6. Students

Description | Appraisal | Projection | Exhibits

Description

Capital Community College provides its students with a wide range of organized services, including placement testing, admissions, financial aid, registration, orientation, advising, transfer counseling, career planning, and student activities. The College’s move to its new downtown facility provided an opportunity for a holistic organization of student services space. To offer one-stop enrollment, the following service centers are clustered on the building’s second floor: the Welcome Center and placement testing center, where students receive orientation and placement assessment; the offices of admission and enrollment services, where applicants become students; financial aid and business offices, where students manage their financial arrangements; and the offices of counseling and career planning, where students make key choices about their programs. On the seventh floor, adjacent to the cafeteria and the internet café, are the offices of the student activities organizations. A weekly bulletin (Exhibit 6.1) keeps students informed of available services and activities.

Admissions

In compliance with its mission, the College recruits, admits, and strives to ensure the success of a diverse student body that reflects the College’s service delivery area. The Admissions Office operates with a director, assistant director, and two clerical staff, who inform and assist students with their applications. The admissions process ensures equal access to educational opportunities by maintaining an open door policy for most programs of study. An admissions application, a small application fee, proof of high school or equivalency completion, and measles/rubella immunization documentation are required for admittance to most programs. Students may be required to prove residency and show green cards. Nursing and health careers programs have additional admission criteria. Whether in person, online, or by mail, the admissions process for degree and non-degree students is outlined in clear and simple steps in the college catalog, which is also available on the college website (Exhibit 6.2a). A description of recently admitted students is presented in the Registration Report (Exhibit 6.3).

The College, governed by policies of the Board of Trustees for Connecticut Community-Technical Colleges, assures compliance with Board policies concerning qualification for admission by collecting appropriate documents (as listed above) and by administering the Accuplacer basic skills placement tests (Exhibit 6.2b). The Accuplacer tests measure the skills of incoming students in four categories: reading comprehension, sentence skills, mathematics, and algebra. These standardized tests are supplemented by a writing sample. The results guide placement into relevant courses. Some students showing credit for previous college-level classes may be exempt from testing. Students entering selective admissions programs may have to complete additional steps to determine eligibility. These include a math calculations test for nursing students (Exhibit 6.4), an EMT Paramedic entrance exam for paramedic students (Exhibit 6.5), and an appraisal test for nurse aide students (Exhibit 6.6). The College admits special populations through such programs as High School Partnership, Tech Prep, ESL, and Senior Citizens, all of which are described in the College Catalog and website (Exhibit 6.2c). These groups are fully integrated into the student life of the College for academic as well as support services and extra-curricular activities.

Using placement test scores, counselors and academic advisors direct students to appropriate entry-level classes. Ninety percent of students are placed into developmental classes in reading, writing, or mathematics. The College offers courses at two levels of developmental math and writing and at one level of developmental reading. A second level of reading instruction is being initiated in the fall of 2006. Since so many entering students place into one or more developmental classes, the College offers many sections of these classes (for Spring 2006, 30 in English and 23 in math) to meet the needs of underprepared students. The Academic Success Center offers tutoring and computer assisted instruction to all students.

Retention and Graduation

The College is committed to seeing all of its students succeed. During the past year there has been an increase in retention rate after five years of minor fluctuations, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1—Retention Rates 2000-2005

Retention fluctuations can be attributed to several causes. Generational changes in the student body challenge Capital Community College. Larger numbers of students are coming to the College directly from local high schools, bringing habits and expectations that need to be reshaped if they are to succeed in college. Currently, 90% of entering students are unprepared for college-level work in at least one of the basic skills areas of r eading, writing, or mathematics. Additionally, the number of students with special needs has increased. Further, a high proportion of students work one or two jobs, severely constraining their time for study. Students carrying a combination of these burdens face major struggles in their attempts to succeed in college; they are at risk from the start. Recognizing these challenges, the College is committed to developing an environment that supports success for all students, and has undertaken several specific initiatives with this goal.

