Coahoma Community College will be front and center on a national stage as Joseph McKee, director of Financial Aid, Karen Woods-Done, director of Student Engagement, and Dr. Rolonda Brown, dean of Academic Affairs, are set to make a special presentation at Achieving the Dream’s DREAM Conference.
The event, slated to take place Feb. 14-17 in Chicago, Illinois, seeks to highlight key areas: access, momentum, mobility, and community impact.
The conference, Achieving the Dream’s signature event, is where student-centered peers explore college transformation as a catalyst for equity and economic vitality. During this 19th annual convening, thousands of practitioners from over 300 colleges will exchange evidence-based strategies that drive access, momentum, mobility, and community impact.
Dr. Rolonda Brown is ecstatic to share the measurable strides Coahoma has made relative to its student success initiatives. She believes this opportunity is a testament to the hard work and dedication happening at the Clarksdale-based institution.
“It means in my mind that our work, in a sense, is being celebrated. Our work is being noticed. The impacts we are making on and off our campus are not going unnoticed,” said Brown. “Having an impact that is now reverberating outside of our local area is the kind of work that is impactful enough to make change in the lives of our students.”
In July 2022, Coahoma was featured in a digitally-published case study entitled “Coahoma Community College’s data-informed approach to improving student outcomes.” The distinction was an early indication of the notice being made to CCC’s student-centered work.
Brown noted that the work happening on the CCC campus is possible because of the selflessness of faculty, staff, and administrators who are invested in changing lives.
“For me personally, this means that I’ve made good choices in terms of how I’ve decided to live my life. Service works,” Brown exclaimed. “I am a servant leader. I believe in servant leadership. When people are helped, when people are impacted positively personally, for me, it means it works, and that’s all worth it.”
As CCC continues its transformative data journey with ATD, its newly enacted strategic plan includes an explicit focus on enhancing teaching and learning, including the creation of the Center for Success in Teaching and Learning, providing more professional development and support to faculty implementing high-impact practices in the classroom, and supporting efforts to build a culture of evidence and inquiry.
All active measures will be shared at DREAM.
Joseph Mckee, who co-chairs Coahoma’s ATD efforts, feels a sense of pride in stepping on the national stage representing CCC. He is most proud of the collaborative work taking place on the Coahoma campus.
“Representing Coahoma is a great honor and privilege. It is a welcoming opportunity to share the great work that is being done at the institution,” said McKee. “Serving on the ATD team has given me the chance to work with colleagues from all aspects of the institution with the intent of improving student success.”
A major point of the ATD journey is the use of data in decisions made in all areas of institutional work. This data, which has shaped Coahoma student success initiatives, will be shared with attendees of the conference, giving context to what actually went into the efforts that are reshaping CCC student experiences.
“It is our hope that the work we are doing will become part of Coahoma's overall mission of impacting surrounding communities by providing equitable access to the holistic supports needed for student success,” McKee added.
At its core, Achieving the Dream provides institutions with integrated, tailored support for every aspect of their work — from foundational capacities such as leadership, data, and equity to intentional strategies for supporting students holistically, building K-12 partnerships, and more.
This partnership, which has been active since 2018, has made transformative change at Coahoma. Change that Karen Woods is purposefully engaged in. She sees her service and the service of the CCC ATD team as worthwhile work and hopes to make greater impacts that will have lasting effects.
“Serving on the ATD team has allowed me to look at CCC from a holistic perspective. Many times we focus on our particular areas of the campus and fail to focus on how all aspects of the campus are interrelated,” said Woods-Done. “ATD has made us focus on data and how we should use it to inform every decision on campus.”
The Coahoma team’s presentation is “Centering Student Voice: Scaling for equity through a culture of care.” Done, McKee, and Brown hope to share with the world how CCC is creating a culture of care and how the institution works to ensure that we are meeting the needs of its students.
“Representing Coahoma on a National level is not only a privilege for us personally and professionally, but it is also exciting,” Woods-Done added. “We will get to share with other community colleges that are ATD schools and those interested in becoming ATD schools the exciting work that is taking place on our campus.”
Coahoma’s participation in the ATD Network is made possible by generous support provided by the Woodward Hines Education Foundation.
“We are grateful to the Woodward Hines Education Foundation for their continued support of CCC and our relationship with ATD,” Woods-Done added.