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Forty-six percent of the students attending community colleges drop out without a degree and with a large debt.
This unhappy statistic has administrators at these campuses are driven to find ways to accomplish a “completion agenda.” A key element in this effort is the improvement of advisement because students who start out with a course of study that doesn’t fit their background become disillusioned with their prospects and exit without success.
Advisement at these schools is difficult because they enroll a diversity of students including women returning to school after raising a family, returning veterans, students requiring substantial remedial work and traditional high school graduates.
In an effort to remedy the advisement issue, Townsend Communications, a Kansas City, Missouri company, has been funded by the National Science Foundation to undertake an exciting effort to determine whether an instrument being called MyCCMajors can be constructed to assist in supporting academic advisors at two-year colleges.
MyCCMajors, a so-called ”expert system,” is different from existing advisement tools because it will be based on the knowledge held by campus-wide and departmental advisors at 2-year colleges. The research will convert advisors’ expertise into a computer program that offers recommendations of courses of study specific to individual campuses.
This tool is intended to account more fully for a student’s specific background than do existing instruments. It will rely more heavily on actual student achievements in school, in life experiences, and on personal data that students bring to their educational goals.
Townsend Communications already makes available the four year college oriented program MyMajors (www.MyMajors.com) that has recommended majors to over 300,000 students in the past year. It was visited 4.5 million times last year by persons seeking information on majors and careers. It is linked to by more than 1,500 high school and college web sites.
Dr. Fritz Grupe, professor emeritus in information systems at the University of Nevada, Reno is heading up this development effort.
He will be assisted by Dr. Rich Feller, a distinguished professor in career development at Colorado State University and current president of the National Career Development Association.
Dr. Fritz Grupe has requested the assistance of campus-wide and departmental advisors at 2-year colleges for this research project. If you would like to participate in the study or learn more about this exciting project, contact:
Dr. Fritz Grupe
Project Director, MyCCMajors
fhgrupe@gmail.com
775-813-7407
