Skip to main content

MCC Daily Tribune Archive

MCC: A Student-Ready College


On Wednesday, April 13, the Budget Resource Committee (BRC) presented its 2015-16 report to President Kress and her Cabinet.  Reshaped with a sharper focus and structured to enhance faculty participation and increase efficiency (MCC Daily Tribune, 1/26/2016, “Middle States: Did you know…?”), the BRC welcomed the College’s leadership team for presentation of the committee’s charge, its process and the resulting recommendations.  The ensuing discussion was both robust and mutually engaging, with strong participation around the table.   

This year’s BRC aligned its work to support the Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) plan now under development, paying particular attention to student engagement best practices of the Academies Pathways model.

Titled, “MCC: A student-ready College,” the presentation highlighted the committee’s task to generate up to three recommendations that, when implemented, “will create enablers to support student recruitment, ease student on-boarding, foster early engagement, and positively impact student success.”  In support of the SEM plan goal to increase student retention by 1.3% to an overall first-time, full-time rate of 62% by the fall of 2017, here is a short overview of the BRC’s recommendations:

*  Recommendation #1: Invest an incremental $30,000 in summer faculty advising to ease student on-boarding and foster the early engagement that is crucial to student success.  The recommendation aligns with the AACC (American Association of Community Colleges) Pathways Initiative and supports this summer’s School Registration Days.

*  Recommendation #2: Reinstitute the Advising Key for certain targeted student populations to positively impact student success.  With the Banner PIN issue now resolved, one of the potential barriers to timely student registration has been eliminated. This recommendation seeks to minimize the risk that new barriers to retention and graduation might emerge as students attempt to navigate multiple sources (e.g., college catalog, degree works, academic program sheets, etc.) for determining the “right” courses and “right” sequencing for meeting program requirements.

*  Recommendation #3: Create a dedicated testing center to foster student success and build an opportunity to generate additional income for the college.  The recommendation addresses the need for a campus-wide make up exam test area and would provide space to proctor exams for both current and prospective students.  New revenues could be generated by offering exams to others in the community for a fee (e.g., TASC, the new GED, Pearson VUE, GRE, GMAT, etc.). 

The BRC believes that these recommendations are important next steps towards building the student-ready college.  We anticipate a response from the President’s team during the next month and will update you accordingly. 

A special thanks to the BRC committee members who dedicated their time, talent and passion to this important work. Attached is a list of your colleagues who served on this year’s committee as well as the full BRC presentation. 

Darrell Jachim-Moore and Mitchell Redlo
2015-16 Budget Resource Committee Co-Chairs
04/21/2016


Attachments:
icon BRC-2015-16Team.pdf
icon BRC-PresentationtoPresident13April2016FINAL.pdf