• College and University Partnerships, ILEA • , , , • Tags: , , ,

Briefly describe a strategy in your Equity Plan that you have implemented. Include a brief description of how this strategy was chosen.

Even the most well-prepared student may encounter an unexpected academic, work, or personal challenge, and the withdrawal option offers a way to leave the course. Unfortunately, Moraine Valley’s standard withdrawal process required little effort; students press a few buttons on a computer to withdraw from courses before faculty or student services staff have an opportunity to intervene.

Moraine Valley Community College is currently administering a pilot withdrawal process with the intention of eventually scaling up the program college-wide. Through this process, the instructor receives an automatic notification of the student’s decision to withdraw through our early alert system. They then have 72 hours to contact the student, identify the reason for the withdrawal, and connect students with the appropriate resources and improvement plans. This process engages faculty members by giving them timely information and leverages their unique relationships with students to encourage progress to completion.

 Articulate the intended outcomes, leading indicators and KPIs.

The intended outcome of this project is to lower withdrawal rates and increase success rates in courses that typically have higher rates of withdrawal than the college average.

By integrating Starfish and Canvas in high withdraw rate course sections, the outcomes are to demonstrate student usability of the technology, reduce withdraw rates, and increase success rates. 

The withdraw and success rates for BIO 181, MTH 142, and BIO 180 serve as baseline leading indicators to assess the efficacy of the intervention.

FY 21 Rates
Course Withdraw  Success 
Phase 1 (Spring 2022) BIO 181 25.5% 57.1%
MTH 142 8.8% 72.0%
Phase 2 (Fall 2022) BIO 180 39.6% 40.4%
 
How has your institution applied an equity focus/lens to this strategy? What stakeholders were engaged? What data is informing your strategy?In fiscal year 2021, Moraine Valley’s highest number of withdrawals from courses came from our African American students with 13.7% followed by Hispanic/LatinX students with 10.2%. It has been our goal to utilize Starfish to be able to reduce the withdrawals from these minority populations by creating a flag within the program to be raised by the students themselves. From there it is automatically routed to their faculty member, as well as several support systems such as counselors and student support specialists, who will meet with the students to discuss their decision and provide support. Faculty members are provided with a resource of talking points so they can provide guidance to students about the various implications of withdrawing from their course (e.g. financial aid, time to completion).

 What people, processes or resources were assigned to support this strategy?

There are several departments college-wide that are collaborating on this initiative. These departments include Registration, Enrollment Services, Student Success, Institutional Research, Institutional Technology, and Science, Business, and Computer Technology.  Faculty members, staff, and administrators are working together to implement and test the process and work with students to ultimately reduce withdrawals and increase success rates.

For more information on this strategy at Moraine Valley Community College, contact:

Dr. Jo Ann Jenkins, Dean of Student Success, jenkinsj52@morainevalley.edu

Dr. Sadya Khan, Director of Institutional Research and Planning, khans46@morainevalley.edu

Dr. Ryen Nagle, Dean of Science, Business and Computer Technology, nagler@morainevalley.edu