Each year, Achieving the Dream lifts up at least one community college in its network for adopting practices and strategies leading to a student-focused culture, notable increases in student outcomes and a reduction of equity gaps.

To be eligible for the Leah Meyer Austin Award, an institution must demonstrate four-year improvement of at least three percentage points in the IPEDS on-time completion for the level of associated credential awarded, or have been selected as one of the top 150 colleges in the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. The achievements of this year’s honorees—Chattanooga State Community College in Tennessee and Southwestern Oregon Community College—show how a holistic approach to student success that exists through the institution can result in whole-college transformation.

Setting the bar: In evaluating applicants, ATD considers gateway metrics, including leading indicators (early momentum metrics) and lagging indicators (completion or transfer), with substantial improvement of three percentage points or more over three years.

Equity metrics may highlight data such as the equity gap improvement between part-time and full-time student outcomes or between Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible students. Substantial improvement means closing or narrowing equity gaps over three years by at least two percentage points.

The following data demonstrate not just what Chattanooga State Community College and Southwestern Oregon Community College did to earn their honor, but also ways that other institutions can tell their own data stories.

Chattanooga State Community College actions and results: The Vision 2027 strategic plan has inspired a shift from 15-week to seven-week terms, more personalized academic advising, strengthened commitments to basic needs assistance and wraparound support services, and implementation of an affordable course materials program.

• Fall-to-fall persistence rate from the fall 2019 cohort to the fall 2022 cohort saw a 7.1-percentage-point gain.
• The credit completion rate jumped from 54.6 percent among the 2020 fall cohort to 66.4 percent among the fall 2023 cohort.
• Articulation agreements and course road maps related to Tennessee Transfer Pathways resulted in an 8.2-percentage-point climb in the rate of students who transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree within six years of matriculating between the fall 2015 cohort and the fall 2018 cohort.
• The adoption of a co-requisite model, with embedded tutors, for gateway English and math courses led to a rise in gateway math completion from 38.5 percent for the fall 2020 cohort to 49.5 percent for the fall 2023 cohort. Completion rates for gateway English courses, meanwhile, grew from 49.3 percent to 66.6 percent in that time frame. Approximately 45 to 48 percent of the college’s student population is still developing essential college-level academic skills.

Southwestern Oregon Community College actions and results: This rural institution’s recent efforts have included engaging and supporting its community’s adult and part-time learner populations, such as by creating targeted student orientations, evaluating community practices and its portfolio of academic and workforce programs, meeting the special financial needs of first-generation adult learners, and improving online services (40 percent of Southwestern’s overall student body are online learners).

• In comparing the 2017 cohort to the 2020 cohort, the four-year completion rate among part-time learners improved by 8.7 percentage points, narrowing the equity gap between adult learners and traditional-aged learners by 3.2 percentage points. Between adult learners and traditional-aged learners, the gap narrowed by 6.7 percentage points, as the rate of completion among the former rose 12.3 percentage points.
• The equity gap between first-generation and continuing-generation learners in fall-to-fall persistence narrowed by three percentage points, from 8.2 percent in the fall 2019 cohort to 5.2 percent in the fall 2022 cohort.
• From the fall 2017 cohort to the fall 2020 cohort, the overall four-year completion rate grew 6.6 percentage points, and the rate at which students transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree (despite severe geographical hardships) rose 3.7 percentage points from the fall 2015 cohort to the fall 2018 cohort.

More information on both winners can be found here. In a March 31 webinar, Achieving the Dream will feature both winners.

Is your institution or department tracking new KPIs related to student success, or using data in a new way? Tell us about it.