Bainbridge State College Campus Plan Update 2017

INSTITUTIONAL MISSION AND STUDENT BODY PROFILE

Bainbridge State College, a state college of the University System of Georgia, provides an accessible, affordable, and excellent education for the diverse population of southwest Georgia and beyond through certificates, diplomas, associate degrees, and select baccalaureate programs as well as through continuing education, adult education, and collaboration with other educational providers, resulting in life-long learning, economic development, and graduates empowered for success in a global society.

BAINBRIDGE STATE COLLEGE

Bainbridge State College (BSC) is a small college serving rural southwestern Georgia. While our enrollment dropped in fall 2012 and fall 2013, it has leveled out at about 2470 students, as seen in Table 1. Students are primarily part-time and female. The average age of BSC students has declined from 30 in fall 2012 to 25 in fall 2016. This decrease documents the drastic increase in dual enrollment of high school students. High school student enrollment has increased from 82 in fall 2012 to 582 in fall 2016.

Table 1: Enrollment

Source: USG 123

Student success has improved during the study period. The BSC Fall 2015 Associate Degree One-Year Student Retention Rate (70.9) is the highest in the state college sector, as shown in Table 2. More telling, although fewer students have enrolled, the number associate degrees conferred has increased slightly from 101 in FY 2013 to 106 in FY 2016.

Table 2: Retention

Summary of Complete College Georgia Activities

There has been much change at Bainbridge State College during the past 5 academic years. In an ever evolving college environment, the administrators, staff, and faculty at BSC have collectively focused on efforts that have produced the greatest amount of success. Some improvements have been Early Alert/Always Alert, Online Learning, Move on When Ready, and redesign of the Learning Support program.

• Early Alert and Always Alert have both created new opportunities to intervene for our underperforming and at risk students
• The QEP and efforts to expand variety in course delivery have provided BSC students with the opportunity to choose courses that suit their personal, academic, and developmental needs. Improvement of online course quality and implementation of online mentoring have increased our outreach to students who need additional academic support
• Increased focus on recruitment and enrollment of MOWR students has expanded educational opportunities for high school students at all socioeconomic levels
• Redesign of Learning Support has improved student success in English composition and college algebra courses.

Early Alert, Always Alert

Early Alert/Always Alert is a collection of notifications and services provided to students who are not succeeding academically. Students are identified as needing academic support early each semester. Financial aid Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) letters are the first flag telling advisors to contact students about academic support. Additionally, faculty are required to enter student grades at the 25% point of each semester, prompting another round of student contacts. All students identified by either process are informed of the academic performance required to maintain financial aid and they are encouraged to take advantage of academic support opportunities. Students identified by these two methods are contacted by advisors via email, telephone, or in class and appropriate services are recommended. Furthermore, students are required to meet with professional advisors before changing a major, withdrawing, or choosing academic courses for their schedules.

The college requires SAP letters and 25% grades for all students and faculty. Faculty are provided with an open opportunity to identify struggling students at any time in the semester using the Early Alert/Always Alert process. Always Alert/Early Alert faculty submission forms include a comment section on the alert file that provides instructors an opportunity to clearly explain the student’s needs and weakness; while also providing valuable information to advisors to assist students in developing a personal success plan. A weekly report is extracted from the Always Alert system every week. The report is provided to the Coordinator of Engagement, who distributes the list among professional advisors. The advisors contact students by email, telephone, or in class and help them obtain the support they need in order to succeed academically. Support mechanisms include embedded tutors, peer mentors, success coaching for online classes, and counseling.

The Early Alert/Always Alert program works well with faculty involvement and participation. Faculty participation improved after the Coordinator of Engagement met with the academic deans and asked them to emphasize the importance of the program in enhancing student success. The primary obstacle to success is difficulty of communication with students. Outdated contact information is a big issue. Another challenge is contacting students who don’t check their campus email.

Lessons Learned
The most important lesson learned is about being proactive. Waiting until 25% of the semester has passed and then sending students their grades doesn’t work. Always alert was initiated so students would be contacted as soon as they began having issues in class. Initial communication with struggling students begin the first week of classes. Contacting students early in the semester with follow-up shows them that we really care about how they are doing in their classes. The referral process is initiated by faculty and opens communication between the students, faculty, and advisors. Professional advisors are continuously trying to contact students

Online Courses

The BSC SACSCOC quality enhancement plan (QEP) topic was online learning. The purpose was to improve online learning through enhancing the quality of online course design, engage sufficient student and faculty readiness for online learning in those courses, and facilitate online course effectiveness, improve student learning, and expand quality online course offerings. The activities in the QEP are continuing. Activities included student training, faculty training, and online course review.

