Dalton State College Campus Plan Update 2016

Institutional Mission and Student Body Profile

Dalton State College (DSC), according to its website,

. . . provides a diverse student population with opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to attain affordable baccalaureate degrees, associate degrees, and certificates and to reach their personal and professional goals. Through challenging academics and rich collegiate experiences, we promote lifelong learning, active leadership, and positive contributions in Northwest Georgia and beyond.

In pursuit of that goal, DSC offers targeted four-year and two-year degrees and career certificate programs, along with a wide variety of public service activities. The College’s work is strengthened by partnerships with regional businesses and industries, governments, and schools. DSC seeks to prepare and inspire its students to be active members within their professions and communities.

Dalton State College has expanded programs and maintained rigor in its academic programs, it maintains its status as one of the most affordable four-year colleges in the nation. For the sixth consecutive year, Dalton State has been named one of the most affordable public four-year colleges in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In January through May of 2016, stakeholders of DSC undertook a new three-year Strategic Plan that would guide the campus from 2016 to 2019. Two of the four themes of the Strategic Plan mirror the same overall goals as Complete College Georgia:  Student Success and Academic Excellence. 

DSC’s enrollment saw a steep increase during the aftermath of the 2008 recession (just below 6,000 students in Fall 2010), and then a steady decrease in the years afterward. However, the last four semesters have seen a relative stabilizing of enrollment at 4,854 (Fall 2014), 4496 (Spring 2015), 5044 (Fall 2015), and 4,620 (Spring 2016). Of these, 20.3% are adult learners (mean age of DSC students is 23, with the exact percentage of adult learners varying semester to semester). About 67% are first generation college students, and more than 70% are eligible for need-based aid (56% PELL recipients). The male/female ratio is 40.5%/59.5%. Further, 23.6% of students disclose themselves as being of Hispanic heritage and 4.2% as African American. We are an Emerging Hispanic Serving Institution. 63% of our students are pursuing a bachelor’s degree, 32% are seeking an associate’s degree, and the remainder are in certificate programs.

Therefore, a combination of demographic and socio-economic factors leads to a less-than-desired three-year graduation rate for associate’s degrees (8% for 2012 cohort) and six-year graduation rate for bachelor’s degrees (20.5% for 2009 cohort). The two-year graduation rate for associate degree students is 1.7% (2013 cohort), and the four-year rate for baccalaureate students is 8.3% (2012 cohort), indicating that when our students do finish their degree programs, it takes them longer. At the same time, the number of graduates each year has risen consistently. From 2015 to 2016 DSC saw a 4.4% rise in associate’s graduates (316 to 330) and a 7.7% rise in bachelor’s graduates (365 to 393). Although the six-year graduation rate for bachelor’s degree graduates is still quite low at 20.5%, it has risen to that number from 14.6% for the 2005 cohort. Part of this trend can be related to DSC’s growth as a baccalaureate institution and addition of several new four-year programs in the last ten years.

Equally promising is an upward trend in retention rates. The group starting in 2011 had a 60.8% one-year retention rate, but the group starting in Fall 2014 had a one-year retention rate of 73.7%. However, by the fourth year for the 2011 cohort, the retention rate had dropped to 36.8%. Interestingly, of all subpopulations, the students of Hispanic heritage are the most highly retained. Their four-year retention rate is 56.9%, just slightly below the system average (61.1%) and much higher than DSC’s overall four-year retention rate.

When the Complete College Georgia process was begun, DSC chose five goal areas:  intrusive advising through predictive analytics, increased dual enrollment offerings, transforming remediation through co-curricular courses (specifically in math), offering more online and hybrid courses and programs, and providing alternative instructional delivery methods. In choosing these five areas, DSC focused on areas where the largest gaps existed, for example, learning support math. This is not to say that Dalton State has overlooked other strategies. For example, several faculty members have adopted open educational resources, incentivized by the Affordable Learning Georgia grants. To date, through the first five rounds of grants, DSC faculty groups have received eight ALG grants, significantly reducing the costs of textbooks for our students.

Although co-curricular math has replaced the former learning support model, our choice of learning support English in 2010 as our QEP precluded our transition to co-curricular in English and reading; however, our QEP has been very successful, with increases from 50% to consistently well over 80% for first attempts at remedial English. On the other hand, some CCG strategies were not good fits for DSC. One CCG strategy for shortened time to degree, that of taking fifteen hours or more per semester, remains to be full explored and advocated, largely because more than one-third of DSC students attend part-time (2015 numbers) and have other responsibilities and work high numbers of hours per week. In general, however, retention, progression and graduation rates are slowly improving.

