UC Clermont joins national initiative to further bolster student success

UC Clermont has been selected to participate in the third cohort of the American Council on Education’s Learner Success Laboratory, with an eye toward enhancing student retention and success.

The initiative is part of a suite of Transformation Labs offered by ACE to guide colleges and universities through a structured strategic planning process to better serve today’s learners and prepare for the future of higher education. Participants will work over a period of about 18 months to integrate evidence-based practices for persistence and completion, life design and career exploration, and workforce skills development, ultimately producing a comprehensive strategy for learner success. The third cohort officially began work with a kickoff meeting in October; members will travel to Washington, D.C. in the spring for an in-person event.

“Being part of this program will help us engage in strategic planning that puts student success at the center of all we do,” said Lisa Mahle-Grisez, associate dean of academic affairs at UC Clermont. “It’s an opportunity to examine our policies, practices and institutional structure to make sure we are holistically supporting student success.”

Supporting students always has been a primary focus for UC Clermont, where about half of students are the first generation in their families to attend college. Mahle-Grisez said the focus on student success has increased in recent years. The college now has two full-time staff members dedicated to retention, and the effort has paid off — UC Clermont now boasts a student retention rate of nearly 70 percent.

“We have already made progress, and this initiative will help us chart our next five-10 years in effectively helping students reach their goals,” said Mahle-Grisez, adding that the college wants to increase access financial and mental health resources, as well as support for adult learners (48 percent of UC Clermont students are age 25 or older).

“As institutions continue to move through a COVID-endemic world, the need for supporting all learners has never been greater and the ways to do so have forever changed,” said Lindsey Myers, director of the LSL. “The participants in this year’s lab truly embody a commitment to implementing evidence-based strategies for learner success, and I am excited to see all that these institutions will accomplish.”

This year’s cohort is entirely composed of open-access and minority-serving institutions, which serve as critical drivers of social and economic mobility in their communities. The other institutions working to better serve their learners in Cohort 3 are:

• CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College
• Portland State University
• Roxbury Community College
• Southern University at Shreveport