Student training is an online tutorial. A “Georgia View Tutorial” instrument was created to measure student preparedness for online courses; all students are required to complete this tutorial before they can register for an online course. The tutorial is embedded in BSC’s mandatory first year experience course. The tutorial is always available for students who do not take FYE.

Faculty training is currently one-on-one with the Director of Online Learning. Training was first conducted in groups but after reviewing this process, future training was done one on one. All courses were completely revised within 5 Academic Years. All online courses have met a standard of quality as measured by a rubric modeled by two nationally accepted rubrics.  A college-wide policy was implemented requiring all new online classes to meet that standard of quality before the classes could be offered.  All program and curriculum development, review, and approval processes are consistent regardless of instructional methodology or location of instruction.

Two teams of faculty were trained to review online course offerings according to predetermined rubrics and standards; these faculty members were paid a stipend for their work. Those faculty continue to review online courses for quality using the campus rubric.

Lessons Learned
A campus-wide policy for online course approval prior to delivery is essential. A rule without consequences is a suggestion. The consequence of the BSC policy is simple. Without prior approval, courses could not be taught online. While faculty could choose to use a pre-approved online course, they could also choose to design their own course as long as the course was approved before it was offered. The college has multiple online course designs for several courses, including psychology and English composition.

High School Student Move on When Ready (MOWR)

Bainbridge State College enrolls more high school students than any other school in the USG state college sector. Fall 2016 enrollment included 582 high school students in the MOWR program. This is a sevenfold increase from the 82 students enrolled in Fall 2012. Numbers are expected to decline in Fall 2017 due to test scores. Students are shifting MOWR enrollment to Southern Regional Technical College because entry scores are lower than USG requirements.

BSC has made it as easy as possible for MOWR students to enroll. Orientation sessions were specifically created for MOWR students each fall term. Students can take entrance tests at their high schools or I Bainbridge. Freshman level courses are offered at high schools. Sophomores take MOWR classes on campus. One school bused their students to Bainbridge so they could take college classes on campus.

A full time admissions advisor is primarily responsible for establishing and facilitating relationships with school districts in the BSC service area. She contacts high school administrators and counselors regularly. New activities this year have been increased collaboration with individual schools. BSC is partnering currently partnering with 8 high schools.

Lessons learned
The admissions advisor has implemented strict deadlines for high school counselors and students at participating schools. Orientation at the high school and at the college is mandatory for all students. Constant communications, particularly with high school counselors is vital. Strong relationships with high schools has a substantial impact on the number of students enrolled.

Obstacles
Student fees and textbook costs are major obstacles to MOWR program administration.  During Fall semester, nearly a quarter of our students were MOWR students who didn’t pay activity fees yet still expected to participate in student activities. This was a severe drain on student activity funds. Student service staff had to select inexpensive activities in order to stretch activities funds to accommodate MOWR students.

Textbook expenses are also a challenge. With a text book cost limited to a maximum of $75 per semester, textbook costs above $75 for all classes combined had to be covered by the college. This severely strained the college’s already limited budget. The college’s response was to adopt open source textbooks wherever possible. The process is:

• MOWR students get a book voucher for our Barnes and Noble bookstore.
• The school pays for the books.
• The bookstore gives students the books based on academic schedules.
• Students are responsible for returning books at the end of the semester.
• The bookstore reports students who have not returned books and a hold is put on their records until books are returned.

Learning Support Redesign

Learning Support (LS) reform is an ongoing initiative that combines traditional credit bearing academic courses with a learning support course. Students whose entrance scores require them to enter college via learning support take learning support courses concurrent with credit bearing English or math courses. The student exits learning support upon passing the associate credit bearing course.

The credit-bearing course is taught as it always has been with a mixture of LS and non-LS students.  The classes are all held face to face. Learning support students remain after the credit-bearing course for the LS class which is 50 minutes.  The objective of the 50 minute LS course is for students to begin work on the assignment of the day.  This allows the instructor to provide individual assistance to those who need it.  The LS course also allows the student to begin work on materials that were just taught in the credit-bearing class.  This seems to help reinforce the material with this group of students.

Both the credit-bearing course and the LS course are taught by the same full-time instructor in most cases. The LS classes are schedule immediately following the credit-bearing course. The LS class is a "support" class to allow students to work on assignments from the credit-bearing course.  The class also provides time for students to help one another or receive individual assistance from the instructor.

Lessons learned
Implementation of the redesign was smooth. Faculty were supportive of the change as long as the combined classes fit into their normal class schedule and load. Part-time faculty teach the support class if schedule conflicts occur. Part-time faculty teaching the support class coordinate with the faculty member teaching the credit bearing course so students get the help they need in order to succeed in the credit bearing class. Students like the new approach because they practice concepts that directly apply to their credit bearing courses. They also like the back-to-back schedule because they have extra time to apply their learning right after material has been presented in class.