DSC’s Complete College Georgia plan is focused primarily on efforts to expand and/or enhance programs, services, and interventions that will provide additional support, flexibility, and options to help our students succeed. As will be outlined later in this report, we have sought to promote high impact learning practices inside and outside the classroom. In addition to the five goals CCG to which DSC committed at the outset, the College has also improved its First Year Experience course, sought to increase student engagement in curricular and co-curricular programs, restructured to offer better student and enrollment services, involved itself in national initiatives such as LEAP and High Impact Practices of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and pursued inclusion of more academic options that would allow students to complete their educational programs at DSC.

Institutional Completion Goals and Strategies (from Campus Plan Strategy Survey)

Goal 4 – Intrusive Advising -- Strategy 4.2 – Predictive analytics

The specific strategy for Goal 4.2 is to “use predictive analytics to help identify students who are off track.”  “Off track” can refer to students who have accumulated excessive hours or inapplicable hours toward graduation due to major changes; struggle to settle on a major; miss prerequisite courses at the appropriate times; perform inadequately in required course work and are placed on academic probation; and are not accepted into their first desired major (notably, but not exclusively, nursing).  Due to the complexities of this definition and the multiple factors involved in a student getting “off track,” intrusive advising, incorporating the use of predictive analytics, was seen as one way to address these students, although further research into the many reasons for lack of progression has also been undertaken.  Intrusive advising relies upon direct contact with the student in a capacity that probes student strengths, motivation and interests.  It reinforces the human element with one-on-one intervention. 

To clarify, DSC’s current model of advising is a hybrid where the advisors work in the academic Schools (Health Professions; Business; Liberal Arts; Science, Technology, and Mathematics; and Education). Students typically see one of the eight professional advisors for the first stage of their academic progress (from 15 to 60 hours, dependent on the school’s policy) and then move to a faculty advisor or in some cases a faculty mentor. The exception is STM, where the students stay with a professional advisor for four years and are assigned a faculty mentor in the junior year.

Strategy 4.2 notes the use of a predictive analytics tool to provide information that will facilitate advising conversations with all students, including those “off track” or struggling with decision-making. DSC has invested resources in improving advising to reach students. DSC requested and was approved for funds in our FY15 budget to join the Education Advisory Board’s (EAB) Student Success Collaborative, which included purchase and implementation of their predictive analytics software. The EAB platform provides advisors with relevant student data that is formatted to expedite and facilitate the advising conversation. The interface indicates risk levels of students in terms of likelihood of successfully completing their programs, the strength of the advisee in different academic areas, and likelihood of successful completion of courses. The EAB platform also provides recommendations and information about majors that are deemed a good fit for the student based on past academic behavior. Additionally, the EAB platform has an embedded career exploration database (drawing from Burning Glass data) and a variety of tools for advisors to contact students, conduct outreaches, keep notes, and store data. EAB is for advisors, and students do not have access to it. They do, however, have access to the degree auditing program DegreeWorks, which can also store notes from advisors.

Four relevant functionalities of EAB are its interface that gives an advisor the most relevant information about a student’s performance in a quickly accessed format, its ability to create a wide variety of data reports through its filters, its ability to provide administrators (usually deans and chairs) with robust, detailed data about student success in specific majors over periods of several years, and its assigning of a risk level to each student. While the first two features have been embraced by the users, the third has been a point of contention, since even after alterations to its risk assessment algorithm, 14% of our students are listed as high risk (and 22% in the STM disciplines). Also, the EAB platform does not provide risk levels for associate’s degree students, which means 42.6% of DSC students are not even assigned a risk level (these are largely health professions students, where 77% of the students are not assigned a risk level).

After initial training and follow-up, the first target was to increase utilization of the EAB platform. EAB provides monthly reports of utilization. To this point, the primary users of EAB have been the eight professional advisors assigned to the five academic schools.  Use of the platform is, of course, cyclical, with highest use during registration and pre-registration. Average logins peaked in March with 6.82 logins per user. This means that the average user (n=175) used it about seven times to advise students. Seeing that utilization was not as high as desired, the eight professional advisors were surveyed about their use of and attitudes toward EAB in April 2016.

Although the majority of advisors did use its functionalities on a regular basis, none of them strongly agreed with the statement, “I believe EAB contributes to the advising process in a way that affects student learning, retention, and progression.”  These survey results are in Appendix A. EAB has some limitations that affect advising work and are disincentives to advisors’ use of it:  its interfacing capabilities with BANNER, its inactivity timeout, its method of showing student transcripts and current class schedules (it does not show a schedule, just classes), and the perceptions about how its risk algorithm works. On the other hand, the EAB organization has provided good customer service to update the platform according to our needs, or to at least try to do so. For example, the risk algorithm was altered to fit our population better; originally far higher numbers of students were listed as high risk. The EAB platform also provides helpful filters and tools for data collection and targeting students for outreach campaigns. 

