In June we released our City Connects 2022 Progress Report, and now, we’re adding two supplements to document more of our work.
The two new reports are “City Connects in the Community College: The Sinclair Community College Pilot” and “Responding to Covid-19: The Impact of City Connects During the Covid-19 Pandemic.”
This week, we will focus on the Sinclair Community College Pilot program.
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Thanks to funding from the Mathile Family Foundation, Sinclair-City Connects was launched in 2016. The program, as our progress report explains, is “a comprehensive and coordinated system that fosters the development of relationships among students, advisors, faculty, and staff.”
The goal is to build “a supportive learning environment that is attentive to student strengths and needs and tailors processes to help students meet academic goals and postsecondary success.”
Students receive support from advisors who begin with a core component of City Connects: building relationships.
As one advisor explains, telling community college students about City Connects includes explaining the “holistic piece… that if you have concerns or other issues, even if they’re not related to academics, I’m here for you as an advisor. And I think that’s where they start to feel a connection to you because you’re sharing with them that you realize that they are more than just a student…we’re here for you for more than just helping you determine what classes you need and how to register.”
Among the program’s positive outcomes:
• “pilot students in all programs were more likely to have a completed a plan for completing their program of studies, called a ‘MAP’ (My Academic Plan)
• “students in the career communities of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences; Health Sciences; and Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math were significantly more likely to be retained, or re-enroll in the next semester and/or later after starting at Sinclair”
• “Business students were significantly more likely to have earned at least one credential compared to other Business students,” and
• “More Sinclair-City Connects students completed both Gateway college-level courses and met the 30 credit milestones than others in the same (Liberal Arts and Social Sciences) community and the college overall.”
“The model,” the report notes, “continues to be refined and improved, and the pilot of holistic advising demonstrates great promise for community college students.”
To learn more, please read the report.
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