Panther PATHways

This one-page profile is part of a practitioner packet providing guidance to colleges seeking to redesign their new student onboarding practices to better help students explore, choose, and plan a program of study best suited to their interests and aspirations. It supplements Part 1 of the packet, "Redesigning Community College Student Onboarding Through Guided Pathways. Part 1: Rethinking New Student Onboarding" (see ED604992). The profile is one of three profiles that describe redesigned onboarding practices at specific colleges. Each profile includes fast facts and key features of the college's redesigned practices. This profile features Alamo Colleges District in San Antonio, Texas.

This one-page profile is part of a practitioner packet providing guidance to colleges seeking to redesign their new student onboarding practices to better help students explore, choose, and plan a program of study best suited to their interests and aspirations. It supplements Part 1 of the packet, "Redesigning Community College Student Onboarding Through Guided Pathways. Part 1: Rethinking New Student Onboarding" (see ED604992). The profile is one of three profiles that describe redesigned onboarding practices at specific colleges. Each profile includes fast facts and key features of the college's redesigned practices. This profile features Laramie County Community College in Laramie County, Wyoming.

This one-page profile is part of a practitioner packet providing guidance to colleges seeking to redesign their new student onboarding practices to better help students explore, choose, and plan a program of study best suited to their interests and aspirations. It supplements Part 1 of the packet, "Redesigning Community College Student Onboarding Through Guided Pathways. Part 1: Rethinking New Student Onboarding" (see ED604992). The profile is one of three profiles that describe redesigned onboarding practices at specific colleges. Each profile includes fast facts and key features of the college's redesigned practices. This profile features Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland.

The authors describe how the colleges approached each phase of the guided pathways change-management process and offer recommendations for replicating their successes and avoiding pitfalls. Overall, whole-college change is most effective when stakeholders from all levels of the institution are involved in planning and implementing guided pathways reforms. It is also important for those leading the reforms to acknowledge that the college itself creates barriers to student success and to engage the college community in working collaboratively to identify and address those barriers.

Reviews research on why the conventional community college approach to new student onboarding is often unsuccessful in helping students choose and plan a program. It also describes and provides examples of several design features that guided pathways colleges are adopting:

-Organizing and introducing programs by field of interest
-Improving orientation and new student advising
-Expanding career and transfer advising to all students
-Increasing engagement with programs from the start
-Designing dual enrollment as an on-ramp to college

Presents findings from CCRC research on what students at Indian River State College and St. Petersburg College (early adopters of guided pathways) say about reformed new student onboarding practices at their campuses. Discussion is organized along three goals: helping students to (1) explore interests and programs, (2) gain experiences in a program, and (3) engage in academic and career planning.

Students and faculty consistently report that advising is the most important student service that colleges offer. Recent data from the Center for Community College Student Engagement suggest that students who receive more advising—more time with advisors and more in-depth discussions in their sessions—are more engaged.

Provides an overview of the changes in practice involved in the four areas of the guided pathways model. It also presents examples from colleges and data on improvements they have achieved in leading indicators of longer term success.

Contains case studies of how colleges are approaching key pathways practices and includes data on promising trends in student progress and completion.

Describes the process and timeline for implementing pathways and discusses how colleges can measure the effectiveness of their efforts.

As part of its ongoing effort to fulfill the expectations of Massachusetts’ Vision Project Agenda for its public colleges and universities, Northeast Community College collaborated with the nonprofit organization, Complete College America, to develop the Academic Pathways. The Academic Pathways [or APs] are a pre-determined block of first semester courses that undecided freshmen are required to register for. NCC developed seven APs to reflect the seven broad academic areas of interest that the institution’s majors fell into. Within each of the seven APs is a career development course designed to guide students through the process of identifying a major before the end of the first semester. NCC’s academic advisors had the responsibility of informing undecided freshmen of the APs and helping them select one that closely mirrored their future area of interest. Therefore, the goal of this study was to evaluate how academic advisors developed the self-efficacy needed to implement the APs. Using Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory as the theoretical lens through which to evaluate the study’s findings, this qualitative research utilized a case study approach to learn how NCC’s advisors implemented the APs. This entailed interviewing seven professional academic advisors and a review of selected institutional documents. The findings stayed true to Bandura’s self-efficacy theory; that is, that advisors’ previous performance accomplishments, followed by verbal persuasion were their main sources of self-efficacy for the APs’ implementation. The study also found and recommended that, to further build advisors’ self-efficacy, developing a clearly structured wrap-around AP program, with a trained and prepared AP team, who could speak knowledgeably about the content of the semester in the AP, would further build advisors self-efficacy for future implementation efforts.

A guide to implementing the Purpose First strategy--the missing link between career choice, guided pathways, and first-year momentum.