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LaGCC Selects Faculty Nationwide to Participate in its Global Skills for College Completion Project

Initiative Launches on August 4 at CUNY’s New Community College

In an effort to improve the nation’s college graduation rates, LaGuardia Community College and the Knowledge in the Public Interest are taking a bold new look at remedial classrooms. Through the partners’ Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC) project, a selected group of basic skills instructors from 23 two- and four-year institutions in 19 states will participate in a one-of-a kind professional training project.

“At a time when an educated workforce is more important than ever before, college graduation rates are stagnant and up to 80 percent of incoming freshmen are placed in remedial classes,” said Dr. Gail O. Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College and co-principal Investigator GSCC. “And less than 60 percent of low-income students make it past that initial 15-week course. GSCC is addressing these vexing issues.”

Funded by a $1.04 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GSCC will provide the faculty members with the opportunity to spend the next year working together virtually and learning from each other in order to help students achieve better pass rates in basic skills classes.

The project will be launched on August 6 when the members of GSCC’s second cohort will meet each other, their coaches and the project staff at an intensive four-day retreat at the New Community College on West 40th Street in New York.

The faculty members, a quarter of which are adjunct faculty, will then return to their campus to begin work. “Since adjunct faculty do a significant amount of teaching at the community college, it is really important that we get them on board and work on helping them to refine their own teaching practices.”

Six times during the year long training period, each faculty will be videotaped in the classroom while their fellow participants observe his or her teaching practices. In addition, four faculty members from thefirst cohort will serve as coaches. “At a time when an educated workforce is more important than ever before, the time for a bold new look at college – particularly in remedial classrooms – is now,” said Dr. Mellow. “This Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant enables GSCC to continue our important work with faculty across the country, using new tactics and technology to improve our nation’s graduation rates.”

For information about Global Skills for College Completion, please contact Dr. Marisa Klages, Project Director, mklages@lagcc.cuny.edu  718 482 5677.