Just as we take a deep breath and start to relax a bit from the big finish of the last academic year, we start planning for the next. Last summer, all divisions joined together to inaugurate Express Enrollment Days, which were a great success. Express Enrollment will continue this summer. Students obtain advisement and register well in advance of their classes so they can start ready to go from the very first day of classes. Coupled with the deadlines established a couple years back, these efforts to promote student success seem to be bearing fruit. Though it's still early days, we've seen tangible results on multiple underlying measures that suggest improvements in student completions are bubbling right below the surface. More students walking the stage at graduation is a very good thing: it translates into personal, professional, and economic benefits for our grads, all of which has an enormous multiplier effect in our community.
Our upcoming All College Day (August 29) will have student success and completion as its focus. We are honored to welcome Dr. Rod Risley,president of Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges, as our guest speaker. Dr. Risley will discuss the relationship between a college culture that sets high academic expectations and one that results in a strong graduation rate. We also anticipate that his keynote will address the significance of the college transfer mission in advancing college completion opportunities for our students. Given that the majority of our students select this path, it's especially important for MCC.
As we saw on commencement day, though, an increase in MCC graduates also has a multiplier effect for our graduation ceremony! Looking to next year, interim Vice President for Student Services Dick Ryther has offered to lead a group in rethinking the organization and format of our commencement celebration. Our goal will be to keep the focus where it should be--on our students and their accomplishments--while also being respectful of the time and attention limits of the many graduation participants. I encourage you to reach out to interim Vice President Ryther should you have suggestions--or post them on the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President's Office
06/12/2013 |