>Colleges > Spring 2011 News
News from College Partners
Spring 2011- Innovations from the Field
Innovations from the field
Many of the best changes to ACE come from faculty, staff, and college leaders who were looking for solutions in their own classrooms. We are pleased to share a few of their ideas and initiatives here. Please send your innovations to Laurie Rubin at laurie@my-ace.org so we can share your ideas.
From Las Positas College
ACE as its own department
Las Positas College in Livermore, California has had an ACE program for the last five years. It is called the College Foundation Semester (CFS) and involves two cohorts each fall. Our Bridge Semester includes the Foundation Course, Team Self Management, English, Math and Computer Information Systems. We have struggled with how to plan for and allocate funding to courses in multiple disciplines. Beginning in Fall 2010, CFS submitted its own ‘discipline plan’ to our College Enrollment Management Committee, the campus body that allocates funding to disciplines. We had our plan approved and we are now a separate discipline with our own funding allocation. Our new ‘discipline’ will now continue each year as a permanent part of our college. We are very proud and excited to have institutionalized our ACE program.
–Dale Boercker, Las Positas College.
From Southwest Virginia Community College
ACE student emergency fund
Southwest Virginia Community College (SWCC) in Richlands, Virginia introduced our first ACE Cohort last fall and quickly recognized the extra challenges that some of our students face just to stay in the program for the entire semester. We are located in a coal-mining community with some of the highest poverty rates in the state. Many of our students catch a bus at 6:30 a.m. for a chance to get an education, and some have to walk a few miles just to get to a bus stop. To help our retention rates, we have built an ACE contingency fund. Mary Lawson, the director of the SWCC Educational Foundation started a fundraising campaign to raise funds to sustain the fund and the response has been good. Several of our ACE students have already benefited from the fund, receiving help to pay an electricity bill, getting assistance finding housing, and other emergency needs. We are exploring ways to expand fundraising outside of the college community and may turn to our ACE cohort alumni for their ideas and enthusiasm in order to find additional support for the contingency fund.
From Hartnell College
ACE Student Club
Hartnell College in Salinas, California has been an ACE Partner College since 2008. We run between three and seven cohorts each semester and use the Foundation Course as an entryway for our Nursing CTE program. Our ACE students decided to form a club to get together socially and to support each other. They held two fundraisers last semester and were excited by how they were able to raise money to take visits to other colleges. The students have also been volunteering as recruitment support and spreading the word about the ACE program.
ACE in the evenings and weekends
Hartnell has also been experimenting with an evening and weekend version of the ACE semester to serve our students who are unable to come to daytime classes. Because the curriculum kit didn’t match our schedule, instructors at Hartnell got very creative and made it through most of the course curriculum in 10 evenings and 4 weekends. We had excellent retention and plan to offer an evening/weekend cohort again in the spring.
–Hermelinda Rocha-Tabera, Hartnell College