East Georgia State College Campus Plan Update 2016

Fall 2016 New Freshmen

Augusta

Statesboro

Swainsboro

Full-time

83.6%

90.8%

93.2%

Part-time

16.4%

9.2%

6.8%

SAT Average Math Score

443

429

421

SAT Average Verbal Score

452

442

423

Learning Support (LS)

Require Math LS

43.6%

31.4%

39.0%

Require English LS

14.9%

17.1%

22.9%

Require Reading LS

1.0%

1.1%

0.4%

High-Impact Strategies

Increase in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded to low income students (Pell eligible students)

Increase in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded to first generation college students

Related CCG Goal

Goal 1: Increase in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded by USG institutions.

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

Since over half of East Georgia State College’s first-year students are Pell recipients and over a third are first-generation college students, any initiative targeting students in general will greatly impact the number of undergraduate degrees for low-income and first generation students.  In order to increase the number of undergraduate degrees, the College will provide a range of academic support services to remove obstacles and provide clear pathways to college completion.  The success of students will lead to retention, progression, and graduation of the student.  The cornerstone of this strategy is the Academic Center for Excellence (ACE) and the academic services (academic advising, tutoring, and testing) provided to the student to contribute to their success. 

Over the last five academic years, 60% of students who graduated from EGSC received Pell grants. This percentage is consistent with EGSC’s overall student population. In addition, 38% of EGSC graduates were the first in their families attend college (first generation). 28% of graduates both received Pell grants and were first generation students. It is consistent with the EGSC’s mission as an access college that more than half of EGSC’s students have low incomes and that over one-third are first generation students,

Primary Point of Contact

Name Dr. Tim Goodman

Title Vice President for Academic Affairs

Email goodman@ega.edu

Summary of Activities

Since Fall Semester 2012, EGSC has provided variety of academic support services in its Academic Center of Excellence (ACE), with a focus on tutoring and advisement.

Basic activities are:

·       Increase student usage of tutoring and academic advising services in the Academic Center for Excellence (ACE).

·       Progress:  The utilization of the ACE services has increased in the 2015-2016 academic year.

·       Refine the Early Warning System and integrate it into the academic services of the ACE. 

·       Progress:  Purchased and began utilization of the GradesFirst software package to integrate the advising and tutoring services.

·       Develop a variety of graduation focused activities to increase awareness of the value of an associate degree.

Progress:  The college has developed the (g2)2 program, a “15-to-Finish” program, and is active in the USG A.D.D. initiative, a reverse transfer initiative.

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The utilization of the academic resources and the success of students is the general metric used to measure the progress and success of the activities.

Course success rates are defined as the percentage of students earning a grade of “C” or better in individual courses, in specific delivery modes and programs, and overall.

Baseline measures

The academic year 2011-2012 (FY 12) served as our baseline year for Complete College Georgia (CCG).  The College set 2020 goals based on a specific CCG measures presented in Table 2 below compares baseline CCG metrics with the most recent results for the College.

Table 2: EGSC CCG Baseline Metrics Compared to Most Recent Results

*Includes 3 Bachelor of Science in Biology graduates.

Table 2 above shows the five chosen measures and the baseline data for each.  In addition, it shows the goal set by the campus Complete Georgia team based on that data.  It also gives the most recent results for those measures. Table A1 in the Appendix lists EGSC associate degrees earned from the 2012 through 2016 academic years. For the period Summer 2012 through Fall 2015, Table A2 lists the number of bachelor degrees awarded by Georgia Southern University and Table A3 lists the number of bachelor degrees awarded by other USG institutions to former EGSC students. All three tables breakdown the degrees awarded by gender and ethnicity.

This baseline data has been expanded to include success rates for selected gateway courses, learning support courses, and courses delivered in the online format.  The table shows the baseline for success rates in locally-developed gateway courses, learning support, and online-delivered courses.

The success-rate goal was set at 70% for all listed classes.

