Community colleges like Clark State serve around 40% of all undergraduates.
That includes many low income and underrepresented students.
But many of these students don't graduate. Nationwide, only about a third entering community college go on to earn a degree or certificate within six years.
Clark State, however, is adopting an innovative program to improve culture and retention. It's already seen retention rates from this spring to fall grow from 72% to 78%.
WYSO’s Mike Frazier spoke to Clark State President Jo Blondin to learn more.
Listen to the full audio above. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Jo Alice Blondin: It's a program that its intent is to focus campus culture on ensuring persistence and retention of students through demonstrating excellent customer service behaviors.
Mike Frazier: So give us a brief example of Caring Campus in action.
Blondin: This year we took an approach that was more robust and focused on making sure that our students in their first week had a reduction in their anxiety, made sure that they had everything they needed, including a point-person that was not their advisor at Clark State.
"And if every student knows these are available and every student uses what is at their disposal, it goes without saying that retention rates will go up and course completion rates will go up."Dr. Jo Blondin, speaking about resources on campus
So somebody beyond their advisor in addition to their faculty members. We also made sure that when we met our students during, for example, we had a series of open house activities to help students find their classes, meet them and their families if they brought their families with them, sit down with them, make them feel comfortable about all the services that were available, because Clark State has so many support services, and we want to make sure that even with student orientation, these services weren't being used to the extent that we wanted them to.
For example, some of our students just weren't aware that we have 24/7 mental health counseling and it's free. We have our partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank that provides food for our students and their families. We have a clothing closet to help students when they need, for example, this time of year, if you need coats and hats and gloves. We have a very robust tutoring operation that's also 24/7 that students can utilize.
And we continually would hear that some students knew that these services were available and that other students did not.
And if every student knows these are available and every student uses what is at their disposal, it goes without saying that retention rates will go up and course completion rates will go up.
Frazier: What was the catalyst for bringing this program to Clark State?
Blondin: That's a great question. When the opportunity came in the summer of 2024 to join Caring Campus, we received a grant to do so. We jumped at the chance. And it is a very grassroots effort. So this was not an initiative that I directed the college to do. This was brought to me by our staff who said, “we want to do that.” So that is the best kind of initiative to do at any kind of organization is one where it is grassroots and individuals are already bought in when they bring it to you.
Frazier: So is Caring Campus like its own organization with a board or advisors?
Blondin: No. It's a program through the Institute for Evidence Based Change. That organization does have a similar structure, but this is an initiative through that organization that really looks at how to improve evidence-based practices in higher education to help students.
Frazier: Now you said evidence based. What does some of that evidence show?
Blondin: In addition to increases in enrollment that we've experienced with our continuing students - a 13% increase in enrollment and a 3% increase in new student enrollment during that same time - we've also seen a 2% increase in our percentage of the students at Clark State who are earning credit in their first term — which is always important. We've seen an 11% increase in the percentage of students who complete college math within their first year, which a lot of our students come to us with a lot of needs as well if they've been out of college for a while.
It also means that we've seen a 4% increase in student retention from fall to spring. And we're thrilled with the results, but we know that those results come from the practices that are embraced by Caring Campus.
Frazier: What does this program mean to you as president of Clark State and as an educator?
Blondin: What it means to me is that we take care of students better than we ever have and we've always been pretty good at it, but I think that this is an opportunity for students to feel even more welcome than they already did here.
We accept everybody. We want everybody to come to Clark State who wants to benefit from our academic and workforce offerings, or our community opportunities with our Performing Arts Center, and we just want to show how much we love our communities that we serve, and so we're gonna do that and continue to do that.
And I think that what this means to me is that Clark State is the best partner in higher ed and community service in our region.