To summarize, then, the addition of EAB still requires some work to achieve useful implementation, and the Office of Academic Affairs took upon itself the task of more research and attention to the issue of advising in the big picture as well as in terms of a technological platform. Additionally, the Office of Enrollment Services engaged a consulting team from the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers to conduct a site visit and study our processes. AACRAO made several recommendations for processes to improve the student enrollment experience in general, as well as advising.

Because DSC enrolls a significant number of first generation college students (67%), addressing advising strategies was chosen as one of the targeted goals for our CCG campus plan strategy. According to recent research, first generation students do not, in general, understand the “hidden curriculum” of college—the “often confusing array of student support services” (Haskins, 2016). It became apparent to the Office of Academic Affairs that more information was needed about students and advising. In order to dig deeper into student understanding about and attitudes toward advising at Dalton State, the Office of Academic Affairs engaged SmartEvals to conduct an extensive advising survey with students in Spring 2016. Seventy-three percent of the 941 students taking the survey rated their satisfaction level with their advising experience as HIGH or VERY HIGH. The results did not indicate vast dissatisfaction with advising and actually were fairly positive, but the results did show some confusion and/or unhappiness on the part of students with processes, communication, and workflow and with their expectations of the proper role of advising. These survey results (found in Appendix B) will provide helpful information moving forward. 

The ultimate goal of advising is to lead students toward graduation and afterward toward a fulfilling career or further education. It was determined five years ago that DSC students had an excessive number of course withdrawals, so the College has put into practice some policies to discourage withdrawals such as earlier midterm grade deadlines for faculty and required faculty signatures on course withdrawal forms. Additionally, the College will pilot an Academic Alert system in the Fall and Spring 2016-7. The President also instituted a Student Success Committee in December 2015 to investigate data sources more closely. Early results from that Committee indicate that the sophomore year is a point of needed attention, because students are returning at the beginning of the sophomore year at satisfactory rates (about 70% for first-time, full-time freshmen, although lower for those needing learning support, attending part-time, or Pell-eligible) but not progressing to the junior year and beyond, as seen in a nearly 20% six-year graduation rate and 8.3% four-year rate for bachelor’s degree students. Two personnel attended the Institute on Sophomore Success in April 2015. These two persons (an advisor and an administrator) received a CCG Capacity grant to hold a symposium on DSC’s campus on the needs of second-year students in USG institutions.

One factor in retention is low GPAs, that are sometimes on the verge of causing the student to be placed on academic probation or suspension and lose financial aid. In Spring 2016, 433 out of 4580 (9.5%) students had a GPA of 1.99 of lower.  At the end of Fall 2015, 257 students were put on probation and 132 were put on suspension, a total of 7.8% of the enrollment that term. Policy changes regarding probation and suspension policy were made in Fall 2015 to help students navigate the process more seamlessly and restore themselves to a satisfactory GPA. However, some programs require GPAs much higher than 2.0, and thus students are unable to enter the programs they originally desired to pursue. This situation provides another challenge for retention and advising, that of reaching out to students to explore and change majors when the first choice major is not achieved. Nevertheless our students do change majors; data from past semesters shows many major changes (766 in Fall 2014, 508 and 618 for the 2015-2016 semesters, a downward trend). Intrusive advising is one answer to making major changes intentional, effective, and, hopefully, one-time.

Addressing academic progress in the first year is especially important. Of the cohort of 2014 full-time, first-time student, 11.9% were at a probationary GPA (less than 2.0) when they returned for the second year, 51.6% had a 3.0 or better. Unfortunately, research into DWF rates and reasons for W grades shows that the main reason for dropping a class is to protect GPA, usually to retain financial aid eligibility. DWF rates in general have dropped less than 19% for both 2015-2016 semesters, in response to a concerted effort to set midterm grades due dates earlier and to change withdrawal policies. The College is therefore reducing the DWF rate from 36% in Fall 2013 to 18% in Fall 2015; as with all the metrics under CCG, we are seeing slow but steady improvement through intentional and strategic action driven by a dedicated group of advisors.

To summarize activities in this area:

Narrative Overview Matrix

Goal 6 – Shorten Time to Degree -- Strategy 6.1 – Dual enrollment for high school students

For several years Dalton State has actively pursued increasing the number of high school students participating in dual enrollment, which serves to shorten time to degree. An earlier challenge with this strategy was the imbalance in funding established by the state, which penalized local high schools if their students were dually enrolled in an institution in the USG but not so if they were dually enrolled in a TCSG institution. In addition, USG academic standards for participation in dual enrollment exceeded those of the TCSG. The funding policy has since been revised; consequently, our dual enrollment numbers have begun to rise. The USG’s Move On When Ready (MOWR) initiative has been a driver for DSC’s dual enrollment success.

