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Ok, for six and a half years we've been focused on an initiative built around a simple idea.
Focus on student success. Focus our resources, our money, our energy, our passion
around student success.
And in that time that initiative has really
matured, it's grown so much so that it now
represents or defines the strategic plan for the college, represented by this graphic up here.
And in that time, it's been working.
Right? the ARC numbers that the chancellor puts out have been steadily improving over the last 4 years.
In fact two of them,
are prominent right now. The fall fall persistence rate
meaning students join one fall and they come back the next fall. That's number 10
in the state of California with all 112 community colleges. And getting students past that freshman year
their first 30 units,
that's number thirteen for the entire state and when you look at course success
and course retention we are up four years running across the entire campus. We are up
in the career technical areas, we're up in the basic skills areas, we're up in the transfer areas
and we are remaining at a high rate according to those
two variables, student success and student retention in courses
across every single division. Every division is either up, or improving over the last four years. So we've
got some really good result coming.
And then when you look at the students
demographically, there's great news there also. Now you guys are familiar with the achievement gap, the
nationwide achievement gap
finds that many Hispanic students and African American students are performing at lower rates than Caucasian and Asian students,
at Cerritos College,
the achievement gap is narrowing.
African American students and Hispanic students at Cerritos have been
improving at a faster rate than Asian students and Caucasian students both of those groups have been
improving also, but that achievement gap, the
point here is that it's really narrowing. In fact,
students that identify themselves
as mixed race they identify themselves as coming from one or two racial or ethnic backgrounds
that is the fastest improving group at Cerritos College. Now, with regard to a gender gap.
We have one.
But it's not what you might think. Women
are out performing men at Cerritos College by 1 or 2 percentage points.
(applause)
None of the men are clapping. That means you guys
gotta pick up your game, all the guys here. Now
both groups have been improving over the last four years with regard to course success and course retention.
Now the question is why.
The uh, without going into lots of details. It's not that something is happening outside of
Cerritos College at a national level,
or statewide level, or at a regional level.
There's something happening inside Cerritos College, and what's happening is this.
We are more focused than we have ever been on student engagement, on
teaching practices. More focused than we've ever been
on improving our academic infrastructure, on our instructional programs.
We are more focused than we've ever been on improving our support services, the way we manage our resources and the quality of our leadership on campus.
Those seven variables
are key
to improving the experience of students to getting them to have a better and better academic experience at
Cerritos College.
Every day, every week, every month, every semester. Now, we're going to have
seven people come up here and talk to you
they're gonna talk about each of the seven circles.
They're going to lay out the aspirational
goal for each circle.
They're gonna give you an unvarnished
look, where we are in regard to that circle.
They're gonna talk about what we need to do to improve in
each of those seven circles.
Before the first speaker comes out, I have a personal request from you.
While you're watching speakers come to this microphone here,
I would like you to watch them
but also i would like you to look at the students
behind the speaker as they're speaking.
And remind yourself
why you gave your life to this professional career.
If we make decisions at Cerritos College
based on fear,
anxiety,
cynicism, these guys will lose.
But if we can make decisions at Cerritos based on
trust, and community and love
not only will these guys win,
but all of us will win.