PBSC Student Success Summit kicks off the fall term

 

Palm Beach State College held its first collegewide Student Success Summit on Friday, Aug. 23, from 8:30 a.m. to noon in the Eissey Campus Theatre on the Palm Beach Gardens campus.

More than 800 employees attended the Olympics themed event to learn how to go Higher, Faster and Stronger in their efforts to help students succeed.

The featured speaker at the event was Laurie Fladd, Ph.D., holistic student supports coach for Achieving the Dream, who gave a presentation titled “Championing Excellence: Innovative Strategies for Student Success in Community Colleges.”

The event was held to prepare employees for the start of the fall term on Monday, Aug. 26. PBSC is welcoming more than 26,000 students the first week of class either online, in person or both. That number is expected to grow as the term progresses.

PBSC is also welcoming 17 new faculty to the College. This group includes scholars, authors, acclaimed musicians, female chemical engineers, scientists, alumni and more.

To help inspire these new faculty and other employees at the summit, PBSC President Ava L. Parker, J.D., shared encouraging remarks from Olympians Simone Biles and Michael Phelps. She also said the following principles are what everyone needs to keep in mind to succeed as a team. Collaboration, Creativity, Consistency and Connectivity.

“Everybody who works for the College plays a role to help students reach their goals so we can earn that gold medal at the end of their time here.”

Also sending encouragement to participants was Fladd who spoke about the critical role of community colleges and what those colleges are doing to increase their access and affordability and implement more strategies for student success.

She says colleges are leveraging tuition free options like promise programs or adult reconnect programs.

“I go to states where they don’t have a statewide promise program, but I still see colleges implement their own in their own county for their own students which I think is remarkable,” said Fladd.

Fladd says she also sees colleges offer shorter academic terms, offering more on and off ramps for students.

“With these shorter terms, we see fewer withdraws from courses, better persistence because students stay in their courses, and increased credit accumulation.”

In addition to better access and affordability options, Fladd also says colleges still need to focus on students holistically.

“This need has not gone away even though the urgency of the Pandemic is gone,” said Fladd. “We can have the best-defined pathways for students but if they don’t have the support they need, they are not going to stay. Most students don’t leave school because the content is too hard, they leave because something comes up and they see no other option than to take a pause.”

The embrace of technology and innovation is also something Fladd says colleges must also do to succeed.

“This is becoming increasingly important as more and more students engage in online courses,” said Fladd. One technology tool Fladd says she has seen colleges implement, especially in rural areas, is AI chat bots.

“Chat bots leverage the best parts of AI, while making it easy for the colleges to answer the most often asked questions of students at all hours. This helps employees spend more time on the human parts of their job and make more personal connections with students.”

Fladd says she is also seeing more colleges leveraging platforms like Navigate360. However, she says they don’t leverage them to their capacity.

“These platforms are capable of doing lots and lots of things. Leverage your consultants from EAB and make them work for you to get what you want out of the platform.”

Other speakers at the summit included:

• Vice President of Academic Affairs Nika Coleman-Ferrell, Ed.D, and Vice President of Student Services and Enrollment Management Dr. Peter Barbatis, Ed.D., who gave welcome remarks and wore fun Olympic apparel and engaged in sports matches.
• Mayor of Palm Beach Gardens Chelsea Reed who gave greetings and the following encouraging words of support.
  “You are not just one insignificant person today. You are building the community that we as city leaders are counting on to continue going forward.”
• Student trustee Ryan Steeghs who moderated a student success roundtable made up of PBSC employees representing various areas of the college.
• Several faculty and staff who talked about enrollment data, PBSC’s strategic plan, and upcoming health benefits and IT updates.