Dear Colleagues,
Reflecting on my first full year at Austin Community College, I am immensely grateful for your kindness, inclusion, and openness.
I have seen how your passion and commitment to our students can create real, lasting change. It hasn’t been easy, and certainly, there are challenges. Know we’re in a better place. I am excited about the direction we’re headed.
During last week’s virtual town hall, I touched on some of the opportunities we have taken on this year, and I want to take a moment to expand on those. When I was hired, I worked with the Board of Trustees to zero in on four big goals:
- Build a collaborative and empowered culture.
- Improve student outcomes — in particular, close equity gaps.
- Change what leadership looks like.
- Provide direction and clarity on our work.
We’ve moved a lot faster than I could have anticipated, and I’m excited by what I’m seeing.
ACC is a remarkable place full of wonderful people who care deeply about our students and community.
Just six months ago, you helped us launch our new Theory of Change. I’m thrilled by the energy around the journey. Our Design Teams have begun their work to shape the future of our College. I encourage you to follow the progress through the monthly Future Focus newsletter. This work will lead us to grow completion and transfer rates and achieve our North Star of a 70% success rate by 2030.
This leads me to what I am most excited about –– we are already seeing positive change in our student outcomes.
Preliminary data shows we are at a 27% graduation rate –– a 5% increase from last year. That is huge!
We are still exploring the data to determine all the factors. I want to be cautious about any lessons learned, but we can see this cohort took fewer hours, which means they had clear pathways and great advising. Whether you are teaching, advising, supporting, or leading, you are helping us achieve our vision to improve the lives of every student who walks through our doors.
As we celebrate this important milestone in our graduation rate, it’s important to remember that this success belongs to all of us, and it is only the beginning.
I want to root us in effectiveness. Is our work impacting students? Are we improving outcomes? I have faith we can get there. We have access to a lot of data. We have a lot of work to do to learn how to use it to inform our decisions.
This process is new. There will be lots of starts and stops. We will have real moments of learning and improvement. I hope you will continue to be patient with each other and assume positive intent.
I am incredibly proud to be part of this college community and even prouder of what we have accomplished so far in improving the lives of our students. I’m excited to continue this journey together.
It has been a joy to share this first year with you.
Much Love,
russell
Russell Lowery-Hart, Ph.D.
Chancellor
Austin Community College District