FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DCC FEATURED AT NATIONAL CONFERENCES 

DANVILLE, VA, January 10, 2008 – Two Danville Community College administrators recently moderated a roundtable discussion at the

Dr. Janet Laughlin and Dr. Sherri Huffman

 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ 112^th annual meeting held in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Janet Laughlin, Director of the Student Success Center, and Dr. Sherri Huffman, Director of Planning, Effectiveness and Research, presented a workshop on DCC’s efforts at enhancing student success.

The roundtable topic, “Achieving the Dream: Building a Culture of Evidence and Inquiry to Improve Student Success” , specifically addressed DCC’s strategies of using data to improve the success rates of low-income students, first generation college students and students of color. More than 50 percent of DCC students receive financial aid, while 36 percent are students of color. Nearly half of the students are first generation college students, meaning neither parent has earned a baccalaureate degree. Through a combination of efforts and a close collaboration between the Student Services Office and academic services divisions, DCC has taken steps to improve retention and graduation rates of its students. 

“We want to ensure that all of our students have every opportunity to be successful,” Laughlin says. “We pay particular attention to these groups of students because research has shown us that they are most likely to face challenges or barriers in pursuing their higher education goals.”

Huffman notes that DCC has one of the highest participation rates (second among Virginia’s Community Colleges), meaning that the college serves a larger portion of its service region of Danville, Pittsylvania County, and Halifax County on a comparative basis than most other community colleges.

“Our proactive assessment strategies enable us to better evaluate students’ strengths and weaknesses when they enter to ensure that they are placed in appropriate classes,” Huffman adds. “Throughout their college stay we also assess a number of other areas such as academic challenge, student effort, student/faculty interaction, learning styles, and satisfaction and use of college services and resources.” 

DCC was one of 27 colleges initially chosen for the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count initiative, created by the Lumina Foundation for Education. Today there are 85 participating colleges and universities. Now in its third year of the four-year initiative, DCC has implemented a number of strategies designed to assist students including continuous assessment, planning inventories; creation of a course on college success skills; extensive faculty/staff development opportunities; and academic and student support, such as expanded tutoring, encouragement of study groups, and participation in leadership opportunities.

Laughlin says DCC’s effort has been a model of for other colleges. In addition to the presentation at SACS, she and Huffman have presented workshops at the following meetings:  Southeastern Association for Community College Research (SACCR), VCCS 2007 New Horizons Conference, League for Innovation’s 2007 Conference, Achieving the Dream:  Community Colleges Count 2007 Strategy Institute. They are also scheduled to present a workshop at the Achieving the Dream Strategy Institute, Feb.5-8, in Atlanta, GA.