College's new Latino student success program shows promise

The College of Lake County is piloting a Latino student success program that has already shown promise in helping students improve their grades and stay in college. Karen Hlavin, associate vice president for student development, presented a report to the CLC Board of Trustees at its March 28 meeting, held at the CLC Southlake Campus in Vernon Hills.

The college measured retention rates and grade point averages of 214 recent high school graduates who started at CLC in fall 2015 and received extra academic support services. When compared to a similar control group, the Latino Student Success pilot program participants had a 93.4 percent retention rate compared to 79.5 percent for the control group. GPAs for the pilot group were 2.51 compared to 2.31.

Hlavin said that the next steps will include measuring the participating students' three-year degree completion rates and investigating how best to expand the pilot program to ensure the continued success of Latino students, which make up 24 percent of CLC students taking credit courses.

Southlake Campus volunteer leader honored

Board Chair Dr. William M. Griffin presented Stephen Territo, chair of the Southlake Campus advisory committee, with a plaque to thank him for ten years of service, including six years as chair.

Noting that Southlake Campus is celebrating ten years as an official campus, Territo told the board that since then, more than 19,000 students earned 151,200 credit hours and more than 2,600 course sections have been offered at the campus.

"We must continue to plan for the future even as community colleges across the state face uncertainty due to the complex funding situation," Territo said. "We appreciate the board's leadership in the face of these very challenging times."

During the chairman's report, Dr. Griffin also mentioned state funding issues. "All of us need to let our legislators know we are not happy with the lack of state funding and how it impacts CLC."

Contracts and grants

The board approved intergovernmental agreements with the villages of Grayslake and Vernon Hills that give CLC Police the power to enforce local ordinances on each campus.

In addition, the board approved CLC's participation in the Northern Illinois Workforce Coalition's Illinois Community College Workforce Investment Opportunity Act (WIOA) Tuition Agreement. CLC will join Elgin Community College, Joliet Junior College, Kankakee Community College, McHenry County College and Harper College in extending educational opportunities and providing in-district resident tuition rates for WIOA-funded students. The agreement becomes effective April 1, 2017 and covers WIOA-approved classes and programs of study paid for with WIOA funds.

Human resources

The board approved compensation and contracts for 214 full-time instructional and non-instructional faculty for the 2017-2018 academic year.