At the beginning of the CCG activities, the Academic Center for Excellence and the Academic Advising Centers did not exist.  The development of a Learning Commons model, which included academic services (tutoring, testing, advising, and library services), was developed with an Academic Center for Excellence (tutoring and testing), an Academic Advising Center, and the Library all located in close proximity of each other.

During FY 2012, the rate of returning student early registration was less than 30%.  This made official Registration day a major challenge.  Our goal is to increase the advisement/pre-registration rate to over 50%. 

Interim Measures of Progress

As noted above, the success rates of students will be our measure of progress toward goals.  Table 2 list the overall success rates and those for selected gateway courses, learning support courses and courses delivered online are given for the base Fall 2011 and for Fall 2015. Table A4 in the Appendix includes the intervening fall and spring semesters through Spring Semester 2016.

Table 2: Fall Semesters 2011/2015 Success Rate Comparisons

Table 3 shows the usage of the Academic Centers for Excellence (ACE) for 2015-2016.  The number of student visits for tutoring increased from 2014-2015.

Table 3:  Academic Centers for Excellence Usage and Student Success Rates

The success rates, especially those associated with the Swainsboro ACE, are not good.  In the 2014-2015 year, the success rates in Swainsboro were 71.9% in Fall 2014 and 66.4% in Spring 2015 and in Statesboro were 76.2% in Fall 2014 and 73.0% in Spring 2015.  A change in leadership in the ACE, a significant increase in the number of student visits and usage without a corresponding increase in the tutoring staff, and difficulties in finding and funding an adequate number of qualified tutors were projected reasons for the decline.  

Another activity in the Learning Commons is academic advisement.  We indicated our goal was to advise at least 50% of our students for returning the next term.  This is to reduce the number of students we must handle on registration day and also to give our academic administrators an early warning of course scheduling and personnel resources issues.  Table 4 below gives a breakdown for the 2015-16 academic year of how many students are going to the advising centers on each campus and the overall impact of their presence on the percentage of students who register for the next term.

Table 4: AY 2015-16 Student Advisement and Registration

Measures of Success

Our goal for all success rates is a minimum of 70%.  We have made steady, but not dramatic progress toward that goal.  We project reaching that goal in Fall 2020.   The EGSC Strategic Tactical Action Plan set annual minimum goals for success rates at 55% by Fall 2017, 60% by Fall 2018, and 65% by Fall 2019 to reach the 70% goal by Fall 2020.

Lessons Learned

We have identified a need in the Academic Centers for Excellence for qualified tutors.  We currently must use work-study students as a source of the majority of our tutors.  We must move to a process to hire more and better qualified tutors.

We have become part of the John N. Gardner Institute Gateways to Completion (G2C) Initiative and have identified Math 1111 as our gateway course.  It is our hope that the program will increase our success rate in Math 1111, which has been identified as one of the major barriers to student success, progression, and graduation.  

High-Impact Strategies

Change institutional culture to emphasize taking full-time course loads (15 or more credits per semester) to earn degrees “on time.”

Materials or information on taking 15 credits or more included in orientation for new students

Advisors trained to encourage students taking 15 or more credits a semester

Related CCG Goal

Goal 2: Increase the number of degrees that are earned "on-time" (associate degrees in 2 years, bachelor's degrees in 4 years).

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

East Georgia State College developed a (g2)² program or “Get to Graduation in Two Years,” which is a “15-to-Finish” program. The program has inspired growing numbers of students to graduate on time and thus increase EGCS two-year and three-year graduation rates. The program has changed the culture on the campus so that students see the value in completing a degree in two years. The Academic Advising Center has strongly promoted the program.

Primary Point of Contact

Dr. Tim Goodman

Title Vice President for Academic Affairs

Email goodman@ega.edu

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The program has been assessed by using the graduation data to determine the number of graduates who graduate in two years and three years, as well as tracking the institutional three-year graduation rates. In addition, the number of hours necessary to complete the degree will be tracked.

