WCCCD Leader College

Wayne County Community College District became the first Achieving the Dream Leader College in Michigan during fall 2011. As a Leader College, WCCCD has met high standards of practice and performance and has shown three years of sustained student success improvement. Our Achieving the Dream program has demonstrated commitment to and made progress on the four principles of Achieving the Dream: committed leadership, use of evidence to improve programs and services, broad engagement, and systemic institutional improvement. Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD) was selected to join the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national initiative to help more community college students succeed, in fall 2008. WCCCD is privileged to be a part of a prestigious group of AtD community colleges in the United States.

Achieving The Dream Initiative

Achieving the Dream provides participating colleges with support to implement strategies designed to help more students, particularly students of color and low-income students, earn degrees, complete certificates or transfer to other institutions to continue their studies. Achieving the Dream emphasizes building a culture of evidence, in which colleges use data to identify effective practices, improve student success rates and close achievement gaps.

The Achieving the Dream initiative was created by several national partners to increase the number of community college students who succeed by completing developmental education and college-level courses with a "C" or better, return to college from semester to semester, and complete certificate and degree programs. The original national partners included the Lumina Foundation for Education, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Kellogg Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation.  The WCCCD AtD Initiative obtained funds for the five-year grant from the Kresge Foundation. WCCCD identified four priority intervention areas based on research on student achievement patterns. These original interventions are:

1. Improve the student advisement process
2. Improve academic performance of developmental English students
3. Increase the student retention rate for first-time degree seeking students
4. Expand Institutional Effectiveness capacity