year schools. |
