In September of 2016, Wilmington College was awarded a Title III Part A Strengthening Institutions grant from the Department of Education. The Title III Part A program helps eligible Institutes of Higher Education to become self-sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low-income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability of eligible institutions.
Our grant, “Integrating Data, Planning, and Student Coaching to Improve Student Success” has the following goals:
Institutional Goal: Improve the viability of the College through stable enrollment, supported by infrastructure and a culture of assessment that creates a more effective and comprehensive student success model.
- Activity I: Establish a culture of assessment and data-informed decision making to increase institutional effectiveness.
- Activity II: Strengthen the campus IT infrastructure to support assessment and data collection, through upgrades and replacement of fiber optics network backbone.
- Activity III: Increase retention and graduation rates through improved use of both data and professional staff.
These three activities overlap and support each other. The direct service aspect of the Title III project is a new Student Success Coaching model that will help retain and graduate students (Activity III). The success of the new Student Success Coaching model is directly related to creating a culture of assessment that will result in the use of data analytics in all decision making, help to identify opportunities for early interventions, and empower the College to make sound decisions (Activity I). And WC’s ability to access and utilize the information resources that will be made available through Title III is the stability of the College’s network architecture and IT infrastructure (Activity II).