PJC wins top award from Texas Success Center

Image
Body

Healthcare

SAN ANTONIO — Staff and faculty at Paris Junior College was surprised and elated to receive the Texas Pathways 2019 Excellence in Implementation and Scaling award from the Texas Success Center for the institution’s work in improving student success.

This was the top award presented by the Texas Success Center out of 50 community colleges at the Texas Pathways Institute in San Antonio. PJC is the first college to receive the award.

“I’m very excited about it,” said PJC President Dr. Pam Anglin. “It is especially meaningful to me because it’s an award that took everybody at the college to win.”

According to Dr. Kristi Short, Director of the Texas Success Center, the award for Excellence in Implementation and Scaling is presented to the college that has made the most progress in transforming the institution using guided pathways principles.

This award recognizes excellence in all four pillars of guided pathways, which are mapping pathways to the student’s end goal, helping students choose and enter a pathway, keeping students on the path, and ensuring students are learning.

“After students are admitted, they are assigned a success coach and required to meet with that coach prior to registration. Students choose a program up front and take a Learning Framework course in the first semester. By the end of the first semester, every student is on a program map. Students cannot enroll in courses off that map unless the student success coach overrides the map,” Dr. Short explained.

PJC has been working on the Pathways program since 2016, when the college was one of 30 chosen nationally to develop and implement the initiative.