San Jacinto College awarded Texas Success Center Grant
PASADENA, Texas — The Texas Success Center has awarded eight East Texas community colleges, including San Jacinto College, with a $960,000 grant from the T.L.L. Temple Foundation to scale essential practices of Texas Pathways.
The Texas Pathways model is an integrated, system-wide approach to student success based on intentionally designed, clear, coherent, and structured educational experiences, informed by available evidence, that guide each student effectively and efficiently from the selection of their high school degree program to her/his point of postsecondary entry through to attainment of high-quality credentials and careers with value in the labor market.
San Jacinto College will receive $210,511 for its work, which includes targeting students in corequisite gateway courses of math and English to experience improved completion and retention rates through collaborative support from specially trained faculty, embedded advisors, retention specialists, and academic tutors. The College intends to do this by moving its I-Connect Centers and Student Success Tutoring Centers to the same check-in system used by other departments and training staff to use the software, assigning an academic advisor to three math and three English sections per campus, training faculty in the "Advise" early alert system, training faculty and tutors in academic coaching, providing equity-focused professional development, and training faculty and retention specialists in data literacy.
"Our students need support from before they come to our classrooms until the time they walk the stage at graduation," said Dr. Laurel Williamson, San Jacinto College deputy chancellor and college president. "We are grateful to the T.L.L. Temple Foundation for including San Jacinto College in this grant so we can help those students who may not be completely prepared to succeed in completing their certificate or degree."
The T.L.L. Temple Foundation has made education a top priority as an effective tool in fulfilling its mission to break the cycle of poverty and build a thriving rural East Texas. Through the foundation's generous support, East Texas community colleges, which are deeply committed to improving student success, will receive additional support to scale Texas Pathways reform strategies aimed at improving student socioeconomic mobility through clear postsecondary paths to careers with family-sustaining wages.
"We are very fortunate to have wonderful funding partners like T.L.L. Temple Foundation that are willing to invest in this important work," said Dr. Cynthia Ferrell, vice president of the Texas Success Center. "The Texas Success Center is so impressed by our colleges' commitment to implement Texas Pathways, and we are excited to continue working with these East Texas colleges."
The following eight East Texas colleges have been awarded funds to support the scaling of Texas Pathways practices:
- Kilgore College
- Lee College
- Northeast Texas Community College
- Paris Junior College
- San Jacinto College
- Texarkana College
- Trinity Valley Community College
- Tyler Junior College
"Community colleges play a critical role in educating our future workforce," said Dr. Wynn Rosser, president and CEO of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation. "Investing in Texas Pathways will ensure more East Texans succeed in college and that our region thrives economically."
About San Jacinto College
Surrounded by monuments of history, evolving industries, maritime enterprises of today, and the space age of tomorrow, San Jacinto College has served the citizens of East Harris County, Texas, since 1961. San Jacinto College is among the top 10 community colleges in the nation as designated by the Aspen Institute for Community College Excellence, and was named an Achieving the Dream Leader College of Distinction in 2020. The College spans five campuses serving approximately 45,000 credit and non-credit students annually, and offers more than 200 degrees and certificates across eight major areas of study that put students on a path to transfer to four-year institutions or enter the workforce. San Jacinto College's impact on the region totals $1.3 billion in added income, which supports 13,044 jobs. The College is fiscally sound, holding bond ratings of AA and Aa2 by Standard & Poor's and Moody's.
For more information about San Jacinto College call 281-998-6150, visit sanjac.edu or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
