CSUSF and SF City College Poster

Distinguishing
features
Most promising
aspects
Each Metro Academy is a ‘school within a
school’ for up to 140 students, creating a
personalized educational home. Our mission is
to increase equity in college completion
through engaging, supportive, rigorous, and
socially relevant education.
ePortfolios to assess student learning
outcomes. Metro is creating a full assessment
loop for student learning outcomes at the
program level.
Curriculum reinforces skills. Through
repeated practice of rigorous coursework in
writing, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking
and oral communication, students learn complex
skills. Curriculum is infused with real-world
content, a social justice lens, and career themes.
Cohort-style four-semester learning
community – Metro students take two linked
classes each semester over four semesters, for
a total of eight classes that share a broad career
theme. This design allows sequenced
development of complex skills, and forms
close bonds among peers, faculty and academic
counselors.
Highly structured general education (GE)
course pathway – All Metro classes are
universally required GE courses that count
toward graduation and transfer. The academies
run parallel at the community college and
California State University system (CSU). The
pathway satisfies graduation requirements for
all 241 majors in the CSU system, whether
they are taken at a community college or CSU.
Seats in the pathway courses are guaranteed.
Faculty learning community -- Faculty
participate in 45 hours of professional
development in tested high-impact educational
practices on relevant, contextualized and
engaged teaching and learning.
Next steps
1.  Demonstrate a Metro University Center at
City College of San Francisco, producing
fully junior-ready transfers. This is a Metro
Plus program—Metro plus reserved seats in
ten other courses.
2.  Our long-term goal is for large-scale
adoption by the California State University
and California Community Colleges.
Metro at SF State
Compared to all first-time freshman at SF
State, Metro students need remediation at a
higher percentage, are more likely to be
under-represented,
low-income, and/or
first-generation
college going.
83%
Enter needing remediation: Metro
57%
SFSU
64%
Low-income: Metro
40%
SFSU
80%
First generation: Metro
26%
SFSU
Metro program completers persist at 19%
higher rate into their 7th semester compared
to all first-time freshmen
at SF State, when we
take an average of
all cohorts.
91%
86%
79%
79%
67%
60%
Metro Health at City College
Of all Metro Health students at City College, at
least seven out of ten are under-represented;
eight out of ten require remediation; and seven
out of ten are very low-income.
3rd semester
5th semester
Metro
Steady growth. Metro is experiencing steady
growth despite budget cutbacks. We are funded
to grow from five to nine Metro Academies by
2015.
A redesign, not an ‘add-on program.’ Metro is
not an add-on to the “same old same old.” It is a
deep redesign of the first two years of college.
Wrap-around student services tied in to core
classes – Services include proactive academic
counseling, tutoring, and access to financial aid
advising. Early intervention begins quickly if a
student falters.
Evidence
Sustainable and scalable. Metro is a costefficient program that can be institutionalized as
part of an institution’s daily operations.
Extraordinary results. The data shows major
improvements in persistence and transferpreparedness for low-income, first-generation,
under-represented college students. 7th semester
All FTF
Metro Health students are more than nine
times more likely to be transfer-prepared
after two years than the
comparison group.
29%
Our funders
•  US Department of Education, Strengthening
Institutions Program (SIP)
•  Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary
Education (FIPSE), US Department of
Education, 2007-2010; dissemination grant
2011-2013
•  CSU Chancellor’s Office (Compass II)
•  Marcled Foundation
•  The James Irvine Foundation
•  Mimi and Peter Haas Fund
•  The Alexander M. and June L. Maisin
Foundation
•  Connect to Learning, a FIPSE-funded
project
Ongoing in-kind support from:
•  San Francisco State University
•  City College of San Francisco
3%
Transfer prepared after 2 years
Metro Health 2010
Comparison group 2010
After two years, Metro Health students are
more likely to have achieved successful
outcomes (graduated, transferred, graduated
and transferred, or persisted) than the
comparison group.
Our challenges
57%
51%
14%
9%
3%
graduation
0%
transfer
Metro Health 2010
3%
0%
grad+transfer
Comparison group 2010
still enrolled
Cutbacks in public education mean we have
to: 1) fundraise for external funds to support
the planning and start-up work, even on the
core mission of our institutions, and 2) retrain
faculty, staff, and counselors because of
frequent turnover.