Overview

“Students who come from southeast Kentucky have been told all their lives that they aren’t as good as students elsewhere in the country,” says W. Bruce Ayers, president of Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College. “We have tried to establish an affirming culture that says, ‘Yes, you can.’” Impressive results have followed: The college has significantly increased completion rates over the past five years.

Direct Faculty Support

At Southeast Kentucky, half the faculty was raised in the mountainous,   isolated region, and they celebrate the local culture, teach students self-confidence, and hold high standards for their education. With few layers of administration, when the staff propose an innovation in response to poor student outcomes—like offering students two developmental courses in one semester, the second one free, to move them through faster—they can move on it immediately. Faculty work with four-year schools to ensure students gain the right skills. For instance, the English faculty changed the composition curriculum after university professors complained students could not write in a variety of formats. “Now they tell us that our transfer students are as well or better prepared than their native freshmen and sophomores,” says professor Robert Cox.           

One-on-One Contact

More than three-quarters of the student body at Southeast Kentucky are low-income. Students in need get special attention, including single parents on welfare, who receive financial and academic supports, and GED students, whom the college is successful at moving into credit-bearing programs. One-on-one contact is key at Southeast Kentucky—a counselor will dial up the Internal Revenue Service if that’s what an intimidated student needs in order to fill out financial aid forms. Officials phone every student who hasn’t shown up the first two weeks of class.

“We’ve been ridiculed for babying our students,” says Rebecca Parrott, vice president for student affairs. “But we always remember what we felt like sitting in that chair.”