Baseline measures

The Fall 2011 cohort provided our baseline data for CCG.  As indicated in a previous section, the three-year graduation rate was 5.8%.  The first year of CCG we evaluated the Fall 2012-Summer 2012 graduates.   We had a total of 173 graduates with 8.1% finishing their degree in two years and 24.9% completing their degree in three years.  It took those students an average of 73.0 hours completed before graduation.

Interim Measures of Progress

Table 5 below tracks the total graduation rate since the Fall 2008 cohort.  Note the increase as we began to focus on graduation for the Fall 2012 entering cohort. 

Table 5: Fall Freshman Cohort Graduation Rates

The number of hours a student must take to graduate is 65 hours.  As can be seen Table 6 below, EGSC has slowly begun to reduce the number of hours taken to graduate, an indication of a much more efficient program and better advisement.

Table 6: Average Number of Hours Taken To Graduate

Our CCG graduation goal was to produce an average of 207 graduates a year between 2012 and 2020.  As can be seen by the Table 7 below, the number of graduates has surpassed that number for three consecutive years.

*Two-Year Graduates

The average number of graduates in an academic year increased to 252 per year for the last four years.  Table 7 also shows the increase in the number of students graduating in 2 years and 3 years.

Measures of Success

The measurement of success will be the increase in the graduation rate and the number of graduates.  Our target date for Complete College Georgia is 2020.  We anticipate continued growth in our graduation rate to reach our 20% goal by 2020.

Lessons Learned

We began looking at barriers to graduation.  One barrier identified was hours taken outside of the core.  We studied our core and decided to change our core and take the Student Success class from outside the core and move it to Area B.  In order to complete this adjustment we had to re-write the course and change it to a freshman-year experience course in order to get approval from the Council on General Education.  At the same time we merged the new course with our critical thinking course and produced CATS 1101 for the core curriculum.  This reduced the number of hours to graduate from 65 to 64.

We find our greatest challenge promoting graduation is to change the culture on campus.  We have a transfer culture which must be changed to a graduation culture.  We must promote the value of completing an associate degree.  We do this with the (g2)² program and the A.D.D. Initiative. 

High-Impact Strategies

·       Students are informed upon transfer of the possibility of receiving a degree through reverse transfer.

·       Institution has a process for contacting students identified as potentially eligible for reverse transfer.

Related CCG Goal

Goal 5: Award degrees to students who may have already met requirements for associate degrees via courses taken at one or more institutions.

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

Through the through the A.D.D. (Associate Degree you Deserve) Reverse Transfer Initiative funded by the Lumina Foundation, USG institutions are able to increase the number of Georgia citizens with post-secondary degrees and helping to create a more educated population in the state. Students receiving a degree through the Reverse Transfer Initiative value the education received at the institution and are able to make a greater impact on our service area and fulfilling the institutional mission of awarding degrees to students who would not otherwise complete a degree. Additionally, research studies have proven that students obtaining an Associate’s Degree are more likely to complete higher-level degrees.

Primary Point of Contact

Tabithia Ross

Registrar

ross@ega.edu

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The institution is using the “RT” outcome status in the degree record to identify students receiving degrees through the Reverse Transfer Initiative. This tracking mechanism allows us to see what percentage of the students transferring to four-year institutions are actually sending their four-year institution credits back for degree conferral.

Baseline measures

Before the A.D.D. Program was implemented, we did not have a way of tracking the degree conferral of reverse transfer students.

Interim Measures of Progress

Beginning in the Spring Semester 2016, we began using the “RT” (Reverse Transfer) outcome status for the degree conferral in EGSC’s Banner Student Information System. The initial outcome has been overwhelmingly positive with 61 reverse transfer associate degrees awarded for an overall total of 211 degrees awarded for the semester. These included 59 Georgia Southern University (GSU) and 2 Augusta University (AU) students. The addition of the Reverse Transfer degree conferrals resulted in a 43% increase in graduates over the previous spring semester. During Summer Semester 2016, EGSC received student transcripts from Columbus State University, Georgia Gwinnett College, and Georgia College in addition to more transcripts received from AU and GSU.

