Midlands Tech receives $1.8 million grant
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Midlands Technical College

Midlands Technical College will receive $1.8 million over the next five years to implement new strategies to positively impact the retention and graduation rates of at-risk students in the college's Developmental Studies (DVS) department. The federal grant from the US Department of Education's Strengthening Institutions Title III program was highly competitive and one of only 30 such proposals funded in colleges nationwide.

Among several components, the Title III grant allows Midlands Technical College to implement a new tutoring methodology designed to enhance developmental students' reading skills to college-level capabilities. The method, called Read Right, is a tutoring program that has been used successfully in a number of Fortune 500 corporations including Chrysler, Motorola, Boeing, Proctor & Gamble, and Merck.

Midlands Technical College is one of the first colleges in the country to implement the corporate model's innovative approach for teaching developmental reading skills.

Students in pilot tests of Read Right showed an average gain of one grade level of functional reading ability for every 10 hours or less of tutoring. Midlands Technical College expects similar results.

Enrollment data show that more than half of the 15,000 credit students entering Midlands Technical College annually needed at least one remedial course. A large number of students entering the college need development education; many MTC students have been away from high school for a period of time, and therefore need academic intervention to do college-level work.

"It is imperative that we address this problem with a systemic, institutional response," said MTC President Dr. Marshall (Sonny) White, Jr. "This major grant allows the college to launch a comprehensive and targeted bundling of services to MTC's most at-risk students. Addressing the needs of the developmental studies student is primary to student success as a whole."

Over the five-year funding of the Title III grant, the college anticipates that DVS students will be retained at higher rates and persist to graduation. College officials say this would have a direct positive effect on the economy as more students are educated and trained to enter lucrative technology careers or to transfer to senior institutions for four year degrees.

MTC's $1.8 million-grant will fund, in addition to strategic reading tutoring, supplemental instruction, personalized counseling and advisement, computer tracking of academic progress and scheduled intervention as indicated by tracking data, training of faculty in reading pedagogy and faculty development.

The Title III funding also allows the college to create two new positions for Retention Advocates. These professionals will intervene with at-risk students to assess the barriers to persistence and work to mitigate the obstacles utilizing academic progress tracking software, personal interaction and counseling, and establishment of facilitated study groups.