Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC) is receiving excellent reviews of its college-readiness course called Journey to Success. As part of the College’s reaccreditation effort with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), this Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) helps students with improving several key areas: Problem-solving, time management, intellectual openness, and persistence. There are student learning and student success outcomes expected from each part of the experience. The planning and implementation of this student experience began in 2018 and has had excellent outcomes. Journey to Success is a first-year, first-semester experience currently open to all students, and in the future, will be a mandatory course in the Associate in Arts degree program.
The target student population includes part-time or full-time students who are attending PHSC for the first time, have earned six or fewer credit hours from an accredited institution of higher education, and are enrolled in coursework that leads to an Associate in Arts degree.
An article about the success of the course has been published in the National Institute of Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) magazine called Innovation Abstracts. The article was written by the developers of our Journey to Success course; PHSC professors, Dr. Barbara B. Booker, Karen S. Lotz, David L. Sullivan, and Dr. Misty R. Price.
According to PHSC’s Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer, and College Provost, Dr. Stanley Giannet “This publication from our dedicated faculty team not only illustrates the College’s consistent focus on academic excellence, but also exemplary practices that we hope will be modeled by other institutions endeavoring to improve student success.”
With Journey to Success, advisors have reported that from the fall 2020 cohort, 86 percent of the SLS 1106 Journey to Success students registered for the spring 2021 semester. Students have consistently indicated in three semesters of data that by the end of the semester, they feel better prepared than at the beginning of the semester in the four focus areas of college readiness.
If you would like to read the full, published article and learn more about Journey to Success log on to phsc.edu and click on our In the News section.