LCCC Student Success Priorities

At Lorain County Community College (LCCC), we believe every student’s dream matters. We strive to provide excellent support services, a warm and welcoming campus culture, and a student-centered approach to learning.

Under the college’s current strategic plan, Vision 2025, LCCC is committed to helping individuals, families, the local economy and the community by providing opportunities that align with five areas of focus: student-focused, success-focused, future-focused, work-focused and community-focused. Read more about LCCC’s vision.

Our work across these five areas ultimately supports students in achieving their academic, career and personal dreams. This can include a certificate, an associate degree, a bachelor’s or higher degree, and a living wage job and career. Our ongoing efforts are to improve student access to higher education while ensuring equitable outcomes for all student groups and paving the way for easy and accessible transfer to a four-year university. Our student completion efforts are evidence-based, data-informed and in partnership with national programs like Achieving the Dream (ATD), Guided Pathways are designed to support student completion in community colleges and higher education.

Students at LCCC experience services and programs directly aligned with the college’s commitment to student success, which is highlighted in LCCC’s Completion Plan. Notable programs include:

  • The Advocacy and Resource Center’s (ARC) primary purpose is to ensure our students can access basic needs while completing their certificate or degree at LCCC.  The ARC provides free, caring, confidential support and connection to campus and community resources to help with any issues students face, including food and income assistance programs, utility assistance, childcare services, mental health and addiction services, transportation, housing insecurity, legal services, support for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, and access to the college’s Career Closet. 
  • The Students Accelerated in Learning (SAIL) Program, which provides structured support services for real college students with real-world obstacles. SAIL’s cohort-based model provides students with financial and academic support to graduate with an associate degree within three years. SAIL places student success as the center of its support services and includes regular and supportive academic advising, personalized career counseling, tutoring, priority pre-registration and workshops. 
  • Fast Tracks to Employment, which provide tuition-free access to industry-recognized credentials in as little as 16 weeks. These opportunities are an ideal way to quickly retrain for a new career, earn a short-term certificate, and make important connections with career specialists and employers looking to hire. Over 800 individuals have earned Fast Track credentials through LCCC, providing the foundation for advanced credentials, degrees, and a sustainable career in in-demand industries.
  • High Impact Practices (HIPs) - The use of high-impact practices (HIPs), or experiential teaching practices that demonstrate significant educational benefits for students who participate in them – including and especially those from demographic groups historically underserved by higher education embedded into courses and programs will provide additional learning experiences and opportunities for students to practice and articulate their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Some examples of HIPs include first year experiences, learning communities, project-based learning, service/community-based learning, and internships including work-based learning, and capstones.  Through recent participation in the AAC&U High Impact Practices Institute and Curriculum to Career Innovation Institute, the LCCC team learned that integrating HIPs into academic programs is the key way to ensure access to HIPs and equitable participation. The recent Boyer Commission Report (2022), “The Equity/Excellence Imperative: A 2030 Blueprint for Undergraduate Education at U.S. Research Universities” also recommended integration of HIPs at the program level to ensure equity and excellence for all students.
  • STEM at LCCC, which provides a unique, integrated experience for students pursuing STEM fields with the support of specialized scholarship programs such as Choose Ohio First, National Science Foundation, Intel, and more. Through engagement in STEM at LCCC, students gain access to learning communities, undergraduate research, mentoring, and work-based learning in high opportunity fields related to science, math, engineering, health, and mathematics.
  • LCCC Connect, which provides a centralized access point for students to connect with one another and fully engage in the LCCC overall student experience. To LCCC, access is not limited to simply attending LCCC; rather, students build social capital and networks through engagement in learning communities, leadership programs, faculty mentoring, and other experiences designed with skills building in mind.
  • Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), which provides opportunities for students with life and professional experiences to demonstrate mastery of learning outcomes, achieving accelerated placement or course credits. PLA can be facilitated in several formats, including tested knowledge, portfolio, or submission of industry recognized credentials.
  • Unlocking Opportunities: The Post-Graduation Success and Equity Network is comprised of 10 community colleges, plus a resource college, committed to improving students’ post-completion outcomes and proving that – by focusing on delivering credentials of value – colleges can strengthen the programs they offer and advising they provide. LCCC was selected to this elite group of colleges by The Aspen Institute and Community College Research Center at Teacher College, Columbia University. This national network will lead the field in shifting the goal from students graduating with any credential to completing with credentials of value by advancing their access and completion. That means making sure that every student is on track to earn a bachelor’s degree or a high-quality workforce credential, including students of color and low-income students, who are least likely to enroll in and complete the programs that most often result in strong outcomes.
  • Through a partnership with UnidosUS, LCCC offers the Avanzando Through College Program, a Latino community-building and college completion program that supports first, second-year, and first-generation Latino college students. Established in 2015, the Avanzando Through College Program aims to equip students with the skills, information and support systems needed to identify student services, improve academic performance and graduate and transfer to a four-year college (if applicable). The Avanzando model is rooted in an asset-based perspective that acknowledges, celebrates, and enhances the experiences, talents, language, cultural traditions and fields of knowledge Latino students bring with them
  • LCCC’s Assigned Advisor Model provides each student with a central point of contact from connection through completion.  In this model, students receive personalized academic advising, degree progress monitoring and program exploration within LCCC’s nine academic pathways. Academic advisors are organized into teams around these nine pathways to provide students with expert advice and guidance on the programs of their choice. Assigned advisors can be found in the MyCampus portal. Students can make an appointment online at www.lorainccc.edu/advising.
  • Program and Career Pathways allow students to explore career options or get on track to the career they already have in mind. Whether the student intends to earn a certificate or degree from LCCC or transfer to a University Partnership program or another college or university, program and career pathways is a great place to start.
  • LCCC’s University Partnership program, its Bachelor of Applied Science in Microelectronic Manufacturing, and its development of its Ohio Guaranteed Transfer Pathways support seamless and affordable paths to bachelor’s degrees. 
  • To meet the needs of adult learners, LCCC has developed 16 accelerated pathways, which allow students to earn a degree in as little as 15 months. Whether a student’s goal is career advancement or seamless transfer, LCCC’s accelerated pathways will help students achieve their academic and career goals more quickly than ever. 
  • LCCC’s Success Messaging delivers personalized, interactive, in-time text messages to enrolled students. Throughout each semester, students will receive positive reinforcement, nudging towards support services, and reminders about upcoming registration periods.
  • Innovative, student-centered technology tools like Degree Map and Schedule Planner make the enrollment experience easy, friendly and informative. Degree Map helps students chart the best plan for success by showing requirements completed and those courses still remaining. Students can explore majors or minors and search for local and national career opportunities.
  • The college’s Developmental Education co-requisite approach to developmental math and English courses saves students time and money towards their degree and provides direct support in foundational subjects.
  • The Mentoring Vibrant People of Color (MVP) program launched in 2019 provides an internal network of individuals committed to helping students of color and other underrepresented groups access resources and navigate the college environment. 

