The College Success Program (CSP) was initiated by President Pippins in the spring of 2004.  A College Success Committee, consisting of the campus deans, college dean of enrollment and campus associate deans for student services, was formed to design the program.  A college associate dean for student success was hired to direct the program.  In the 2004 - 2005 academic year, 58 students were enrolled in the program college-wide.  These were students with two or more developmental course placements.  However only students placed in RDG099 (the upper developmental reading course) or no developmental course placement were included in the program.

Students who registered for the CSP began with an early-start intensive orientation course called "College Success Seminar."  The course met three hours a day for three weeks in August.  At the conclusion of the course, students had the opportunity to retake the College Placement Tests, which could have resulted in adjusting their developmental course placement.  In the fall 2004 semester, peer mentors were assigned to assist the CSP students during the first semester.

Starting from the 2005-2006 academic year, the enrollment in the program was expanded to all students who placed into two or more developmental areas.  The College Success Seminar was extended into the fall semester, when students continued to meet with the seminar instructors one hour per week for ten weeks.  Instead of peer mentors, College Success Counselors were hired to give students academic advisement and personal counseling during the first semester.

The program grew rapidly, in 2006-2007 academic year, 168 students were enrolled college-wide.  All College Success Seminar faculty members were formally certified to teach the orientation course by taking part in a college-wide freshman seminar teaching certification training.  This was in addition to their participation in a CSP faculty orientation meeting.  During the academic year, more full-time counselors joined the CSP team and they were able to adopt a case management system in counseling the CSP students.  They started to reach out more proactively not only to the students enrolled as freshmen, but also those who entered the college in 2004 and 2005.  For the first time, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness was invited to set up systematic assessment of student performance by comparison with control groups.

Conceptual Model

The College Success Program is designed as an academic program with a strong student support element.  National studies have repeatedly shown that the retention and success of developmental students at colleges are a result of early identification, then early, intensive and continuous intervention, as Dr. A. Seidman suggested (College Student Retention:  Formula for Student Success, 2005.)

The following is a conceptual model for the College Success Program designed by the CSP team: