The major players in the Title III grant recently gathered to review the achievements that were made possible by the funding. The grant had been divided into three Activity categories: Advising, Faculty Development/Retention, and Student Access to Technology. Originally for five years, rollover funds allowed the grant to continue for a sixth year, through September 30, 2004.

Activity One: Advising
Activity One was headed up by Lisa Ransdell, director of academic advising, and Kate Lutrey, assistant to the vice president for retention services, with additional help from speech communication Professor Karen Krupar.

The projects in this area focused on retention and were grouped under the broad categories of interventions, tutoring and mentoring. According to Ransdell, positive results were seen overall in freshman retention for an average growth in retention from 59.9 percent to 62.1 percent.

Among the initiative's successes was the Undeclared Student Advising Project. Over five years, 2,555 freshmen were given in-depth developmental advising and monitoring and priority registration both semesters of their first year. When compared with the retention outcomes of a control group of students who hadn't received the interventions, the freshmen had outcomes ranging from 1.2 percent to 6 percent higher.

Another successful project was the LINKS mentoring program. Mentee re-enrollment was nearly 11 percent higher than that of the freshmen population at large in some years. LINKS continues under the direction of the Peer Educator Program.

Other major Activity One achievements included the Adult Retention Project, the Math Group Learning Project, improvements to New Student Orientation, and an electronic tracking system that permits more in-depth data analysis on student cohorts and future retention projects.

In its sixth year, the Advising initiative completed additional projects such as advising sessions at the 2003 Fall Faculty Conference, an instructional Web site for new faculty advisors, an online advising workshop and more.

Activity 2: Faculty Development and Retention
This initiative was coordinated by Krupar and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs David Conde. The two cite eight major accomplishments including new faculty orientation, creation of the Faculty Resource Center and the offering of approximately 400 workshops for professional development.

One significant component to Activity 2 was aimed at adjunct faculty. Along with technology workshops, adjunct faculty pay was increased and recognition awards for part-time instructors became a tradition at Convocation. The college received the Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence for Krupar's work to develop and retain part-time instructors and to more fully utilize them as a resource to support college goals.

Student evaluations of faculty (part-time adjunct, full-time temporary adjunct, and full-time) for "contributions to teaching" and "teaching effectiveness" increased over the initial five years of the grant.

Conde said that he believes that one of the main legacies of Activity 2 will be its impact on online instruction, which he says allows Metro to grow without growing on campus.

Activity 3: Student Access to Technology
Headed by management Professor Raj Khandekar, this initiative was responsible for the development of four computer labs, most notably the Combined Computer Access Center (now called the Access Center for Disability Accommodations and Adaptive Technology). The three academic departments that received computer labs through the grant are Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Art.

In three instances, Khandekar and the affected departments were able to leverage additional funds and software donations to increase the value of the Title III funding. The Kenneth King Foundation donated $200,000 to the Access Center for additional equipment, and the grant purchased a Petra software license worth $230,000 for only $400 for 20 workstations in the EAS laboratory. In addition, the Colorado Institute of Technology donated $280,172 to the math and computer science lab.

Among the positive results directly attributed to the new labs is a jump in student success rates (i.e. a grade of C or better) from 55 percent to 77 percent in designated computer science courses. The use of the Access Center by students with disabilities rose 83 percent in four years.