We successfully launched the course in Summer 2022 and have held (two-week and one-month) intensives in the intercessions since. In these courses, the students complete six essays and gain confidence as their skills develop under the pressure and just-in-time remediation a course of this type can offer. All the students that have attended each session have successfully completed the course; in fact, two students completed on their fifth attempt. This does not mean that we have lowered our expectations. Instead, we have focused our resources and attention on student success and equity, offering a learning environment that is simultaneously demanding and supportive, intense and conducive to growth in College Composition and beyond. 

We need to do a better job of using our tools to address equity gaps. In “A Generation of American Men Are Giving Up on College,” Douglas Belkin, in The Wall Street Journal, writes: Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels. At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline. According to Emma Whitford, in Inside Higher Ed, “Community colleges continued to see the largest enrollment declines this fall, with 9.5 percent fewer students enrolled. Experts say two-year colleges have focused on retaining existing students this year.” These are just two pieces of data that suggest we must find innovative ways to do better. 

Further, due to repeatability issues,* many students are at risk of exhausting their three attempts at completing College Composition. Due to the 2020-21 Pandemic, challenges facing our disproportionately impacted (DI) students, and increasing anxiety, among other factors, many of our students are struggling, despite their commitment to learning. 

The CRC English department faculty members' training through the California Acceleration Project (CAP) and efforts in response to AB 705 and AB 1705 have given us the principles and practice to tailor our support of students by providing Just in Time remediation through intensive learning opportunities, focused on building study skills, confidence, and vision in addition to mastering Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs).

In this interactive session, we will discuss challenges, successes, and lessons to be learned; we will also share specific assignments and engage participants in envisioning an intervention to meet their student population’s strengths as well as needs. 

* On June 11, 2011 the Board of Governors, the governing body for the California Community Colleges, adopted new regulations that limit the number of times a community college district could receive state funding for a student who has enrolled in the same credit course. The maximum number of times a student may enroll in the same credit course is three times.