Last Thursday, the Cerritos College Student Success Committee delivered its annual State of Education Address, in which it unveiled its plan to increase student success. The plan has been in the works since the Fall of 2006, when the Faculty Senate began working on an agenda for the current plan.

The Committee grew out of a task force of over 30 people from a variety of backgrounds, including teachers, administrators, and students. However, in forming the plan, they went directly to the faculty for suggestions and ideas.

“We are not as good as we would like to be… My vision is that Cerritos College will be a national leader in student success, and I won’t rest until that happens,” Linda Lacy, president and superintendent of Cerritos College, said in her introductory speech.

According to the Accountability Reporting for Community Colleges’ data, which compares school’s achievement rates, presented by Debra Moore, president of the Faculty Senate, Cerritos is almost at the bottom of its peer group in Student Progress and Achievement Rates, and has continued to decline since at least the 2001-2002 academic year.

The ARCC data was not all bad, though, as Cerritos is still above average in its persistence and basic skills improvement rates.

Part of the problem, according to Bryan Reece, chair of the committee, is that less than 20 of the 741 classes Cerritos offers have prerequisites.

Reece presented data showing that students who meet the pre-requisite requirements of classes they’re taking do far better than students who do meet those requirements. “Prerequisites would make the biggest impact,” he said, suggesting that they are the paramount issue in improving student success.

“We need to improve in five main areas: learning resources, instructional programs, academic infrastructure, student engagement, and teaching practices,” Reece said in his closing speech. He also focused on the importance of bringing everything under one umbrella and collaborating to achieve goals. He pointed out, however, that there may be difficulties in implementing the plan that have yet to be overcome.

“I think there’s two things standing in the way of collaboration. The first is trust… and the second is that you need to decide personally if you think Cerritos College can be the best community college in the United States when it comes to student success.

All of the speakers indicated that seeing the plan for student success come to fruition was still a few years off, but suggested that achieving the goal wasn’t impossible, so long as everyone at Cerritos collaborates to ensure its success.

Bryan Reece gave a more ambitious time frame, saying that he thinks we can get through the whole list of goals in three years.

“We have a lot of signature programs at Cerritos. I want all of our programs to be signature programs,” Bill Farmer, vice president of academic affairs, noted in his speech.

Remodeling and revamping the Learning Resources Center was another area the speakers touched on. Currently, the LRC is underused by students, but is seen as having huge potential in helping students succeed in their classes.

“We have something like 1000 or 1500 students rolling through our LRC. Chaffey College has something like 15,000 students rolling through their LRC getting help,” Reece noted.

The Committee is looking for people who are interested in helping achieve the goals of the student success plan. If you are interested, the committee meets on the first and third Wednesday of every month from 3-4:30 p.m. in Social Sciences 16.

You can also contact Bryan Reece by email, [email protected], phone, x2733, or visit the committee’s website at www.cerritos.edu/studentsuccess.

View Cerritos College President/Superintendent Linda Lacy speak about the state of education address.