Thomas College - Old

Title III Strengthening Institutions Program

PR Award #P031A180069

The Title III Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP) provides grants to eligible institutions of higher education to help them become self sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low-income students, by providing funds to improve and strengthen the institution’s academic quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability.

Title III SIP at Thomas College

The purpose of this project is to increase the graduation rate of students, especially first-generation and low-income students. This project, which builds on the college’s successful focus on retention activities, will allow Thomas to focus on student graduation.

  • Key Components
    1. Increased services to currently enrolled students such as Early Start Academy for first-year students, Peer-Led Team Learning for gateway/required courses, and a May intensive course for students off-track to graduate in 4 years.
    2. Investments in faculty and staff development such as on-campus day-long and multi-day events each year, and off-campus conference and training opportunities.
    3. Retention/graduation analytics, such as developing analytics for graduation, to be based on newly identified factors. Then, to create and implement procedures to help students based on these newly identified factors.
    4. Financial sustainability, by supporting our students at Thomas College financially by having an endowment contribution to help our student financial and scholarship aid (match required by Thomas College) and by developing and refining our grant accounting management practices.