A recently completed five-year retention initiative was funded by a Title III grant whose objectives included improving support services, the use of technology, and the quality of instruction for potential and enrolled students. Activities included the development of the following: a College Success course; interdisciplinary learning communities; off campus internships; a Welcome Center; an electronic Early Alert System; systems for filing online forms for admission, financial aid, and registration; student orientations and workshops; and student learning assessment.

Currently, College faculty, staff and administration are working on an Achieving the Dream initiative, which focuses on performance, retention, and student engagement, working with the following three priorities:

1. Increase the percentage of new students who successfully complete the first developmental course by 5% and reduce performance gap of Hispanic and African American students by 5%.
2. Improve the term-to-term retention rate of minorities and other underrepresented groups in developmental and gateway courses by 5%.
3. Improve the first year experience by incorporating learning-centered teaching methodologies into the classroom with initial focus on first year developmental courses, expanding later to gatekeeper courses.

The number of students graduating from the College has remained relatively stable since 2002. Despite slight decreases in 2003 and 2004, the number of graduates rose in 2005 and stayed at a high level in 2006 as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2—Graduations 2002-2006

Graduation and other success rates are collected for all twelve colleges and posted on the systemwide website, where Capital Community College’s combined totals compare well with those of its sister colleges (Exhibit 6.7).

One effort to increase the number of graduates involves counseling to encourage the timely enrollment of students in degree or certificate programs. The counseling staff organizes a “What’s Your Major?” fair each spring to encourage early declaration of a major. For prospective graduates, counselors also run an annual Transfer Fair in the fall, and the Career Development office organizes several career fairs. When students clarify their majors, they become more able to make effective use of the College’s various efforts to support their progress towards graduation.

Eligibility for a degree requires that the student have a GPA of 2.0 or higher in all courses, whereas eligibility for a certificate requires a GPA of 2.0 in the courses that pertain to the certficate. P olicies governing the academic standing of students are clearly detailed in the Student Handbook as well as in the College Catalog, which also outlines graduation requirements (Exhibits 6.8a & 6.2d). Applications for graduation must be filed, with a small application fee, in the Counseling Center during the spring semester before the degree is awarded, and students must have fulfilled all financial obligations to the College. After graduation, the College mails a survey to all graduates, requesting comments about their experience at the College (Exhibit 6.9). This student satisfaction information is collected, analyzed and shared with the college community.

Committed to ensuring student success, the College monitors retention and graduation rates through BANNER extracts, which are studied by planning committees for identification of patterns that can suggest avenues for improvement.

Student Services

TheStudent Services Division helps students navigate from admissions through graduation. When a prospective student comes to the campus, entry to the network of student services is through the Welcome Center, which offers help with applications and information about financial aid, academic programs, college resources, and orientation programs. In the Welcome Center, student services meet academic services, especially through staff collaborations on the College Success course and some Academic Success Center initiatives.

For students whose incomes would otherwise prevent them from attending college, the Financial Aid Department offers information and support in arranging for a variety of aid opportunities in the form of grants, scholarships, work study, and loans. The office is staffed by a director, two associate directors, a secretary, and student workers. The Financial Aid Director and Associate Directors are members of state, regional, and national financial aid organizations, and they stay informed of developments in the field by attending professional workshops and conferences. The department makes its services available around the clock through the Banner student online system. The Financial Aid Guide, which is provided online and in brochure format (Exhibit 6.10), clearly outlines the step-by-step process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Students may file electronically and monitor their status at the College through the student BANNER online system. Workshops and personal assistance are also available on campus through the Financial Aid Office.

Financial Aid staff are responsible for reviewing applicant records, collecting documentation and determining aid awards. State and institutional grants, funds with limited institutional allocations, are monitored regularly to avoid overspending and to ensure that recipient criteria are met. Financial Aid staff post outside scholarship information for students, and those students interested in work study meet individually with a staff member to identify skills and determine placement into positions on and off campus. When grant aid is not available, students may be eligible for student loans. Those who accept this type of aid meet individually with a staff member to complete the loan application and obtain information on loan rights and responsibilities.

The Financial Aid Director, with staff assistance, prepares reports of aid expenditures to federal and state agencies. These include the yearly federal Fiscal Operations Report and Application to Participate (FISAP), a report on Pell Grant expenditures, reports on Federal Supplemental Opportunity Education Grant and Federal College Work Study Programs, and the state Connecticut Aid to Public College Students Grant Program Report on state grant expenditures.