As the number of dual enrolled students increases, it is expected to have a larger impact on our overall completion time. Further, increased outreach activities with local high schools, including having DSC faculty visit high school classrooms, hosting high school class visits on campus, certifying high school teachers to teach some dual enrollment classes at their own schools, and having DSC faculty teach classes at the high schools have occurred. Many of the dual enrolled students attend classes on campus in contrast to the instructor visiting the high school. Also, the College offers assistance with completing financial aid applications and high school counselors are updated on programs, services, and activities available on campus. In Summer 2015 the Office of Enrollment Services hired a Coordinator for the Dual Enrollment program, with the goal of further outreach and growth in the program.

Due to these outreach activities, dual enrollment has greatly increased. In Fall 2015, 226 local students took 1879 total hours of dual enrollment credit. This represents an increase of 236% since Fall 2011, when the headcount was 98 and the enrolled credit was 799 hours. Spring 2016 saw an even greater number of 249 students and 2066 registered credit hours. Dalton State teaches dual enrollment students from eighteen local high schools and offers dual enrollment courses in five high schools. Courses in English, communication, math, science, history, social sciences, and foreign language are taught in the dual enrollment program. Dual enrollment is especially important to the College’s satellite campus in Gilmer County, where 23% of students (54/234) in Spring 2016 and 17% (42/244) of students in Fall 2015 were dual enrollment students.

Ideally, the increase in dual enrolled students should also be accompanied by a long-term increase in the number of those students who enroll at Dalton State and finish a credential. Of the 102 students who had been dual enrolled in the 2011-2012 AY, approximately 65% enrolled at Dalton State for their credential. This percentage dropped to 40.22% for the 179 students who were dual enrolled in 2014-2015 AY, but 53.5% (54/101) of graduating high school seniors in dual enrollment courses matriculated as DSC students in Fall 2015. Additionally, 31/37 (83.8%) of non-graduating high school students returned as dual enrolled students in Fall 2015. This represents a 61.6% retention rate for dual enrollment students. A slight rise in the average GPA of these students in their Dalton State classes, from 3.24 in Fall 2014 to 3.32 in Spring 2016 has also been observed. The College will continue to seek to increase the percentage of students who choose to attend Dalton State for their credential as well as increasing the number of dual-enrolled students. Dual enrolled students typically have many options for college, so the fact that almost 53.5% of some of the region’s best students are choosing Dalton State is encouraging.  Since MOWR students incur no tuition cost (including textbooks), there is great incentive for these students to attend DSC. 

Another substantial improvement has been seen in DSC’s granting of credit for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate work in high schools. The number of AP credits brought in by students increased almost tenfold over five years, from 47 in Fall 2010 to 437 in Fall 2014, and IB credits increased by three times between Fall 2011 (9) and Fall 2014 (27). Although CLEP tests are not utilized by recently graduated high school students only, the number of student credit hours granted by CLEP tests has increased from 216 in AY 2011-2012 to 958 in AY 2015-2016, a rise of 443%, thus allowing expedited graduation for many. PLA credit is another area for expedited graduation, but it has only been used to this point in a few isolated cases, such as for the eMajor program in Organizational Leadership.

To summarize, Dalton State’s involvement in dual enrollment has been successful and exceeded expectations at this time.

Narrative Overview Matrix

Goal 7 – Transforming Remediation -- Strategy 7.1 – Enroll students needing remediation in gateway collegiate courses in English and math with co-curricular learning support

Enrolling students in need of remediation in gateway collegiate courses with co-curricular learning support is an effort to improve first-time pass rates out of learning support and shorten time to degree without reducing the amount of instructional support needed to make up for learning deficits. Since students are limited as to other courses they are allowed to take prior to completing their learning support requirements, this strategy will make a significant impact on degree completion time. Dalton State has fully enacted co-curricular learning support for math and is making plans to do so for English and reading for Fall 2017.

It is not possible to implement this practice for English and reading at the present time because the SACS/COC Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), of which we are beginning Year Five, is focused on an alternative model for our learning support English classes. The QEP plan includes but is not limited to the following: Small class sizes (18 students), sections taught as learning communities with the First Year Experience class, computer-assisted writing assignments, dedicated faculty experienced and trained in needs of learning support students, and at least five visits to the Writing Lab. These changes increased the success rates for students exiting learning support English from 54% to 80% in just one year (AY 2013), gains which have been replicated in the following years. The changes in USG policy for state colleges in regard to learning support did cause a slight reduction to 77% from a high of 87% in the success rates in ENGL 0098 (AY 2015-2016). Specifically, some students who needed three learning support classes could be admitted beginning Fall 2015. This caused a spike in the number of students taking learning support English, from 125 to 236; therefore, the class enrolled a very different population than the previous years of the QEP. Last year, 47% (111/237) of our students in LS English would not have been admitted to the college at all in the previous years of the QEP.