Measures of Success

The overall increase in the number of graduates and the graduation rate of the institution will indicate the success of the strategy. With an expected stabilization of the Reverse Transfer program throughout the next academic year, the institution would be able to gauge a better idea of a success of the strategy following the spring 2017 semester or by mid-term of the summer 2017 semester.

Lessons Learned

With the increased processing necessary to evaluate Reverse Transfer transcripts and auditing of student’s academic history for potential degree conferral, human resources have become the biggest factor in the overall success of the initiative. The anticipated stabilization will allow for more structured processing times in the course of a semester allowing for a better time management strategy in relation to the RT initiative.

High-Impact Strategies

·       Participate in dual enrollment/Move On When Ready programs for high school students.

Related CCG Goal

Goal 6: Shorten time to degree completion through programs that allow students to earn college credit while still in high school and by awarding credit for prior learning that is verified by appropriate assessment.

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

As an access institution within the USG, EGSC seeks to expand post-secondary opportunities in its Southeast Georgia service area. Since more than one-third of its students are first generation college students, the College encourages high school students to take college-level courses on EGSC campuses and on location at area high schools. 

Primary Point of Contact

Brandy Murphy

Coordinator of MOWR

bmurphy@ega.edu

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The metrics EGSC is using to assess the outcome of its MOWR strategy include the number of high school students who take college-level courses and their success in completing those courses.

Baseline measures

In Fall Semester 2011, prior to the launching of Complete College Georgia, EGSC had 17 duel enrollment/MOWR students and did not schedule courses in any area high schools.

Interim Measures of Progress

As documented in Table 8 below, EGSC has dramatically increased the number of high school students who are taking college-level courses. In addition, the College has classes scheduled in 6 area high schools in Fall Semester 2016.

Table 8: Annual Growth of MOWR Program

Measures of Success

Table 9 below documents a close correspondence between high school GPA and the success of MOWR students in EGSC college level courses.

Table 9: MOWR Student High School GPA and College Course Average Grades

Lessons Learned

As evident in Table 8 above, the College’s MOWR program has grown dramatically over the past two academic years. To assure continued success of this program. EGSC has dedicated a full-time staff member with several years of experience in admissions to serve as coordinator of the MOWR program.

High-Impact Strategies

Ensure that all remediation is targeted toward supporting students in the skills they need to pass the collegiate course.

Related CCG Goal

Goal 7: Increase the likelihood of degree completion by transforming the way that remediation is accomplished.

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

As an access institution, 35% of EGSC’s student population typically needs learning support in mathematics and 20% needs learning support in English. 

Primary Point of Contact

Dr. Jimmy Wedincamp

Dean of the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Wedincamp@ega.edu

Dr. Carmine Palumbo

Dean of the School of Humanities

cpalumbo@ega.edu

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The metric used is success rate (i.e. final grade of “C” or better in ENGL 1101: Composition I).

Success Rates as defined by number of students that make an A, B or C divided by the total number of students. A grade of D, F or W is considered an unsuccessful attempt.

Baseline measures

Because the corequisite model of learning support was a new program, the prior success rates were not applicable.  The corequisite program in English and mathematics began on two campuses (Swainsboro and Augusta) in fall of 2014 and was expanded to the third campus (Statesboro) in fall 2015.  The alternative pathways model in mathematics has been employed since the beginning of the Complete College Georgia initiative.

Interim Measures of Progress

We have used the co-requisite model in English and the co-requisite and alternative pathway models in mathematics.  Preliminary results of our utilization of the co-requisite model for learning support English and math showed great success in the learning support English, but not good success in the math as shown in Table 10 below.  The math co-requisite is doing better this year, but has a ways to go.  The alternative pathway through mathematics, Math 1001, shows promise and should grow as our academic advisors begin to promote the course. 

