Overview

Evon Adlam-Hudgins, 42, signed up for classes at Broward College but was too intimidated to follow through and submit financial aid forms. Then she got several personal calls and emails from Broward staff, offering to help her enroll and inviting her to a summer program to prepare her for college. Adlam-Hudgins, who is from Jamaica, had been drawn in by a school committed not just to opening its doors to underserved students—three in five Broward students are black or Hispanic, and one-third are foreign-born—but to making sure they succeed.

"All we do is turn up."

Broward has made college more affordable for students, intensifying financial aid outreach, allocating awards to more students, and connecting them to scholarships and jobs. It has built new forms of support for students through learning communities, which link up to four courses and provide intensive advising. Instructors meet regularly, connecting assignments and coordinating help for students. Adlam-Hudgins loves her learning community—the structured course schedule, the life and learning skills taught each week, the group of students who learn together daily and support each other as family. “These things are already set in place for us,” she says. “All we do is turn up.”

 Leadership for Student Success

The college has brought together senior leadership—at the board and cabinet levels—around a sharp focus on student success. Institutional research functions have been beefed up, and professional development has been reoriented. At annual summits, faculty, staff, and administrators analyze data and think up solutions to the problems they reveal.

Over time, Broward has achieved steady increases in retention, graduation,   and transfer rates. There used to be a general presumption that students had “the right to fail,” administrators say. Now, even the groundskeepers are told that student success is their responsibility.