Annually, the Director of Financial Aid evaluates and updates financial aid policies in accordance with relevant state and federal policies. Changes are guided partly by the results of student surveys and oversight from the Dean of Students. Financial aid records and procedures are audited bi-annually by state and federal auditors, and results are reported to the College and the Chancellor’s Office. The College has had no major audit findings in the past ten years. Monthly reports (Exhibit 6.11) indicate how many aid applications are received with yearly totals. These reports are used to determine a systematic award structure and to comply with annual changes made by government agencies. The reports also indicate how many aid applications were received electronically and how many students are using the online BANNER self-service option. Other reports can be produced to track awards and disbursements by recipients and aid type. Custom reports, based on financial aid applicant data, are also available. Results are used to assess many factors including the increase or decrease in aid applicants, the amount of aid disbursed, the utility of the online platform, the changes from year to year, and the effectiveness of the Financial Aid Department.

Registration of continuing students is a systematic process beginning with information on how to register in advance of the coming semester. The Enrollment Services Department informs students by mail about advance registration options, scheduling four registration periods throughout the year for in-person and web registration. Web registration is available 24 hours a day including weekends, and information about its use is posted through the “online registration” link from the Student Services webpage (Exhibit 6.12). Continuing students may enroll in classes during advance registration periods (mid November for the spring term, mid April for the fall), during open enrollment (in the weeks prior to each semester), or during final enrollment (two weeks beginning with the first week of classes). The Enrollment Services Office notifies students by phone calls and flyers to keep them informed of their registration status and responsibilities.

Many documents are stored in each student’s file including admissions application, high school transcript or diploma, immunization records, acceptance letters, transcripts from other institutions, requests for transfer evaluation, and many others. The College complies with mandates from the Connecticut Department of Higher Education concerning the retention life of each document (Exhibit 6.13). The records themselves are kept in a separate file room in fire-proof cabinets. The door is locked each evening.

The Counseling Center offers guidance through any part of the student’s progress into and through the College. Staffed by a secretary and three counselors, one of whom serves as director, the Center works with students on program planning, interpretation of placement scores, transfer planning, personal growth and crisis issues, study skills intervention, graduation preparation, and understanding of the policies and procedures that affect college life. One member of the counseling staff is trained to advise students with special needs. The Student Handbook informs students of their rights and responsibilities (Exhibit 6.8b), and supplemental brochures (Exhibit 6.14) offer advice on various aspects of students’ academic progress.

The Counseling Center conducts workshops in study skills, time management, test anxiety, and life skills, as well as nursing information sessions that are spread throughout the year. The counseling staff provides guidance and advocacy for students with learning disabilities and other special needs. A designated counselor works with students who have served in the military, tracks their academic progress, and certifies their enrollment each semester to the Veterans Administration. Counselors work closely with faculty as liaisons to all academic departments, where they provide input on course scheduling, training for faculty advisors, and coordinating workshops for students.

Capital Community College students usually hold jobs as they pursue their college programs, and many hope that their education will broaden their job prospects. The Career Center focuses those possibilities. The Center offers students a place to congregate, to work on cover letters and resumes, to establish employment portfolios, to conduct assessment activities, to call employers or fax resumes, to view instructional videotapes, and to practice interviewing. The Career Center, staffed by a director and student workers, collaborates with the Business and Office Technology Department to establish internships with local employers. The Career Center organizes job fairs on a regular basis, and maintains an active website of job postings and job search guidance (Exhibit 6.15).

The Student Activities Department organizes co-curricular activities to support the breadth of students’ interests. In recent years, clubs have included student chapters of national organizations, honorary societies, clubs developed from majors, game clubs, men’s groups and women’s groups, and clubs for the study of ethnic interests. The clubs have staff advisors, and many engage in community service projects, some of which lead to awards in an annual statewide recognition ceremony. The club presidents, along with other officers and club advisors, meet regularly in a Council of Presidents’ meeting to coordinate calendars and community resources. An active student government organizes events such as a fall dinner-dance and a local spring outing in conjunction with other colleges. Another collaboration among community colleges enables students at the College to participate in leadership training with outside consultants. With the University of Hartford, the College shares a campus minister who conducts a weekly Bible study group as well as counseling drop-ins.

