Dear Truman College Community and Friends:

The end of Year 3 of our five-year strategic plan brings to mind two words: Momentum Makers.

This year, we pushed our College forward into a new direction: one that resists deficit framing and embraces our students’  resiliency. Through the unyielding commitment of students, faculty, staff, and administrators, Truman created a culture of momentum makers. They developed, made things happen, and are the reason for remarkable accomplishments and success in Year 3.

Creating an exceptional student experience was a focal point of our work this year. Through the launch of the Student Development and Engagement Center, we created an inclusive and welcoming space for student support, engagement, and leadership development. We also restructured the enrollment office, Campus Connect, to enhance our admissions and enrollment services to students. It included revamping our services to better support students through the admissions process, transitioning advisors to the department to ensure continuity in retention services, and adding two associate deans. Moreover, faculty are more engaged with the student experience thanks to a recently created Center for Teaching Learning, a space for faculty innovation, collaboration, and professional development.

Working in tandem are strategies that improve and foster equity across the institution. The Center for Teaching Learning launched Innovation Grants to fund faculty projects that address one equity issue in instruction/curriculum, student success, or campus policies. Examples of funded projects include developing a student research center and introducing new technology to improve math instruction. Also contributing to our equity initiatives is the First Year Experience (FYE) Lab at the Student Development and Engagement Center. It has held SAP counseling sessions for first-year students with an academic hold and registration events, including ensuring students are properly declared in an academic program. The latter being a leading indicator for on-time completion and retention. In fact, their work (and more) contributed to our progress in narrowing the equity gap in term-to-term retention for Black/African American first-year students.

We were able to pilot our strategies thanks to several federal, state, local, and private grants that contributed to our overall institutional health. Most notable is the $2.7 million Hispanic-Serving Institution block grant from the U.S. Department of Education that will be used to expand student support services and improve student outcomes. Paired with the grants are additional investments made in departments leading the various initiatives, including the Office of Instruction, Office of Student Services, and Office of Research and Strategic Planning. The investments represent our commitment to sustain these initiatives and programs long after the grant ends.

Responding to the economic needs of the city has meant the launch of new initiatives and partnerships while strengthing existing ones. Through the recently awarded Rev UP! Community College grant, we are now part of a group of community colleges that will revamp its Automotive Tehcnology program’s curriculum and instruction to better train and prepare students for the EV workforce. Additional partnership initiatives like the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship and Early Childhood Access Consortium for Equity Scholarship Program have increased enrollment in our early childhood education programs. By providing scholarships and other academic and student support, Early Childhood childcare workers and professionals can access educational opportunities to support wage mobility in the field.

To maintain a culture of excellence and innovation, we are evolving our Center of Excellence to reflect a focus in Education as well as Scientific Technology and Innovation. This evolution represents a year-long review of our academic programming and services, partnerships with industry leaders and employers, and access to work-based learning opportunities. Moreover, collaboration with faculty and staff allowed us to identify new strategies and opportunities that will help move our Center of Excellence forward. We are now in a position to define our value proposition to students and the industry. For example, our partnership with Snap-On allowed us to renovate the Automotive Technology training classes with cutting-edge technology and tools to enhance the quality of instruction and improve workforce readiness.

Our key performance indicators (KPIs) show the remarkable impact of our efforts to ensure student access, momentum, completion, and mobility. Most notably, there was a 2-4 percentage point improvement in three KPIs, including IPEDS 150 Graduation, Transfer with a degree, and term-to-term retention. However, our proudest accomplishment is our increasing enrollment in the credit and adult education programs – despite not hitting our original pre-pandemic targets.

Some challenges remained. We had an unexpected decrease from the previous year in three KPIs. There was a noticeable decline in the rates of students taking and passing college-level English and Math. And despite an increase in the 4-year student outcomes measures KPI, Black/African American students are still experiencing inequities in their performance. As it shows, we still have much work to do.

We aim to address these challenges as we move into the new year. It involves increasing our investments in academic support services to better address student needs. We are also piloting specialized student support to address common barriers to enrollment. Furthermore, we are launching the Education Workforce Center, a community hub for educators, practitioners, researchers, and other professionals in the pre-K-12 education space to continue our work in the field.

As we start the next year of our strategic plan, I am excited for work ahead as momentum makers!

Sincerely,

Shawn L. Jackson, PhD

President, Harry S Truman College