As we enter another academic year and continue our encouragement of our students to complete an associate degree/certificate, we must take a minute to pat ourselves on the back for all the work we did to increase degrees and certificates.
Preliminary numbers show we were able to increase awards by 9 percent in 2015-16 from the previous year. What’s even more significant is that this increase does not include awards for the summer, which are still in progress and could put us in a double-digit growth. Our goal for 2016 was to award 2,719 degrees and certificates. NVC awarded 1,920 degrees and certificates in the spring of 2016 – the largest number to date awarded in the spring. This past fall in 2015, we awarded another 800 degrees and certificates, which gives us the 2,720 total. We could easily top 3,000 degrees/certificates for fall, spring and summer.
This will be the third year in a row that NVC has met or exceeded our completion targets. High five everyone!
A few other statistics that are impressive is that NVC had a four-year graduation rate for the 2011 first time in college cohort of 27.6 percent. This was the best in state for 2015 for very large community colleges. Also NVC has been able to increase its students graduation rate by 39 percent from 2014 to 2015 and a whopping 74 percent from 2013 to 2015. (See link with graduation numbers)
While our Degree Completion Team has led many of the efforts in reaching out to students, especially as it nears the graduation ceremony, like the old saying goes, it takes a village to make this happen. Some of our ongoing efforts in addition to traditional outreach include our academic teams reaching out to at-risk students earlier, faculty in the math and science areas helping students understand the rigor of these classes, and our math faculty and advisors showing students a more successful path to math success and graduation.
Heading into this new academic year, I know we will be challenged to maintain our momentum and surpass the previous year’s numbers. I am confident that NVC will exceed the expectation and remain a Texas and national leader. It will take the collaborative effort of every faculty and staff member to provide that extra encouragement or motivation to help our students reach their goals and graduate. How did we graduate 3,000 students? One student at a time.