MATC Matters

Over the past few years, the college has been building programs and services that impact the initial college experience for our students. These activities have included the expansion of College Success courses, implementation of the MAAP program, changes to orientation and the implementation of New Student Daze, the development of administrative coordinators/advisors in the Centers, as well as other Center and department initiatives.

However, because of the importance of the first year to the success of our students, we want to step back, get a sense of the work of our first-year initiatives and determine whether they are truly having an impact on our students. Once we take a detailed look at how we are addressing the needs of our first-year students at this point in time, we can develop an action plan that will coordinate, expand and improve upon our existing services. To this end, MATC applied and was accepted to participate in the Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year self-study process.

The Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year is a year-long, comprehensive guided self-study and improvement process for the first year of college. The process will focus the college on our policies, practices, and programs rather than on the characteristics of entering students or student-level outcomes. It engages participants in debate, research, analysis, and improvement planning. During this self-study, the college will look at the first year in terms of philosophy, organization, learning, campus culture, transitions, all students, diversity, roles and purposes, and improvement. There will be a committee for each of these dimensions that will interpret data gathered from surveys and a current-practices inventory and make recommendations for improvement and change.

Earlier this month, the college sent Keith Cornille, Scott Beard and Janice Mettauer to North Carolina to participate in a launch meeting for the self-study process. There, they learned about all aspects of the self-study, were introduced to the Policy Center staff and our advisor for the study, and interacted with people from other two-year colleges that are participating in the process. They returned to MATC equipped with knowledge and materials to lead the college through this process.

If you are interested in making an impact on student success in the first year of college, please consider taking a role on one of the dimension committees. Our students need the very best we can offer them at this critical point in their college careers.