Dear Colleagues,

In support of campus efforts to address the deep challenges associated with students completing developmental education courses, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education will sponsor a series of focused meetings over the academic year across the state specifically on accelerated developmental education, as part of the Vision Project’s Graduation and Student Success agenda. The first meeting was held in December at Greenfield Community College where nearly 100 chief academic officers, faculty, and administrators from all segments gathered to hear about the latest research as well as best practices and to speak with one another about the opportunities and challenges associated with accelerating developmental education.  Based upon the feedback from the evaluations, the participants found the meeting to be tremendously thought-provoking and useful.

I invite you and members of your campus to the second meeting which will be held on Friday, April 13, from 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. at Mt. Wachusett Community College. A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided to all participants. The two featured presenters will be:

Katie Hern and Myra Snell: Katie Hern and Myra Snell co-authored the widely circulated article “Exponential Attrition and the Promise of Acceleration in Developmental English and Math” (June/July 2010, Perspectives, RP Group). Together, they lead the California Acceleration Project, which supports faculty from the state’s 112 community colleges to redesign their English and Math curricula to increase student completion. (http://cap.3csn.org) Their work has been spotlighted by the national reform organizations Complete College America, Getting Past Go, and the Developmental Education Initiative, and they are regularly invited to speak on acceleration at community college gatherings nationwide. Katie Hern, Ed.D., is an English Instructor at Chabot College and has conducted extensive research into her department’s longstanding accelerated developmental course. Myra Snell is professor of Mathematics at Los Medanos College and creator of Path2Stats, the first pre-Statistics course in the country to provide an open-access, one-semester alternative to the traditional multi-level developmental algebra sequence.

• Community colleges are invited to send up to 12 individuals from each campus.

• State university and University of Massachusetts campuses are invited to send up to 4 individuals from each campus.
  

Please register no later than Friday, April 6.

Regards,

Francesca Purcell, Ph.D.
Associate Commissioner for Academic and P-16 Policy
Massachusetts Department of Higher Education
One Ashburton Place, Room 1401
Boston Massachusetts 02108
617.994.6937
fpurcell@bhe.mass.edu

This conference is made possible by generous support from Mount Wachusett Community College and Achieving the Dream.