All Student Services departments survey students regarding customer service using an instrument developed by the Office of Institutional Research. It is a paper survey with some universal questions covering all services and several questions that are tailored to a particular office (Exhibit 6.16). The Welcome Center coordinates staff workshops on customer service, responding to survey results. The Career Services Office also engages in regular surveys of students and employers, using responses to update policies and practices (Exhibit 6.17).

Appraisal

Over the past four years, the College has seen a consistent increase in enrollment. (For details, see Data Form 5.) This may be attributed in large part to the move to an attractive downtown campus, which increased the College’s visibility. In addition, the hiring of an assistant admissions director in 2002 made possible expanded recruitment and outreach activities. Through open houses and coordinated outreach to two area high schools, student services staff have opened doors to additional area students.

As enrollment rises, so do staff and student use of technology connected to admissions, registration, financial aid, retention, tutoring, and grade records. The increase in technology mitigates some of the strain on services resulting from increased enrollment. It also brings challenges for technological support. The Welcome Center offers the first station of assistance to students and follows up with orientation sessions and technology workshops for online registration and financial aid application. However, inquiries and technological tangles continue to strain both technological support and staffing levels.

Since its inception in 2001 , the Welcome Center has become a central asset in the College’s retention efforts. Its presence has led to higher admissions yields, increased percentage of students applying for financial aid using FASFA on the web, enhanced new student orientation and participation, and improved telephone and directory services. The Welcome Center’s primary challenge is keeping up with the demands of its own success. The current part-time assistant position needs to be upgraded to a full-time permanent position for a Spanish-speaking person. As the Early Alert program grows, current staff struggle to follow through with retention counseling.

In response to assessment surveys, the Welcome Center has been able to improve its services. Customer service training at the Welcome Center desk has reduced complaints regarding misinformation or lack of information. In addition, the college receptionist has been moved from the lobby to the Welcome Center, eliciting applause from external and internal customers.

While the College enrolls a cross-section of ethnic groups, African-American and Latino males represent the lowest enrolled group. Many programs such as Nursing, Early Childhood Education, Medical Assisting, Business Office Technology, and Library Science, attract more female students than male. Although the EMT-Paramedic and Radiologic Technology programs attract male students, these are special admissions programs that admit a limited number of students per semester. Further, the lack of sports and physical education facilities diminishes the appeal of the College for some young male students.

Health careers programs, particularly Nursing and Radiologic Technology, continue to attract far more qualified applicants than there are openings. Scarcity of nursing faculty and of clinical sites contribute to the College’s inability to meet the full student and labor market need for nursing education. For prospective and matriculated nursing students, the Counseling Center has developed a successful model for concentrating a variety of student services. However, as interest and enrollment in the Nursing Program have grown, personnel resources have not increased to meet the demand. The retirement in 2005 of the designated nursing counselor, along with the end of funding for the half-time nursing counselor, created a void in this area.

The Counseling Center has grown in its transfer counseling capabilities, assisted by the formalization of new articulation agreements (Guaranteed Admission Program with UCONN, Teaching Pathway to CCSU, Bachelor of General Studies at UCONN, Business Administration Transfer Pathway to UCONN). These services help to recruit and retain students. However, the Counseling Center is not able to concentrate on addressing student development and support issues because it has become an extension of the registration/admissions component of the College, disrupting the natural alignment of counseling with academic support for students.

Currently, the Director of Counseling carries the caseload of special needs students. Directing the busy Counseling Center takes time from constructive focus on the services required by this rapidly growing student population.

The Enrollment Services Office, through extended web registration periods, workshops, and hands-on instruction, has made progress in demonstrating to students the convenience and efficiency of online registration. One pitfall has been the necessity to rely on postal mail to contact students, whose addresses change frequently, with the result that many students fail to meet filing deadlines for state and institutional awards. Limited state and institutional funds are available on a first come first served basis, making early applications crucial. The College needs wider computer access for students who do not own computers at home.

