Student success initiatives continue
Mayra Marquez
Issue date: 5/4/09 Section: News
Many students who have benefited from the Achieving the Dream program have probably never heard of it.
In 2004, the Lumina Foundation for Education awarded Brookhaven College a five-year grant to develop projects or programs to help more students succeed, particularly for cohorts of students who traditionally face significant barriers - low-income students and minorities, Daniel Hubbard, director of institutional research, said.
This is the last semester for the grant, and on April 23, Oscar Cerna, research associate, and Melissa Boyton, research analyst, who are both with MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization, met with a group of 10 students to discuss their involvement with different Achieving the Dream initiatives.
MDRC asked to keep the students' names anonymous to protect their identity, so students would feel at ease speaking about the different programs.
Dr. Richard McCrary, interim president, said Brookhaven faculty and staff are working to develop a new grant to be funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that would last for three years and continue more specific initiatives in developmental studies, an area that academically prepares students to be successful in the credit program.
"All of us have a stake in improving the success of these students, because without their completion of the developmental sequence, we will surely receive fewer students in our college-level courses," he said.
Hubbard said Brookhaven administrators officially started collecting data in the 2005-2006 school year, and every fall since then are required to submit a report tracking data about the 3,000-3,500 first-time-at-Brookhaven students, comparing Achieving the Dream cohorts to students in traditional programs.
On average, there has been a 5-10 percent increase in passing grades in the past four years among the Achieving the Dream cohorts when compared to the rest of the student population, Hubbard said.
In 2004, the Lumina Foundation for Education awarded Brookhaven College a five-year grant to develop projects or programs to help more students succeed, particularly for cohorts of students who traditionally face significant barriers - low-income students and minorities, Daniel Hubbard, director of institutional research, said.
This is the last semester for the grant, and on April 23, Oscar Cerna, research associate, and Melissa Boyton, research analyst, who are both with MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization, met with a group of 10 students to discuss their involvement with different Achieving the Dream initiatives.
MDRC asked to keep the students' names anonymous to protect their identity, so students would feel at ease speaking about the different programs.
Dr. Richard McCrary, interim president, said Brookhaven faculty and staff are working to develop a new grant to be funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that would last for three years and continue more specific initiatives in developmental studies, an area that academically prepares students to be successful in the credit program.
"All of us have a stake in improving the success of these students, because without their completion of the developmental sequence, we will surely receive fewer students in our college-level courses," he said.
Hubbard said Brookhaven administrators officially started collecting data in the 2005-2006 school year, and every fall since then are required to submit a report tracking data about the 3,000-3,500 first-time-at-Brookhaven students, comparing Achieving the Dream cohorts to students in traditional programs.
On average, there has been a 5-10 percent increase in passing grades in the past four years among the Achieving the Dream cohorts when compared to the rest of the student population, Hubbard said.
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