Georgia Gwinnett College

Successfully completing a Math course in the first year of college is a key indicator of future academic success. A provost-level task force—comprising representatives from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, the Academic Enhancement Center, and Academic Advising—will develop strategies for improving student success in gateway math courses. These strategies include revising course curricula and teaching practices to better engage students, increasing access to academic support services, and ensuring appropriate first-year math placement through advising. 

The EXACT Plan consolidates GGC’s existing experiential learning resources and practices, expands upon that campuswide inventory by fostering a culture of curricular practice, strengthens practices through focused faculty training that integrates ePortfolio and critical thinking pedagogies into GGC’s expanding experiential learning profile, and operationalizes strategies for ensuring access to all students. EXACT is the current Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) topic for GGC, initiated in FA24 with two 1000 level courses – ITEC 1001 & HIST 1112.

The early alert initiative is a collaborative effort across campus. There are particularly strong established connections among Advising Programs, Academic Schools, Residence Life, and Athletics that aim to identify and support students who might be experiencing challenges that could impact their academic success. This effort includes proactive monitoring, timely interventions, and personalized support early in the semester to enhance student success and retention.

The Holistic First-Year Experience program aims to support growth mindset and increase college knowledge among incoming first-year students. Specific interventions include summer on-boarding activities, First-Year Seminar GGC 1000 course with discipline-specific content, learning communities, ITEC 1001 EXACT (experiential learning and critical thinking) course, and Grizzly Peers for Success. 

As of Spring 2025, Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) at GGC continues to be an emerging effort as part of the College’s overall Learning Communities strategy. The LLC project at GGC continues to be driven primarily by the grant-funded STEM Living Learning Communities (LLCs) for the Information Technology (IT) and Health Science (HS) programs. The STEM LLC project has laid a foundation on which LLC expansion will be built in the coming academic year, as outlined below.

We aim to continue scaling first-year LCs so all new full-time first-year students enroll in an LC by an opt-out approach. Longer-term aims are to develop more Living-Learning Communities (see sub-strategy 1.b., below) and to add to the LCs more sections of the first-year seminar (GGC 1000), redesigned to include discipline-specific content that can align with Core IMPACTS.