VGCC Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) 2023-2028

The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is an integral component of the accreditation process with SACSCOC. Developing a QEP as part of the reaffirmation process is an opportunity for VGCC to enhance overall institutional and instructional quality and effectiveness by focusing on an issue to improving student learning.

SACSCOC Leadership Team

QEP Leadership Team

QEP Coordinators

• Jason Bryan, Co-QEP Coordinator
• Dr. Brandy Bowling, Co-QEP Coordinator

QEP Committee Members

• Jason Bryan, Co-QEP Coordinator
• Dr. Brandy Bowling, Co-QEP Coordinator
• David Wyche, Department Chair English
• Betty Clark, English Faculty Member
• Frankie Frink, English Faculty Member
• Curtis Henderson, English Faculty Member
• Ruth Holton, English Faculty Member
• Gregory Wilson, English Faculty Member
• Maggie Morgan, English Faculty Member
• Ian Wolf, English Faculty Member

QEP Executive Summary

Vance-Granville Community College (VGCC) has selected Writing as the Cornerstone of College Success as the topic for the next Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The process for the selection of this topic involved a broad spectrum of internal and external stakeholders. During the Fall of 2020, the College formed a QEP committee and identified co-directors to lead the process. The committee considered a number of potential topics, all of which easily integrated into the college’s strategic planning and Achieving the Dream (ATD) work.

During VGCC’s initial year as an ATD school, the college focused on student success by examining data specifically concerning retention, completion, and course success rates. This data was disaggregated by race, Pell Grant eligibility, and age to help identify equity gaps in programs and gateway courses. The data revealed poor success rates in English and Math courses particularly when disaggregated by race and gender. The North Carolina Community College System Office confirmed these results when they released an Equity Report in 2019 (Appendix A) which revealed equity gaps in English and Math courses completed during the initial academic year of the student’s enrollment at VGCC.

Between March and April 2019, VGCC held a series of Community Engagement Sessions in each county of the college’s service area as part of the Strategic Planning Process and to inform ATD work. Community Engagement sessions were held at Franklin Campus (Appendix B), South Campus (Appendix C), Warren Campus (Appendix D), and Main Campus (Appendix E). These sessions revealed that the community wanted the college to focus on workforce training to ensure students had not only technical skills, but soft skills as well. The findings from the Community Engagement sessions were synthesized with the ATD data to help formulate VGCC’s Strategic Plan and ATD Action Plan.

As part of the ATD initiative, an internal analysis of institutional course success rates revealed that the three-year course success rate of English 111 was almost 14 points below the institutional average in other courses (Table 11). As a result of the findings from VGCC’s ATD data analysis, Community Engagement Sessions, and published course success information from the North Carolina Community College System, the English gateway class course success rate became the ideal area on which to focus the QEP. The QEP committee then reviewed English course rates at other NC Community Colleges and ATD institutions which demonstrated greater success rates and reached out to those schools to identify strategies they were using to meet and maintain higher course success rates. Additionally, the team surveyed former VGCC students about their experiences in the ENG 111 gateway class. The committee proposed that the College choose Writing as the Cornerstone of College Success as the topic for VGCC’s next Quality Enhancement Plan because almost all students at the college take ENG 111. Thus, by focusing on improving writing ability as a workforce skill, it would allow the college to impact more students with better course success, student persistence, and institutional completions. Furthermore, this QEP topic strongly reflects VGCC’s overall mission “to educate, inspire, and support a diverse community of learners to achieve professional and personal success.”

Frequently Asked Questions

QEP Timeline

Implementation Timeline

Piloting of the QEP Writing as the Cornerstone of College Success began in Spring 2022. Select English faculty members were involved in data analysis to create benchmarks of the selected strategies. Beginning in Fall 2022, all ENG 111 courses will begin implementation of all three strategies of the QEP. Data collection will begin at the end of the fall term, allowing assessment of the first short-term measurable outcomes. Following Spring 2023 data collection, the QEP team will analyze data for medium-term measurable goals, in addition to continuing short-term measurable goal analysis. Long-term measurement and analysis are anticipated to start in Spring 2025. Measurement of long-term goals would continue annually for the following three academic years in preparation for the QEP Impact Report 5-year interim report. Table 12 outlines the QEP Implementation Timeline.

Table 12. Implementation Timeline for Writing as the Cornerstone of College Success

Writing as the Cornerstone of College Success

Strategies:

1. Students will establish an early relationship with their ENG 111: Writing and Inquiry instructor through individual meetings.
2. Students earning less than a C on the first ENG 111: Writing and Inquiry essay will be required to seek supplemental instruction.
3. Students will incorporate reflection and reflective writing activities in ENG 111: Writing and Inquiry.

Spring 2022

2022-2023

2023-2024

2024-2025

2025-2026

2026-2027