Table 10: Learning Support Redesign Models

Measures of Success

For remediation in English, success has been reached.  Every one of these students would have been ineligible to take Composition I until after at least one semester.  Nearly 70% of the students each fall are taking only one credit of support and are moving on to the Comp II after one semester.  This is huge success over our previous system.

Lessons Learned

The challenge of fitting these one-credit sections into a faculty member’s load is the primary obstacle to success at this point. Also, incentivizing the students to take advantage of the support sections, despite the fact that the grade is based solely on the college level course grades, is also a challenge.

All faculty members are encouraged to utilize GradesFirst to provide an early warning grade in the fourth week of class. This action should allow students ample time to take corrective action in a course to prevent failure.  Also, the faculty are encouraged to continue to send warnings to students, advisors, tutoring, and counseling throughout the term when a student’s performance falls below an acceptable level.

In Spring Semester 2015, when East Georgia State College began participation in the John N. Gardner Institute Gateways to Completion (G2C) initiative, the School of Math/Science utilized a single 4 credit Learning Support Math (MATH 0099) for remedial mathematics students. Starting in Fall Semester 2015, the School of Math/Science changed the delivery of remedial mathematics to include a lower level 3 credit Foundations of College Algebra (MATH 0989) and a 1 credit co-requisite College Algebra Support (MATH 0999). In using this model, each College Algebra instructor also taught a linked College Algebra Support (MATH 0999). The delivery of remedial mathematics will change again starting Spring Semester 2017. The instruction of remedial mathematics will be converted to a lab model. College Algebra instructors will be assigned to staff computer labs to assist remedial students enrolled in MATH 0999. The delivery of remedial mathematics may continue to evolve as we learn more regarding mathematics education by our participation in the G2C initiative aimed at improving success in Gateway courses.

The rapid evolution and changes in remedial mathematics instruction will make comparisons difficult between previous tersm and current terms.

High-Impact Strategies

Implement flipped classrooms

Implement open educational resources (OERs; free, open source textbooks)

Related CCG Goal

Goal 8: Restructure instructional delivery to support educational excellence and student success.

Demonstration of Priority and/or Impact

As an access institution, EGSC serves a student population that includes over 30% who are first generation college students and over 80% who receive some form of financial aid. The results of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) given to samples of EGSC student populations over the last twelve years indicate that EGSC students are more likely than their peers at other small colleges to either skip class or come to class without having completed readings or assignments. EGSC faculty are flipping their classrooms to encourage their students to become more active and engaged learners. 

EGSC faculty are referring students to the ACE for tutoring.  They are also using the GradesFirst software to send warnings to the students when they are having identifiable difficulties.  The value of GradesFirst is that it not only warns the student of their difficulties, but also their advisor, the ACE (tutoring), the Advising Centers (academic advisement), and Counseling.

In addition, many students are unable for financial reasons to purchase all required textbooks at the beginning of the semester. By assigning open educational resources to student, EGSC faculty are removing a substantial barrier to student success, particularly in the crucial early weeks of each semester.

Primary Point of Contact

Dr. Jimmy Wedincamp

Dean of the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Wedincamp@ega.edu

Dr. Carmine Palumbo

Dean of the School of Humanities

cpalumbo@ega.edu

Dr. Lee Cheek

Dean of the School of Social Sciences

lcheek@ega.edu

Measures of Progress and Success

Measure, Metric, or Data Element

The results of general education assessments will show the success of enhancements in flipped classrooms. College faculty are applying for Textbook Transformation Grants from Affordable Learning Georgia and implementing digital textbooks as the result of grant.

The institution has been using a specific metric to assess the outcome of implementing open educational resources.  Our goal has been to make all faculty members aware of these resources and to encourage faculty members to take advantage of these resources in areas where quality will not be compromised,.

