Goal 1

Completion Agenda for the 21st Century

Increase the number of students earning high-value credentials by reinventing the College’s programs and services to be designed for the 21st century learners and aligned to drive the economic and social futures of Southeastern Wyoming.

Strategies

Increase participation at the College through wise enrollment growth.

Target populations in the community that are under-represented in the LCCC student body.
Implement recruitment activities that seek to enroll young adults, especially those with some college, but no degree.
Design and launch new academic programs aligned with current or emerging community, state, or national needs.
Develop an LCCC Online enterprise with sufficient autonomy to purposefully grow offerings and enrollment in distance education using cutting-edge course design and innovative instruction.

Implement research-based, high-impact practices for early and ongoing student engagement in the educational process.

Design a mandatory orientation program for all new students enrolling at LCCC that includes advising and registration.
Develop and deliver a strong, holistic system of student advising that assigns every student a single case manager to follow him/her throughout their educational journey.
Implement a system to ensure all students have an academic plan on file by the end of their first term and reviewed frequently that maps their coursework and milestones from start of their education journey to completion.
Create a first-year or first-term student success course required of all new students to LCCC that is contextualized to programmatic themes or pathways, designed to help students become college-ready, build significant relationships, establish their academic plan, explores careers and connects them to the community.
Establish learning communities for at-risk students (developmental, first-generation, undeclared programs, etc.) that utilize prescriptive coursework and programming to provide support systems and guidance these students need to succeed in achieving their educational goal.

Redesign the College’s institutional scholarship and aid programs in a way to strategically accomplish desired outcomes.

Develop aid programs and strategies that target individuals who desire to enroll at LCCC but have un-met financial need inhibiting their ability to participate.
Create aid programs designed to incentivize students to achieve key progress points along their educational path.
Work closely with the LCCC Foundation to grow existing and/or develop new private giving scholarship opportunities focused on un-met need or to incentivize student progress and completion.

Establish clear academic pathways based on curriculum designed to help students achieve important learning outcomes and to help them progress through academic milestones and ultimately completion.

Create a new process using multiple inputs to ascertain both cognitive and affective student abilities to more accurately assess college-readiness and place students into appropriate coursework.
Redesign developmental coursework and activities to facilitate an accelerated progression to college-readiness for our students.
Completely redesign our academic programs so that college-ready, full-time students would be able to complete certificate programs in one year, and associate degrees in two years.
Publish all program curricula in ways to illustrate the progression for full-time and part-time students to complete their chosen program of study.

Reinvent the College’s general education curricula to ensure our students are exposed to broad perspectives to some of the world’s biggest questions and that they possess the skills and abilities necessary to succeed regardless of their chosen occupation.

Develop and implement a LCCC General Education Core that stems from essential learning outcomes, ensure it is incorporated into all transfer programs (AA and AS degrees), and when completed results in a Certificate of General Studies.
Ensure that all applied programs (Certificates and AAS degrees) include coursework, stand-alone or integrated, that leads to institutional student learning outcomes.

Establish a strong system of quality assurance in our curricula and a mechanism to inform instructional effectiveness by developing coherent assessment practices across all levels of the educational program at LCCC.

Establish well-defined, assessable, and common learning outcomes across all sections, locations, and delivery modalities for the same course. Pair these common outcomes with the development of accompanying rubrics and common assessments.
Establish program learning outcomes for all programs leading to a degree or certificate from LCCC, and establish rubrics and assessments to ascertain achievement of program outcomes.
Build upon the foundational work the College has done in establishing institutional learning outcomes, and integrate educational activities and assessments that yield evidence of student learning in these competency areas.
Develop a technology-based mechanism to capture and analyze assessment data to inform continuous improvement of our teaching practices.