UNM Gallup - UNM-Gallup Achieving The Dream

	Background: The University of New Mexico-Gallup (UNM-G) is an Achieving the Dream (AtD) Round One college, receiving a planning grant in 2004 and the implementation grant in 2005. UNM-G serves a vast isolated area, larger than the state of Connecticut, which includes the city of Gallup (pop.22,000), parts of the Navajo Nation and the Pueblo of Zuni. UNM-G has the largest Native American student population of any public two-year college in the United States. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of students enrolled in Fall 2008 were Native American, eight percent (8%) white, and nine percent (9%) Hispanic/Latino. In Fall, 2008 UNM-G served 2,837 students, fifty-seven percent (57%) of whom attended part-time and sixty seven percent female. Three major language groups are spoken widely in the area (Navajo, Zuni and Hopi) and many community members speak one of these languages in the home. Gallup is in McKinley County, the poorest county in New Mexico and one of the poorest counties in the United States. The per capita personal income (PCPI) in the county, for 2000, was $9,872, even more grim, the PCPI for the Navajo Nation population is a mere $7,269 and only $6,976 for the Pueblo of Zuni. Given these demographics, and coupled with the intergenerational trauma, particularly with respect to “Western” Educational models, UNM-Gallup sees itself as an institution that faces tremendous challenges. Given these challenges, the AtD Initiative provided an excellent opportunity to examine the college from the “ground up” and given the student population, would review policies and procedures, generate relevant data and develop data driven strategies resulting in college wide transformation.
	Committed Leadership: The last three years has seen some dramatic leadership changes at UNM-Gallup. In Spring 2008, Dr. Barry Cooney, an expert in organizations assumed the position as Interim Executive Director. This change in leadership came at a time when extensive data collection and analysis had been undertaken as a part of the AtD initiative, and Dr. Cooney’s arrival on campus brought a vision focused on action, leadership skills, and experience to take the critical next step in implementing the strategies. Another leadership change was the hiring of a Student Services Director, Dr. Paul Kraft in Fall, 2007, after a two year search. This provided further impetus for the AtD initiative, particularly as both the Student Services Director and the Dean of Instruction, Dr. Christine Marlow, share the vision of the importance of partnering the student services and instructional divisions. Rounding out the leadership team is Title III Project Director and Assessment Coordinator, Jim Sayers, who has considerable expertise in developmental education, and the newly hired Institutional Researcher Vickie Kraft.
	Student Success Strategies: The AtD initiative at UNM-G targeted the entire student population, and began by collecting data during the planning stage of AtD-data on college readiness, retention, level of engagement, and graduation rates. Many of the strategies listed below were pilot tested. Strategy areas were:college readiness, college retention, levels of engagement, and graduation rates.
	Broad Engagement Strategies: Early in the AtD initiative, UNM-G recognized the importance of engaging with its constituency beyond the “usual suspects”. Consequently we were delighted to be accepted as a pilot project site for the Public Agenda and MDC supported Community Conversations Project. This 18 month project starting in Spring, 2007 has led us down an extremely interesting road, with the realization that engaging in these conversations is critical for setting priorities for student success. A Talking Circle was held in April 2008 with over 150 registered, and future talking circles are planned for the Zuni Community and the Navajo Nation early in 2009. Using a similar model, the campus held a Campus Conversation this fall to engage faculty and staff in a dialog about student success. A second engagement strategy was led by Dr. Cooney, reestablishing a K-20 Task Force this fall which will identify further strategies focused on college readiness. Third, in the last year, the Student Senate has partnered more vigorously in the AtD efforts, cosponsoring events and focusing their activities on building student success.
	Use of Evidence to Improve Programs: Although ultimately the purpose of the AtD initiatives is to impact specific goals (graduation rate, success in courses, college readiness etc) we are too early in the AtD cycle, even for a Round One College, to claim the efficacy of AtD in achieving these goals. However, what we can demonstrate is that specific strategies did result in positive outcomes, for example that the students enrolled in the learning communities demonstrated increased retention, or that participants in the summer programs increased their COMPASS scores. These formative results helped forge overall policies and procedures campus wide that we anticipate in three to five years will result in impressive summative evaluation results.
	Systematic Institutional Transformation: The focus during this last year of the AtD initiative is on institutionalizing the successful strategies. A Student Success Committee was established, policies and procedures relating to advising were created, a UNM Faculty Handbook approved, and mandatory placement implemented. Hiring full time faculty in the Transitional Studies Department is a campus wide priority. However, this is clearly not the end of the road, and we are using data driven approaches to identify new strategies to support student success including implementing strategies to address Computer Literacy and incorporating Service Learning more extensively in the curriculum, based on feedback from the community conversations. Given the lessons learned during the last four years, we are confident these changes in policies and practice will ultimately impact favorably on the overall outcomes for our students from graduation rates and readiness for college.
	Talking Circles - May Talking Circle Report Join the UNM-G online Talking Circle