April 15, 2021

Committee Members Present:

  • Bradley Christian
  • Bronwen Forbay
  • Celina Brown
  • Gary Myles
  • Glynnis Gaines
  • Joe Arrington, Co-chair
  • Lizette LaStrape
  • Matt Porter
  • Sally Frazier
  • Sharon Kenan, Co-chair

Committee Members Absent

  • Annette Bigham
  • David Davenport
  • Steven Wenzel

The fourth meeting of the Research and Growth Opportunities Subcommittee was called to order in Zoom by Co-chair Joe Arrington at 1:06 p.m. on April 15, 2021.  The meeting ended at 2:17 p.m.  The next meeting is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on May 20, 2021. 

Minutes from the meeting on March 18, 2021, were unanimously approved.

Agenda Topics: 

Progress reports from the subcommittee’s working groups

  • The group focusing on communicating the success of programs (Bryant Windham, David Davenport, Steve Wenzel) has been doing the following:
    • Pursuing activities individually
    • Looking at sharing information and communicating with high school counselors
    • Exploring how to communicate information about programs to individuals who want to start their career or want to take the next step
  • The group focusing on how to work with area high schools and home schools to increase first time in college enrollment (Joe Arrington, Matt Porter, Sally Frazier) has not met since their last report to the subcommittee.
  • The group focusing on outreach to Hispanic students and the community (Bronwen Forbay, Glynnis Gaines) has been doing the following:
    • Putting information together
    • Receiving good information from students and alumni
    • Working with groups on campus such as Project LEAP and Upward Bound
  • The group focusing on offering more non-degree options (Annette Bigham, Lizette LaStrape, Sharon Kenan) has not met since their last report to the subcommittee.
  • The group focusing on incentivizing enrollment (Bradley Christian, Celina Brown, Gary Myles) has been doing the following:
    • Meeting, dividing the labor, and reporting back
    • Looking at data and at multiple options to incentivize 1) enrollment on the front end and 2) completions on the back end
    • Looking at the literature on incentivizing
    • Discussing topics such as which groups need to be incentivized, e.g., dev. ed. (or should incentives apply to the whole campus); what TRIO is currently doing to incentivize students and could it be applied more broadly; what other schools have been doing to incentivize students; if making enrollment easier could serve as an incentive; if letting students borrow computers after enrolling and then allowing them to keep the computers after completion might provide an effective incentive. 

Discussion regarding a newly assigned topic: college name change

  • A new topic has been assigned to the subcommittee to explore changing the college’s name as a means for increasing enrollment.
  • Sources of information include a QRT report that was competed in 2012, articles, contacts with institutions that have changed their name, and results from a question in the upcoming community survey.
  • The cost of changing the name is a consideration, so a couple of committee members suggested continuing to use MCC and changing the name to McLennan County College or to McLennan College, with the middle C representing the lower case C in McLennan.
  • Another suggestion was to include University Center in the name, e.g., McLennan College and University Center (MCUC). A member remarked that MCUC was probably too long, and another member said that she thought it would be a good idea to tie the University Center into the college’s name in some way.     

Review of an approved recommendation from another subcommittee

  • Committee members looked at the SEM Plan on the SEM website (mclennan.edu/sem) and briefly viewed the recommendation on page 10 that could be used as an example or template for an approved recommendation. 

Feedback on the community survey draft

  • Committee members viewed the draft of a community survey. Work on the survey is in line with the Research and Growth Opportunities Subcommittee’s charge to provide necessary data and analysis for all of the SEM committees. 
  • Laura Wichman created the survey with input from the co-chairs and others who responded to a request for questions to include in the survey. After an in-depth review of the survey during the meeting, committee members provided feedback that could be shared with Laura.
  • Several members of the committee had to leave before the review ended, so the draft was going to be emailed to all committee members (pending approval from Laura to do so). 

Action Items and Timeline

  • Finalize the community survey, conduct a trial run/pilot, and conduct the survey during the summer (per an Institutional Research Dept. timeline)
  • Continue the working group activities with the intent to complete recommendations as soon as possible in order to address the college’s need to grow enrollment  

Submitted by Sharon Kenan

April 28, 2021