LCCC is recognized as a national leader in student success:

AACC First in the Nation for Student Success (2018) In 2018, LCCC was named First in the Nation for Student Success by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). This recognition is granted to a community college that has demonstrated, through evidence, a sustained commitment to and proactively advances the cause of student success at a community college.

Achieving the Dream

LCCC is also proud to be recognized as an Achieving the Dream Leader College since 2015, and was named an ATD Leader College of Distinction in 2019 and 2022. This recognition is based upon LCCC's student success improvements which were anchored by Vision 2025. Both ATD distinctions signify the progress LCCC is making and provide enhanced grant opportunities to support more student success initiatives.

In 2020, LCCC earned the top distinction through Achieving the Dream, winning the prestigious Leah Meyer Austin Award for designing and providing a holistic approach to student success.

Aspen Institute Top 150 Community Colleges (2019)
In 2019, LCCC was named among the top 150 community colleges in the United States, an honor that provides recognition of high achievement and performance in supporting student outcomes in learning, completion rates, employment rates and earnings.

Student Equity
Lorain County Community College is committed to equity, the idea that students from marginalized and underrepresented populations have access to resources that empower student success and close completion achievement gaps. Equity is based upon the principle of fairness and is distinct from equality. While equality involves treating everyone the same way, equity provides each individual or group with what they need to have an equal opportunity to succeed. A commitment to equity also includes identifying and removing structural barriers under-served students face. As a campus community, we will adopt practices that promote equity, grow the culture of inclusion, demand social justice and use that power to ensure success for all students. 

LCCC was selected to participate in the 2023-2024 Racial Equity Leadership Academy (RELA) through Achieving the Dream, demonstrating a sustained commitment to equity in student access, success, outcomes, and sense of belonging.

Achieving the Dream provides some examples of historically underrepresented students. These include but are not limited to: first-generation and low-income students; students of color; adult students; marginalized orientations, gender identities, and intersex students; students with second-language backgrounds; undocumented students; veterans; students with disabilities; students with dependents; foster care youth; and formerly and currently incarcerated students.

In 2023 LCCC was selected to participate in the Achieving the Dream and USC Racial Equity Leadership Institute (RELA).  The RELA is an intensive institute designed to support college leaders as they develop bold, strategic racial equity plans and implement actionable change efforts at their institutions.  During the year-long Racial Equity Leadership Academy, college teams will:

  •     Actively participate in racial equity–focused modules in person and virtually
  •     Identify a racial equity change effort to design and implement
  •     Receive support from an ATD coach during at least one campus visit and monthly virtual visits over the 2023 calendar year
  •     Develop a long-range vision that will guide their identified racial equity change effort

By the end of the Academy, college teams will have implemented a racial equity change effort, participated in coaching engagements, developed a new vision for their campus’s racial equity work, and launched the rollout of their racial equity change effort with a comprehensive, prioritized action plan. The identified effort and action plan should align with each college’s Student Success Action Plan and strategic plan.

LCCC students are encouraged to take advantage of other support services including, but not limited to:

Advocacy and Resource Center
Accessibility Services         
Campus Security
Children’s Learning Center
LGBTQA+ Community
Personal Counseling
Suicide Prevention Services
Veterans Services
 

LCCC is committed to student success and to providing excellent service. We encourage students to provide feedback by completing a quick five-question survey at www.lorainccc.edu/survey.