Mission Statement
Members of the Liberal Arts Division value student engagement and innovative teaching and learning. We model and cultivate collegial habits that inspire independent, critical thinking, and we choose practices that address the needs of a diverse community unified by its common interest in helping one another reach clear academic, personal, and career goals. Our Division welcomes all, inclusive of economic background, ability, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or nationality.
Kevin O'Connor, Ph.D.
Dean
In order to achieve our Division Mission, we do the following:
- Always communicate in a manner that is timely, responsive, and helpful
- Stay active in our professional development
- Model practices that promote engaged teaching, learning, and service to others
- Practice supportive behaviors that encourage our students and ourselves to be directed, focused, nurtured, engaged, connected, and valued
Student Success
Six Factors of College Success
- Directed: students have a goal and know how to achieve it.
Helping students clarify their aspirations, select an educational focus they perceive as meaningful, and create a plan that moves them from enrollment to achieving their goal. - Focused: students stay on track, keeping their eyes on the prize.
Fostering students’ motivation and helping them develop the skills needed to achieve their goals. - Nurtured: students feel that somebody wants and helps them to succeed.
Conveying a sense of caring where students’ success is important and expected. - Engaged: students actively participate in class and extra-curricular activities.
Actively involving students in meaningful and authentic educational experiences and activities inside and outside of the classroom. - Connected: students feel that they are part of the college community.
Creating connections between students and the institution, while cultivating relationships that underscore how students’ involvement with the college community can contribute to their academic and personal success. - Valued: students' skills, talents, abilities and experiences are recognized; they have opportunities to contribute on campus and feel that their contributions are appreciated.
Providing students with opportunities to contribute to and enrich the college culture and community.
These six factors form the basis for the RP Group's student-focused investigation of support.
Keep on track with the Saddleback College, Academic Calendar 2017-2018
Student Success Resources
Documents
- 2010-13 Saddleback College Strategic Plan
- 2020 Vision Student Success: A Report of the Commission on the Future of the Community College League of California
- A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success - CCCSE
- Advancing Student Success in the California Community Colleges - SSTF recommendations
- Basic Skills Completion: The Key to Student Success in California Community Colleges - CCC
- Basic Skills as a Foundation for Student Success in California Community Colleges - RP Group
- Characteristics of Successful Students
- Common Core State Standards - OCDE
- Community College Honor Society Commits to Boosting Graduation Rates
- Divided We Fail: Improving Completion and Closing Racial Gaps in California Community Colleges - Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy
- Dispelling the Myths Surrounding a Liberal Arts Education
- Grade Explanation
- How the Liberal Arts Lead to Success
- One-Shot Deal? Student's Perception of Assessment and Course Placement in California's Community Colleges - WestEd
- SSRC Improving Undergraduate Learning: Findings and Policy Recommendations from the SSRC-CLA Longitudinal Project - SSRC
- Professional Development Opportunities
- Transforming Basic Skills Education - RP Group
- Unlock Your Education Potential: What Every Student Needs to Know to Succeed! by Haig & Haig
- Using Student Voices to Redefine Support - RP Group
- We Need More STEM Majors with Liberal Arts Training
- What Students Say They Need to Succeed - RP Group
- What Students Say They Need to Succeed: A Recipe for All of Us? - May/June 2013 ACCCA Report
- When Humanities Becomes the World
- Why America's Business Majors Are in Desperate Need of a Liberal Arts Education
- Why STEM Majors Need the Humanities
PowerPoints
Videos