The QEP has also led to higher pass rates in the English 1101 courses for those students who passed English 0098; in some semesters, the pass rates in English 1101 for those who benefited from the QEP’s changes in ENGL 0098 were higher than the normally admitted students, by as much as 14%.  Due to DSC’s commitment to the QEP until the end of AY 2016-2017, the state requirements regarding co-curricular learning support for English and reading will not begin until Fall 2017. In regard to the READ 0098 course, the course’s overall structure has not been changed during the time of the Complete College Plan, and with the acceptance of students with three learning supports, the enrollment numbers increased significantly in Fall 2015. Success rates in that class were 77.7% in Fall 2015 and 69.8% in Spring 2016. Reading 0098 will also be phased out to include a co-curricular plan for those with insufficient reading scores on placement testing.

After the QEP has finished its cycle in 2017, the English Department will move toward a co-curricular model similar to that of the Math Department, which is described below. However, the requirement of SACS/COC is that the QEP be sustainable after its completion; therefore, many of the key aspects, such as class size, required use of the Writing Lab, inclusion of writing assistant technologies will be retained.

Dalton State has finished its first phase of implementing co-curricular learning support in math for all three courses that satisfy the Area A Core Curriculum math requirement, 1001, 1101, and 1111. The process began three years ago when the USG offered special training for faculty in new models of math remediation. Faculty who attended the training returned to campus and began developing the necessary courses to implement the co-curricular model. In a co-curricular model, the students needing learning support take both the college level and the learning support class; if the student passes the college level course, they also receive a satisfactory (S) grade in the learning support. The new courses were approved through our Academic Programs Committee and implemented for the first time in Fall 2013. That year, the completion rates for the 0091/1001 co-curricular combination were 79% in Fall 2013 and 36.4% in Spring 2014; completion rates for the 0092/1101 co-curricular 65.2% and 55% in the same fall and spring. (The Spring 2014 numbers tend to be lower for developmental course success because these students are often repeaters who struggle academically in general and because there are much smaller numbers involved in the courses.) Completion rates for the co-curricular MATH 0091/1001 sections were 67% in Fall 2014 and increased to 80% in Spring 2015; completion rates for the MATH 0092/1101 sections were 62.5% and 69%, respectively. A total of 359 students were able to successfully complete the learning support course and benefit from this program in the two-year period.

The overall success rate for the co-curricular students in Fall 2015 was 63%, which is higher than the success rates for learning support math instruction prior to the institution of the co-curricular model. It should also be noted that the co-curricular learning support classes are taught using the emporium model of instruction. For each of the co-curricular support math courses, Math 0997, Math 0998, and Math 0999, a course has been set up online using MyLabsPlus through Pearson. The online course is set up to parallel the material covered in the co-curricular credit classes, Math 1001, Math2101, and Math 1111, offering tutorials, video, and PowerPoint instruction and additional homework practice. There is no formal face-to-face class instruction time for these support courses; however, a designated computer lab with 36 computers is open and staffed 55 hours per week along with the Math Lab to offer assistance to students with their work in these courses. The designated computer lab and the Math Lab are connected, and additional computers are also available in the Math Lab. Students' work and progress are monitored by an instructor who communicates regularly with students on satisfactory progression through the course material and addresses individual student questions.  To indicate the popularity of the Math Lab, during 2015-16, 973 students made 5636 visits to the Math Lab, totaling 10,0612 hours.  The number of visits represents a 16% increase over the previous year, and the total hours represent an 18% increase over the same previous year. 

In compliance with USG policy, in Fall 2015, the course formerly known as MATH 0098 (now MATH 0999) was paired with MATH 1111 (College Algebra), and the course numbers were changed on the co-curricular learning support courses to MATH 0997, 0998, and 0999. As mentioned above, also in Fall 2015, according to USG policy, DSC’s placement scores for learning support were lowered and some students needing learning support in three areas (reading, English, math) were admitted. It is projected that this will affect success rates somewhat in the next few years.  Academic support services (tutoring, supplemental instruction) are in place to meet these students’ academic needs.

Therefore, in the second year of full implementation (AY 2015-2016), success rates in co-curricular learning support mathematics were consistent and somewhat improved, despite the fact that the USG’s learning support policy was now permitting students to enroll who would not have been admitted in 2012-2014. In terms of students who were required to take both courses (that is, the learning support level students), the success rates in both classes were as follows:  MATH 1001, 61%; MATH 1101, 75%, and MATH 1111, 74%.  This means that the students who took both did significantly better than the overall group of freshmen math students. Success rates (A, B, or C) in MATH 1001 (18/35) were 51%; in MATH 1101 (181/284) were 63.7%; and in MATH 1111 (450/747), 60%. The co-curricular students benefited from being required to attend both classes.  According to data files provided by the USG, completion rates for learning support math students was 56.2% in Fall 2015 (145/258); however, these figures use the first time/full time IPEDS definition, so it may not include some students who had been previously registered at DSC.

