A multi-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education is expected to aid South Plains College in helping at-risk students and improve retention efforts.

United States Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Randy Neugebauer recently notified SPC that it has been awarded a five-year, $2.48 million dollar federal grant. The single largest competitive grant ever received by the college.

“South Plains College plays a vital role in helping students prepare for a promising career,” Neugebauer said. “ This grant will help them build on their past efforts and reach out to an even greater number of West Texans.”

The first year, 2005, $498,000 of the grant will be funded and begin to focus on the improvements of student success rates in developmental math. Annually it will change its focus to college-level math, science and biology, along with English. By 2009, the focus will be on behavioral and social sciences.

“Each year, we will target a different academic discipline,” said Dr. Gail Platt, director of the Teaching and Learning Center.

This is the first time for SPC to receive a grant of this magnitude and many plans and goals have been established and prepared for these funds.

The Title V planning team has been working on the application since June 2003. The three primary components to ensure success are branching out to understand populations by developing an Outreach Center in Plainview, developing technology-based student services, and maximizing teaching excellence, all to build on what the college has accomplished with a previous $1.78 million Strengthening Institutions Title III Grant. These funds allowed the college to focus on instructional technology and faculty development to enhance student learning and success at the college. This Title V grant will enable SPC to establish an online supplemental instruction program.

The first year of the five-year agenda begins by forming a retention team that will closely work with a consultant to develop a student intake/tracking process, Platt said. To improve the retention efforts, this team will look at the overall retention rates and develop a system wide strategy, determine what information should be gathered, and how the retention will be tracked. Next, the retention team will identify measurements, methods, and baseline data. This may include also working with a consultant to work together to investigate options for implementing a system to track students and measure progressive success.

In addition, the team will develop a pilot math program for spring 2005. This will help to observe the cause and effects of the new solutions in comparison to future teaching and learning styles. This is a method that will be followed yearly with the different objectives of basic learning.

The steering committee features instructors and directors including: Gail Platt, project director; Dr. Kelvin Sharp, vice-president of academic affairs; David Jones, vice president of student affairs; Tim Winders, information technology; Jack Wardlow, student data management; Stephanie Jones, instructional technology; Karla Welch, budget; Kimbra Quinn, Claudine Oliver and Lee Cox, retention/student services; and Dr. Jay Driver and Karen Driskell, Math Department. Several other positions on the committee still need to be filled. As 2004 ends and 2005 begins, these positions will be filled by carefully selected officials.
 

The grant will benefit at-risk students. These are students who fail to meet the college placement standards in reading, writing and/or math. The grant will be used to help students who struggle with the basic Texas assessments of education to excel.
 

“This is a breakthrough for our college,” said Dr.Gail Platt, director of the Teaching and Learning Center and Title V.
 

The new grant could mean for more technology for the college, as well as a change in teaching and tutoring style. All of these solutions are still in the process of evaluation. First, the methods have to be tried and compared statistically.
 

“The committee is completely open to any advisement from other colleges, universities, and even high schools to better educate our students more thoroughly,” stated Dr.Platt.