A new plan to improve student metric success rates was presented during the latest Academic Senate meeting on Tuesday, May 7.

Vice President of Student Services Ross Miyashiro and Director of Institutional Research and Planning Viviana Unda discussed specific guidelines and statistics aimed at improving EC student academics.

El Camino College officials and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office have been working to create five goals to improve success rates by the 2021 to 2022 academic year, Miyashiro said.

Miyashiro said during the presentation that these goals are mandated by the state of California.

A layout of the goals was illustrated in a handout provided by the research and planning department and presented by Unda.

The goals are to increase the completion rate of students who will earn an associates degree, transfer to a UC or CSU and getting a job in their related field of study after they graduate.

Additional goals are to decrease the number of units accumulated by associate degree earners and decrease the achievement gaps.

The objective is to attain equity in all each section goal so that there are no gaps by the target year 2025.

“It’s very important for us to improve our numbers and our statistics,” Unda said. “It can impact student center funding if we don’t.”

Some professors were concerned if there would be any penalties if the goals weren’t reached, but Unda assured that not reaching the goals weren’t punitive to professors.

Other professors wanted to know why is it their concern if students that have graduated decided to work in an area they weren’t trained in.

“I would say that’s says something about where they are studying because if they’re not able to get jobs in their related fields that means we need to go back and review how we can help better our community,” Unda said in response to the question during the meeting.

Considering funding is based on performance, it could be affected if the California State Legislature decides taxpayer money is not being effectively utilized in the community college system, Miyashiro said during the meeting.

“By May 31st, our board must adopt the goals at a board meeting and put it into the board agenda, an explanation of how the goals are consistent with the system-wide goals,” Miyashiro said during the meeting.

Since the Academic Senate meeting ran short of time, voting will take place during the next meeting.

Anyone with questions before the next meeting can contact to Miyashiro and Unda.

“There are a lot of changes coming from the state and new guidelines to abide by,” Vice President of Educational Policies Darcie McClelland said. “We want to make sure it’s attainable, our ultimate goal is student success.”