To summarize this area:

Narrative Overview Matrix

Goal 8 – Restructure Instructional Delivery -- Strategy 8.1 – Expand completely online opportunities

As noted earlier, the majority of students at Dalton State are challenged by the need to juggle work, family, and school responsibilities. Expanding online opportunities offers students more flexibility and often enables them to enroll in an increased number of credit hours, as it eliminates the need to schedule time on campus. We began addressing this need in 2011 when we became an eCore affiliate in the USG.

To add to our success as an eCore affiliate, we offered to become the first institution to collaborate with other USG institutions in the development of a shared eMajor program. We were approved by the BOR to join the eMajor program in 2013, offering the B.S. in Organizational Leadership, for which we developed and are offering the concentration in Health Care Administration. The Organizational Leadership degree is specifically designed to be an adult completion degree with an entirely online format. In early 2015 DSC was approved to collaborate with Georgia Southwestern State University on an online Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice eMajor; later in the year DSC was approved to offer its own (non-collaborative) four-year degree in Health Information Management Systems, which will offer its upper-level coursework online in conjunction with eCore courses to create a fully online program. Upper-division courses for the Health Information Management Systems degree will begin in Fall 2016, and those for the eMajor B.S. in Criminal Justice began in Fall 2015. Enrollment in these programs has slowly increased; for example, the total enrollment for the B.S. in Organizational Leadership eMajor has grown from ten students in 2011 to eighty-one in 2016; currently twenty of those are Dalton State students, and there are a total of eighty Dalton State students taking courses in all eMajor programs. 

In addition, faculty are being encouraged to develop more completely online courses, especially those at the 3000 and 4000 level and those lower-division courses that are not available through eCore. We have been hampered in that regard because of loss of funding for our Instructional Technologist position in an earlier round of budget cuts. However, that position was restored in Spring 2015 and the position filled in July 2015. The individual who took the position has been able to offer enhanced training in online course development for our faculty. Interest among faculty appears to be increasing with new hires who are more comfortable in an online environment and with increased promotion, training, and support for online instruction. The college is now a member of Quality Matters as part of the University System of Georgia’s membership in that organization. Additionally, the campus’ Online Education Committee revised rubrics, approval processes, and registration processes for online courses to ensure quality and better student retention in those courses. Finally, beginning Fall 2015, faculty are being given the opportunity to apply for $1200 grants to develop new online and hybrid courses.

As an institution, there has been significant growth in the access students have to online and hybrid opportunities and how much they are taking advantage of them.  This chart summarizes the numbers in AY 2015-2016:

Duplicated headcount for all online and hybrid opportunities was 2337 in Fall 2015 and 2395 in Spring 2016. Overall, in Fall 2015, students had over 320 sections of online or hybrid courses available to them through our home-grown and collaborative programs, and in Spring 2016, over 390. For purposes of comparison, in Fall 2014, 695 students (duplicated) were enrolled in eCore or DSC online courses, but that number jumped to 901 in Fall 2015. Amounts of enrolled hours have grown accordingly. In terms of student success in courses, it is difficult to make exact comparisons because eCore classes are primarily freshmen and sophomore level and Dalton State’s traditional and online courses are taught at every level.  In Spring 2016, the average GPA for Dalton State students taking eCore classes was 2.57, while the average for DaltonStateOnline courses was 3.15.  The W rate for eCore classes was 2% below that of DaltonStateOnline courses (11.5% to 13.5%).  The overall GPA for all Dalton State students runs slightly below 3.0. All online and hybrid courses undergo the same assessment processes for SACS (formerly using a product called WEAVE, now using one called EFFECT) that involves validation of specific student learning outcomes in every class. 

The plan is for Dalton State to turn its attention to the development of upper division online courses in all disciplines. The School of Business is leading the way.. A survey conducted by the Online Education Committee showed the overwhelming desire of Dalton State students for more options in upper division courses. Although this format will not work for all subjects, more access to online courses should allow students more flexibility and expedite graduation for many over time.

Narrative Overview Matrix

Goal 8 – Restructure Instructional Delivery – Strategy 8.2 – Implement alternative delivery models

Alternative models of instructional delivery have been shown to increase student engagement and student success. Examples include online courses, hybrid (blended) courses, flipped classrooms, emporium model, and incorporation of interactive technologies and social media. Further, increased student engagement leads to decreased DWFs and improvements in student learning, which, in turn, promotes confidence, persistence, and increased likelihood of program completion. In 2010, Dalton State became a part of AASCU’s Red Balloon Project, focusing on redesigning undergraduate education; DSC launched a campus-wide, faculty-driven course redesign initiative in the 2011-2012 academic year. Combined with this desire to re-imagine classroom instructional activity to be less lecture based and more learning centered, the faculty and administration have learned what does and does not work well with DSC students.

With a new Director for our Center for Academic Excellence in Summer 2014, the college began a focus on “high impact practices” as defined by the AAC&U through their LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) initiative. Almost every event was related to incorporating the high impact practices into the classroom and curriculum. During the 2014-15 academic year and continuing into 2015-16, the CAE provided training and leadership in service learning, writing intensive classes, common readers, first year experience and freshmen year courses, internships, capstone courses, undergraduate research, collaborative learning projects, and global learning. Georgia became the thirteenth LEAP state on June 19, 2016, and by then our faculty had already subscribed by vote to the LEAP initiative.

The Office of Academic Affairs, with help from the Office of the Dean of Students, sent a team of five personnel to the AAC&U Institute on High Impact Practices in Los Angeles in Summer 2016. Selection for attendance was based on a competitive proposal process. In response to the College’s Strategic Plan, which specifies inclusion of high impact practices as one of the four strategic goals under the theme of Student Success, the team was able to construct a detailed action plan for the next four years of the College’s life which will result in multiple experiences of high impact practices for at least half of our graduates.   Essentially, high impact practices involve pedagogical practices high in engagement with faculty, in reflection and rigor, and in experiential learning.  The AAC&U designates ten high impact practices but also eight “quality matrices” or “key essential elements” that actually ensure the practices are “high impact.” Moving forward, DSC will not call a practice “high impact” unless it meets these criteria. Discussion about how courses will be designated “high impact” and how students will achieve this metric are ongoing, as well as how to make sure online classes are also high impact.

Innovations in pedagogy to expand experiential and engaged learning can be found over the campus. It would be impossible to list all of them here, so only a few relevant to this report will be included. In 2013 learning support math courses initiated an emporium model which has raised success rates to over two-thirds of enrolled students. Increasingly, students are being taught in hybrid/blended formats. In Fall 2015, 941 students participated in the first year experience course, which is now being expanded to include thematic courses. The Office of the Dean of Students directs a civic engagement program, and DSC has a growing international education program that enlisted 33 students and 8 faculty to participate in 8 different study abroad programs, with help from the DSC Foundation.

Another alternative strategy that has gained some traction nationally is that of the “flipped classroom,” where direct instruction through reading and video is done outside of class meetings and class time is used for active learning strategies. The Center for Academic Excellence has hosted workshops on this methodology, and several instructors in the STM disciplines and elsewhere have experimented with it. Preparation demands for the flipped classroom, such as creating instructional videos, are high, and student resistance is also an issue. To date, no consistent data has been collected on the effectiveness of “flipping the classroom.” However, the ASN program began a fully flipped classroom mode of instruction Fall 2014. This move was partially in response to lower-than-normal first-time pass rates of ASN graduates on the NCLEX (69% in Spring 2014). In Fall 2014, instructors were required to flip at least one lecture period, and by Fall 2015 all lectures were flipped. Data collection in terms of student evaluation of instructors (and thus satisfaction with the class experience) has been completed, but the most important data will be the first-time success rates of ASN graduates on the NCLEX in Summer 2016 (not available at this writing, but 2015 rates rose to 80%). Among other reasons, the ASN program was changed to a flipped classroom model in order to address the high content nature of the coursework and the increased emphasis on critical thinking on the NCLEX. (It should be noted that DSC’s success rates on licensure exams in Radiological Technology, Respiratory Technology, and Medical Lab Technology have been 100% for several years and counting, and the LPN rate is consistently around 95%.)

To summarize this area:

Narrative Overview Matrix

Observations

Beginning in the late 1990s, Dalton State College transitioned from a two-year college to a bachelor’s degree-granting institution. From that time to Spring 2016, the College has increased its four-year programs to a total of 22. Conversely, the number of associate’s degree programs has decreased to three pathways in the A.A. degree, seven pathways in the A.S. degree, five A.A.S. degrees, the associate of science degree in nursing (ASN), and three certificates in science and allied health fields. Therefore, the number of bachelor’s degree graduates has increased incrementally (e.g., 221 in AY 2010-11 to 367 in AY 2015-6) while numbers of associate’s degree graduates have slowly decreased (353 to 316, respectively). This trend is mirrored in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to underserved populations.

In terms of the categories of first-generation students (67%), military veterans (a rather small number, less than 30 in any given semester), part-time students (about 36%), minority students, Pell-eligible individuals (over half), and those 25 or older (about 20%), increases in the conferral of bachelor’s degrees has ranged from 400% (military) to 77% (first-generation) to 61% (Pell-eligible) to 60% (25+) to 41% (part-time) (from 2010-2015).  Six-year graduation rates for Pell-eligible individuals is 20.2%; for African-American students, 13.3%, for Hispanic students, 28.2%, and for those 25 and older at matriculation, 18.5%.  These figures stand in contrast and comparison to the overall 20.5% six-year graduation rate. At the same time, the decreases in conferral of associate’s degrees among these populations has not been as dramatic and actually has increased in the case of minority students and military veterans. These data indicate that DSC is serving the traditionally underserved populations rather well.