Students who have used the Career Center have given overwhelmingly positive responses on a survey of customer satisfaction since 1995 (Exhibit 6.17). Since this office is customer focused and responsive to the immediate needs of students, other functions, including planning and innovation, have to be deferred. For many students, psycho-social issues are obstacles to academic retention or job placement, and their needs call for case management in addition to the traditional services provided by the Career Center. Further, resumes are now required for all work-study jobs at the College, and the growing internship programs sharpen the focus on resumes and interview preparation, thereby increasing demand for Career Center services. The Center was designed with the idea that staff would increase along with space in the new campus. The workload has increased, but the staffing has remained constant.

Student service offices post information for students and other members of the community on webpages linked by office name through the College website (Exhibit 6.18). These webpages were established with the help of a part-time webmaster who has been retired for over a year, with the result that many web pages have not been updated or repaired. This inhibits communication with students.

The Student Activities Office has been successful in organizing student energies toward traditional activities and in shaping new interests (e.g., a film-maker’s club, activities pairing students with staff in recreational sports). However, in the move downtown, a planned fitness center was displaced by the bookstore, and the College lost access to the gymnasium where the basketball team practiced and participated with distinction in its league. Students express a strong interest in intramural and competitive sports, and the loss of the College basketball team may affect retention as well as transfer eligibility. Coordination of student activities is also hindered by lack of staff and lack of a weekly open hour dedicated to co-curricular activities.

Projection

Building on recent successes, the College will continue to fund open houses, Welcome Center interactions with high schools, transfer fairs, and career fairs, providing institutional support to the staff engaged in organizing them. In the current strategic planning design, the College is including the following support for frontload services to lay the groundwork for student success.

• To support student use of technology for online registration and application for financial aid, the College has recently hired a BANNER specialist who will provide navigation training and support for all who need access to Internet Native BANNER.
• The systemwide office has promised implementation of student email accounts within the coming year. The system will provide each student with college email addresses, a service that will accomplish the following goals: facilitate contact with students whose addresses and phone numbers change frequently; simplify the financial aid process; provide a common communication line for professors and other administrative departments; and stem attrition due to a lack of communication.
• The College is reviewing ways to incorporate the position of Assistant Director of the Welcome Center (formerly grant supported) into the regular College budget.
• College management has established the following priority ranking for new positions over the next two years: 1) Retention Specialist, 2) Career Planning Job Specialist, 3) Admissions Outreach Position.

Responding to demand, the College has developed new programs in Communication Media, Criminal Justice, and Computer Support Specialist, and is working on an Entrepreneurship Certificate. These programs will be marketed to all prospective students, with a special emphasis on attracting more male students.

The part-time webmaster is working over the summer of 2006 with a team of college personnel to update key webpages needed for student services communications. The Student Activities Director continues to the work toward return of the space designated for a student fitness center and for the restoration of competitive and intramural sports at the College. College management has committed to renovating space on the seventh floor, redesigning it as a student union.

Exhibits

• 6.1 Capital Bulletin
• 6.2 College Catalog 2005-06
  a. Admissions procedures, pp 18-19
  b. Accuplacer information, pp 32
  c. Special populations: High School Partnership, Tech Prep, ESL, and Senior Citizens, pp 20, 38, 49, 52
  d. Graduation requirements, pp 29-31
• 6.3 Enrollment summary
• 6.4 Math Calculations Test (Available in the Document Room)
• 6.5 EMT Paramedic entrance exam (Available in the Document Room)
• 6.6 Nurse Aid appraisal (Available in the Document Room)
• 6.7 Student Right to Know
• 6.8 Student Handbook 2005-06
  a. Graduation requirements, pp 77-79
  b. Student rights and responsibilities, pp 89-95
• 6.9 Graduation Survey
• 6.10 Financial Aid Guide
• 6.11 Monthly financial aid application reports
• 6.12 Online registration information
• 6.13 DHE document retention mandate
• 6.14 Brochures on academic progress
• 6.15 Career Center website
• 6.16 Student Services Customer Service Survey
• 6.17 Career Center Survey of Customer Satisfaction
• 6.18 College website