B1010 Student Services

Policy Statement

As identified in the College purpose statement, student services programming provides students with essential resources that enable them to identify, pursue, persist, and complete their academic goals.

The community benefits from recruitment activities that help residents become aware of the academic options that the College provides.  The community receives greater benefits when recruitment activities are timely, and personalized to individual needs. 

Students benefit from counseling and advising activities that assist them with making informed choices about their educational goals, selecting an appropriate career path, and enrolling in courses and/or programs that align with their educational goals.  Students receive greater benefits if counseling and advising services are proactive, anticipates student needs, technology-driven, timely and personalized to their individual needs.

Students benefit from learning resources that support attainment of their educational goals.  Students receive greater benefit when they have resources that help them obtain post-graduation employment. 

Students benefit from financial resources and programs that assist them with identifying options to pay for their courses and programs.

Students with legally protected disabilities benefit from participation in services designed to provide equitable access to educational opportunities.

Students benefit from co-curricular and extracurricular activities that promote personal development, leadership development, augments classroom instruction, and contributes to academic success.

The community benefits from co-curricular activities that contribute to the development of the community.  The community benefits when students are recruited from within the college service area to participate in extracurricular activities.

To achieve these benefits, the Board directs the President to establish, deliver, and continuously improve student service programs.

Key Monitoring Activities:

As it relates to the key performance areas noted in the Monitoring College Effectiveness policy, the Board is interested in student interest, enrollment, academic progress, academic success, completion, and deployment.

The measures and indicators suggested below are advisory in nature and are intended to provide the President with a broad range of ideas as to what the Board might find helpful as it monitors the College’s progress on the key performance areas for this Strategic Outcome.  The President, at his/her discretion, can modify the measures and indicators as needed.

Specific measures for student interest may include data that describes how students matriculate through a career or transfer pathway, and the flexibility, accessibility, affordability, and relevance of our programs and services.  Potential indicators might include the number of students accessing counseling and advising services; percent of students with a plan of study; number of students completing online orientation; percent of students who have declared two or less majors; number of students accessing financial aid services; percent of students receiving financial support; average student loan debt ratio; percent of college services for students that can be accessed online; percent of students accessing online services; and the number of students receiving accommodation services.

Specific measures for enrollment may include data that reflects recruitment activities, application to enrollee conversion rate, college-wide credit hours, college-wide FTE, and college-wide student headcount.  Data aggregated by student demographic profiles is appropriate.  Potential indicators might identify the number of high school visits by SCC employees; the number of external recruitment events; the number of internal recruitment events hosted; the number of campus tours provided; and the number of students indicating SCC as their first choice; the number of community inquiries (e.g. prospects) about SCC programs; the number of new student applications by semester; the number of new students that enroll each semester; the number of continuing students that enroll each semester; and the average credit load of students by semester.

Specific measures for academic progress may include data that reflects course completion, credit accumulation rate, continuous enrollment, retention, and persistence.  Potential indicators might identify the number of students who participate in academic support center (tutoring) services; and the course completion rate of students who are targeted by the College’s intervention (i.e. Retention Alert) services.

Specific measures for academic success may include data that reflects student engagement in co-curricular and extracurricular activities.  Potential indicators might identify the percent of students participating in co-curricular/extracurricular activities; percent of students completing co-curricular program benchmarks; and the percent of students participating in volunteer or service learning (co-curricular) activities.

Specific measures for completion may include data that describes student graduation rates, completion rates, and credentials awarded.  Potential indicators might describe the percentage of degree-seeking students who graduated within three (3) years of initial enrollment at SCC; percent of college-ready degree seeking students completing their program of study within a six (6) year timeframe; average number of months from initial enrollment to completion of first credential; and the percent of students who have earned 30 credits (or more), but have not completed a credential or transferred to another higher education institution within the first six (6) years of enrolling at SCC.

Specific measures for deployment may include data in the measures of curriculum management and scheduling effectiveness, including breadth of courses, percentage of courses offered in multiple timeframes/formats, number of students who access courses from off-campus locations, the average number of sections per course, average enrollment per course, and average enrollment per section.