News & Updates
Teams from 15 new Network colleges are gearing up for ATD’s Kickoff Institute, which will be held from June 12 to 14 in New Orleans. An annual event to welcome and orient incoming colleges, Kickoff serves as the starting point for the Foundations of Transformation, the intensive three-year engagement upon which all new Network colleges embark. The convening will set the stage for the colleges’ partnerships with ATD and introduce them to the organization’s newly updated Institutional Capacity Framework, a comprehensive assessment built on essential capacities that help colleges develop a student-centered culture and enhance student success.
As announced in April, seven of the new colleges are entering the Network as the second cohort of the Accelerating Equitable Outcomes (AEO) initiative, which is focused on rural-serving institutions, while the other eight are joining ATD as this year’s annual Network cohort.
“ATD is excited to welcome these new colleges into the Network as they continue to build upon their student success work,” said Dr. Melinda Anderson, ATD’s executive director for Network engagement. “This cohort of colleges will have an opportunity to connect with peer institutions on key issues including a bold access agenda, refining guided pathways, and ensuring program relevancy, all while centering on the student voice and experience.”
We will check in with the institutions in the coming months to find out their thoughts on the Kickoff experience and to get a more in-depth look at the work they are undertaking. For now, here is a glimpse into what the colleges hope to do during their first three years with ATD.
2024 Network Cohort
Clovis Community College (California) will focus on eliminating and preventing institutional barriers to access and success and, as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, will seek to establish a strong DEIA culture based on sound data.
East Central College (Missouri) seeks to fully implement the Guided Pathways model, adopt a holistic model of advising, provide full wraparound support and career counseling to students, and enhance teaching models — all in an effort to improve retention, course success rates, and completion rates.
Frederick Community College (Maryland) aims to operationalize Guided Pathways, enhance its data-informed decision-making, identify evidence-based strategies for change management, align initiatives and efforts across different teams and units by creating shared processes and expectations, and create a college-wide shared responsibility for the student experience.
Howard Community College (Maryland) intends to use data-informed decision-making and evidence-based practices to set goals, track outcomes, and measure progress more effectively while leveraging the ATD Network’s emphasis on equity and inclusion to further its strategic priorities of closing achievement gaps and addressing disparities for historically underserved students.
Madera Community College (California) is looking to center equity and antiracism in its work, guide and empower students with educational and student support programs that foster student success, enhance community partnerships in order to meet workforce needs, and meet the needs of students, employees, and the wider community by improving resource management.
Midland College (Texas) aspires to embrace its role as a hub within its community by driving positive change and supporting regional prosperity through increasing data capacity and shifting campus culture to welcome data as a means of strengthening the community.
Phoenix College (Arizona) will work toward identifying ways to expand on initiatives that cultivate multicultural understanding and critical thinking skills and that provide personalized support, care, and learning experiences for low-income, nontraditional, first-generation, immigrant, and minoritized students, with an intentional focus on serving its Latino community.
Waubonsee Community College (Illinois) plans to increase its equity-minded approach, encourage asset-based framing for support and services, and re-envision and maximize its data capabilities by democratizing and disaggregating its data and effecting a cultural shift toward data-informed decision-making.
AEO Cohort
Arkansas State University-Newport (Arkansas) aspires to gain a better understanding of its students’ needs, develop and implement a holistic student life model to reduce barriers and engage students, provide high-impact growth and development opportunities, create sustainable supports to ensure success for rural and low-income students, and develop key performance indicators that are specific to the college.
Chippewa Valley Technical College (Wisconsin) will focus on incorporating the Guided Pathways framework across academic programs, integrate persistence and completion initiatives developed through data-informed course- and program-level improvement efforts, and ensure equitable participation in dual credit opportunities across the district.
Coconino Community College (Arizona) aims to improve retention, student engagement, and completion and to further study equity gaps in student success, paying particular attention to its Native American and Latinx populations, which compose more than half the student body.
Eastern Shore Community College (Virginia) intends to explore ways to empower students to improve their social and economic mobility and the vitality of their communities through a broad range of academic, career training, and personal enrichment initiatives while bolstering students’ sense of belonging.
Isothermal Community College (North Carolina) will enhance the ways it is addressing institutional, economic, and social barriers experienced by its students by enacting change across all aspects of the institution, with a particular focus on student success and holistic supports.
Riverland Community College (Minnesota) is looking forward to increasing its reliance on data and to networking with other rural institutions that serve a large percentage of diverse students in order to identify ways to provide better student supports and eliminate equity gaps.
Wor-Wic Community College (Maryland) seeks to implement data-driven work under action plans that are based on proven practices and successful model programs serving low-income and rural students as well as to learn about metrics and techniques that will best gauge the success of efforts to provide equitable access and services.