Based on the potential for DSC to become a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the near future and on the basis of the data about underserved populations, we project that our completion rates for underserved populations will increase slowly but steadily in the next five to ten years, specifically with Pell-eligible and minority students. Already our graduation rate for Hispanic students is much higher than the overall or for Caucasian students (20.4%). At least a 5% increase every year over the next five years in conferral of bachelor’s degrees to the underserved population is a reasonable expectation, since there has been a 15% (2014) and 16% (2015) increase in Pell-eligible students earning bachelor’s degrees since 2013. Additionally, a 73.5% increase (2014) and 25% increase (2015) in minority students earning bachelor’s degrees since 2013 has been observed. This trend may be attributed to three sources:  attempts to recruit and engage minority students, increased retention efforts, and the availability of more baccalaureate degrees.

Dalton State’s trend in increased numbers of bachelor’s graduates and decreased numbers of associate’s graduates (except in some health profession fields) is mirrored in the number of degrees completed in biology, chemistry, secondary science, pre-engineering, math, and health professions. By 2015, 27% of all graduates (associate’s, certificates, and bachelor’s) were in STM fields; however, the number of STM bachelor’s degrees conferred increased by 377% and the percentage of overall bachelor’s conferred in STM increased from 9.8 to 22.6%. The STM disciplines will continue to be a strong attraction for DSC students, with the 2014 dedication of a state-of-the-art science building (Peeples Hall), a strong undergraduate research program in the natural sciences, initiation of a new major (Bachelor of Applied Science in Scientific Technology) and a job market looking for STM and health profession graduates. We project that the growth in STM programs will steadily continue to 2020.

For many years, Dalton State has prided itself on being mission-driven, student-oriented, and rigorous. In the days of the system-wide Regents Exam, Dalton State enjoyed extremely high pass rates, and as a two-year institution, the College’s reputation for successful transfer students was stellar. The pass rates on health profession certification exams, such as in Radiological Technology, reach 100% regularly. However, a rigorous access institution often translates into high DWF rates if supports are not offered to students, and funding cuts and compression have stifled some of our ability to maintain the support. In DSC’s choices for strategy focuses for Complete College Georgia, we chose to target those areas where we could achieve the most reasonable but also worthwhile gains:  increased completion in courses and decreased DWF rates; improved and diversified instructional delivery, especially in learning support courses; increased opportunities for online and hybrid instruction; and increased outreach to local high school students who are ready for college work.

We will be developing an early alert system to help identify at-risk students. An array of options for students to achieve credit in alternative ways are offered along with three entirely online degree programs. Significant progress is being made in getting students through remediation faster without losing the needed instructional supports, along with investment in faculty development to improve the quality of classroom instruction. Improvements in DWF rates, fewer course withdrawals, higher GPAs, increased retention, and increased completion for four-year programs has been observed. As an institution on the cusp of being identified as an Hispanic Serving Institution, there is a concerted effort enroll more students who are still in high school, as well as continue to attract a diverse student population in terms of age and ethnicity.

One area of improvement being sought is student self-direction in advising.  Students who use DegreeWorks are able to take ownership of their progress, but many do not use it to its full effectiveness due to lack of training.  The Enrollment Services Office is engaging in a publicity initiative on campus to inform students on the use of DegreeWorks, and it is included in many first year experience courses. Improvement in the website to point students in the right direction with advising is currently being integrated. Students now have access to an online video to learn how to use DegreeWorks.  Handouts directing students to the video are distributed at orientation and are readily available in Enrollment Services.   Advisors have an established goal to teach students how to use the software. Students also seem to want further informational sessions about DegreeWorks, advising, other majors, career services, and related subjects. The College has invested in a position for a full-time director of career services so that more students can access these services, especially for internships. The College offers career fairs twice a year and a graduate school fair at least once a year.

Dalton State College’s main challenges continue to be economic and cultural. Despite the fact that DSC is a low-cost institution, many students cannot afford to attend or continue, even with financial aid. Over half of the students are Pell-eligible but still face financial gaps in funding their education. As noted earlier, many students lose Pell due to poor grades in the first year.  Geographically DSC is located in an area that historically has not placed a high value on education, especially post-secondary. Over 65% of our students are first-generation college students and many do not receive the level of support from home that they need to persist in their academic programs.

However, despite the challenges, the administration of Dalton State College is optimistic about these improvements and about our ability to navigate the challenges.

References

Haskins, J. (2016, May 6). Why first-generation students don't go to their advisors—and how to get them there. EAB Daily Briefing.