Title V Grant Project


First Year Focus: Developing Academic and Co-Curricular Student Support Structures to Improve First Year Outcomes

McLennan's Title V project emphasizes innovation and enhancement of the student experience. Improved student success will be achieved by implementing and strengthening student support structures designed to create enriching academic opportunities that foster success for the College's diverse student population.

The project, funded by a Title V grant from the Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Program of the U.S. Department of Education, focuses on increasing first-year course completion, persistence, graduation, and transfer rates of Hispanic, low-income, and first-time-in-college students.

The first stage involves restructuring the College's Learning Framework courses. The planned changes include organizing Pathways cohorts, upgrading cross-cultural curriculum, and adding peer mentors to each course section.

Academic support services are also being integrated into a centralized Learning Commons. In addition, supplemental instruction peer leaders and Spanish-language support will enhance developmental education courses. Extra-curricular student engagement is another key part of the project to better serve Hispanic and low-income students and to create a deeper sense of community and belonging.

The project's goal is to build institutional capacity to increase the success of Hispanic and low-income students, which will be assessed by increases in retention, graduation, and transfer rates for the entire student body. The overall goals of the project include:

  • Increase the average First Time in College (FTIC) student first year course completion rate to 85%
  • Increase the annual FTIC student persistence rate to 70%
  • Increase the graduation rate for FTIC students from 20% to 30%
  • Increase transfer rates to four-year institutions for FTIC students from 13% to 20%.

The College received $599,594 in grant funds for the first year of the project and anticipates it will receive a total of $2,901,555 over the next five years to continue developing the project to serve the Hispanic population in Waco and the surrounding areas.

Title V in the News

View College Talk - November 2020.
Read the Act Locally Waco blog.