The spring 4DX Summit continued the ’90s theme that Northwest Vista College is celebrating all year long to honor its 25th year anniversary.
The college opened in 1995 and had its first graduating class in 1998. NVC has grown from just 20 graduates and could reach 3,231 awards (associate degrees and certificates) given to students by May of this year. Northwest Vista College President Dr. Ric Baser said it’s phenomenal that just four years ago graduating students were averaging about 87 hours and now they are averaging about 66 hours. He said if we keep focusing on persistence and retention and give support to students in high-challenging courses, we can get them to the finish line.
NVC’s Strategy Map emphasizes six key strategies:
- Completion
- AlamoADVISE
- AlamoINSTITUTES
- AlamoENROLL
- High School Programs
- Quality
4DX Highlights: Faculty to Faculty Mentoring:
- The NVC English and Reading department have a huge number of adjunct faculty. It’s important to communicate with them or risk the lack of engagement, quality instruction, or potential issues that go unresolved.
- Measure: Each full-time instructor will complete observations/consultiations with part-time instructors.
- Improvement: Completed observations rate increased by 44% with 25 completed observations in the fall of 2019.
- Over the last 18 years, the English department matinained some form of faculty-to-faculty mentoring.
- Going forward, mentoring will include guidance, advising and conversations about proudest/toughest experiences in the classroom.
Community Math:
- NVC received a US Department of Education grant to fund the Community Math Project
- Data found that 75% of Education majors were unable to do the math they would one day be teaching.
- NVC and UTSA partnered to provide parent-to-child education in West Side community centers.
- NVC math sequence to pre-service teachers enhanced with arithmetic & a growth mindset.
- By reaching parents and pre-service teachers, nearly 300,000 students could be impacted in a 20-year time span.
- To read more about the project, go here.
NVC Library WIG:
- Disseminate “How To …” evaluate scholarly vs. non-scholarly sources (print, verbal and online) to students from 0 to 22 by Dec. 19, 2019.
- Measure: Each librarian will reach out to at least two students a week to discuss evaluating sources to distinguish between scholarly sources vs. non-scholarly sources for a total of 14 students each week for 16 weeks for a total of 224.
- Librarians discussed the characteristics of a scholarly resource using online guides.
- Students are given charts to compare/contrast articles
Winners of the 4DX Score Boards:
- Public Service Institute
- NVC Graduation Team
- Degree Audit Team
Winner of 1995 Best-Dressed Contest:
- Renata Serafin of NVC Marketing & Strategic Communications