Featured photo: The Curtice Mott Complex of Mott Community College, in Flint
(FLINT, Mich, Jan. 29, 2024) — Mott Community College (MCC) received a $340,000 grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation that will allow the College to collaborate with the Diploma Equity Project (DEP) to increase degree and certificate completion for students.
The Diploma Equity Project is a Michigan nonprofit with a mission to eliminate the gap in college degree completion based on race, income, family education and age. This collaborative initiative will focus primarily on adult students.
Grant funding will cover the costs of testing the Adult Students Support System prototype, designed to double adult degree completion rates at the College, and develop an Early Alert System at MCC that will enable the staff supporting both adults and younger enrollees to have critical academic, financial and other data in real time.
The Adult Students Support System was developed through a collaboration of the Diploma Equity Project, the human centered design firm Civilla, and the Office of the President at Mott Community College.
“The goal is to test the effectiveness of the new support system before undertaking the disruption and expense of taking the prototype to scale,” said Dr. Sounya Walker, director of Strategic Projects at MCC.
Walker will lead the prototype-testing projects.
This Adult Student Support System prototype consists of the following integrated elements:
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Establishment of a Mott Adult Learner Institute within the College, dedicated to serving adults and accountable for their persistence and credential completion.
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Appointment and training of two adult student advocates. “Having a strong relationship with someone at the College who has the ability to help a student put together a plan to stay in school is the most powerful way to sustain adult students,” said Walker.
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A physical space designated for adult-age students to gather between classes, use a computer, conduct study groups and network with other adult learners.
Paired with the support system prototype will be the Early Alert System that will help staff recognize students struggling and stopping out, and be able to intervene proactively to prevent student failure.
“Our goal is to both provide MCC with an early alert system that will provide a rich set of analytics to ensure timely support for struggling students, and to create a model system that other universities and community colleges can look to in designing their own early alert systems,” Walker said.
The Diploma Equity Project will take the lead in the research and design stage, the first phase of this three-stage initiative.
