SKC receives Achieving the Dream grant
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PABLO — As well as inaugurating a new president, Salish Kootenai College has secured a grant through the American Indian College Fund for Achieving the Dream initiative, utilizing monies made available by the Kresge Foundation. The money will pay the $65,000 Achieving the Dream membership fees for three years.
“The main focus is student success,” said Jan Lyddon, data coach for Achieving the Dream at SKC.
Lyddon helped explain the program with Leadership Coach Chip Chapdelaine, Tanksi Clairmont of the American Indian College Fund and President Robert DePoe III Nov. 21 at the Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center at SKC.
The program is a data-driven, comprehensive effort to impact student persistence and graduation rates.
Five principles make Achieving the Dream work: committed leadership; use of data to improve programs and services; broad engagement; equity; and systemic institutional improvement, according to Chapdelaine and Lyddon.
Achieving the Dream works on four fronts, and the first is improving student outcomes. Then comes influencing public policy and engaging the public.
With its three-year focus, Achieving the Dream brings leadership and data coaches to SKC. The coaches, college leaders, students and staff spend the first year planning and learning from the mistakes and successes of other community colleges that have worked with Achieving the Dream. Then they will craft a plan for SKC.
Clairmont said 12 tribal colleges applied for the grant. SKC and Dine College in Arizona were selected, and the two schools will network and compare notes.
Something most students share is a barrier to their education. A barrier could be transportation, lack of day care, no money, illness or even a tough class. To give students more of a voice, Achieving the Dream surveys students, sets up boards and brainstorming sessions so students can talk about their barriers and how they get through them, said Steve McCoy, SKC Department of Academic Success.
To access that student voice as well as faculty and staff, McCoy and the coaches posted a storyboard sequence on the wall. Students and staff were given markers and asked to add their input, making it personal.
One question asked for the “relevant back story,” or how a person came to be at SKC. Another board asked major problems and obstacles be identified, and the next board asked how those problems and obstacles were solved or worked through.
“Who will benefit from the story and why?” was the topic of the last sheet.
McCoy said the answers would be collated and included in SKC’s plan to increase student success.
President DePoe said he has high hopes for the grant.
“We’ll analyze how we do business,” DePoe said. “... How we can more effectively serve students and increase the graduation rate.
The data will also help us analyze what we do really well.”