Success Rates as defined by number of students that make an A, B or C divided by the total number of students are used to assess the overall success of flipped classrooms in comparison to non-flipped classrooms.

Baseline measures

There is a need to improve EGSC student success rates in gateway courses (MATH 1111, ENGL 1101, and HIST 2111/2112) and in learning support and online-delivered courses above the baseline of Fall 2011. It has been noted that less than fifty per cent of students in gateway core classes purchase required texts.

In the first few years of Affordable Learning Georgia, an initiative supported by the University System of Georgia and headed-up by the Library Directors, a number of EGSC faculty members earned grants to adopt OERs and other techniques in their classrooms in order to improve success and save students money. 

We will compare success rates between courses utilizing the current text books and courses utilizing open source materials.

Interim Measures of Progress

Flipped classrooms are in progress in all academic schools.  The flipped classrooms in both general chemistry I and II and calculus I continue to show growth from a 42-48% success rate in chemistry I and II and a 50-60% success rate in calculus I to the rates indicated below after the classes were flipped.  It can be noted the instructor who flipped the calculus I retired at the end of Fall Semester 2015 and the new instructor did not adopt the flipped classroom approach.  

Table 11: Flipped Chemistry I and II and Calculus I Success Rates

Five ALG applications grants have been awarded to EGSC faculty. The cost savings associated with those grants is noted below in Table 12.  Other classes are beginning to use less expensive alternatives to traditional textbooks.  For example, all chemistry classes use an ebook which is approximately 40% of the cost of a hardbound textbook.  The chemistry and integrated science instructors supply locally-developed laboratory exercises, saving the cost of a laboratory manual.  One section of MATH 1121 Introduction to Statistics has been converted to open source text and online supplements. The text book utilized is Introductory Statistics from OpenStax and the homework system is WebAssign. Digital textbooks are being implemented in all introductory psychology courses.  Students in world history are provided detailed notes of class material which replaces a textbook.  Economics has been taught in the past using OpenStax.  The new instructor in the course has reverted back to a standard textbook because of insufficient time to adjust to the OpenStax version.   

Table 12: Affordable Learning Georgia Grants to East Georgia State College

Measures of Success

The overall cost of textbooks would continue to drop.  No final date can be speculated since more and more textbooks are being replaced with alternatives.  A statistically relevant increase in success rates will indicate success of the program. One encouraging metrics is the rate between credits earned based on courses attempted. Table A5 in the Appendix documents steady increases in the rate from Summer Semester 2010 through Spring 2016. For example, the rate increased from 57.3% in Fall Semester 2010 to 72.5% in Fall Semester 2015. The table also documents that students who take a mix of in-class and online courses complete courses at a rate that is higher by 6 percentage points than students who depend on one course delivery mode.

Lessons Learned

Flipped Classrooms

Many of the biology courses have instituted flipped classrooms. One of the biggest challenges reported has been the struggle to provide students with the appropriate feedback they need to benefit from the flipped classroom process. Instructors report that they are streamlining the process and tend to focus more on discussion and less on after-the-fact grade assessments. Many students reported that they felt like they were being asked to do too much outside of class. This style of teaching is used in order to foster student preparedness for class activities and promotion of time management skills.

It was also noted that all instructors may not be willing to adopt flipped classrooms.  The time to change a traditional class into a flipped class in much more than some faculty can invest because of other time commitments from the remainder of their teaching schedule.

Open Educational Resources

One of the challenges is that the open source text covers similar topics as the original text, However, our students find the open source text more difficult to understand. The instructor is developing PowerPoint slides for each lesson to make sure we are assisting our students while still covering the same topics as our other statistics sections.  Another challenge is the open source ancillaries, such as homework programs, have not developed to the same functional level as those in the more costly textbook. To alleviate this problem the instructors have to review some items in class when a section is completed.