Clovis Community College:
REIMAGINING Student Supports

The Beginning

One of the newer campuses in the State Center Community College District, Clovis Community College began Guided Pathways planning by investigating what initiatives were on the horizon and then exploring what would work best for their campus. As they pursued stronger partnerships between faculty and counselors in Spring 2019, they created meta-majors and began designing a case management model for assigning counselors to meta-majors and for a hierarchy of support for students. Piloting this model in Fall 2019, Clovis’s counseling team at first relied on front desk staff to triage appointments and counselor’s assignments and then began using Starfish to develop an online appointment system.

Implementation

Implementation of the Case Management Model at Clovis included several key parts:

• Collaboration: Counselors meet with instructional faculty in their departments

• Partnerships: Counselors make connections with transfer institutions and industry partners

• Information: Improvements are under way to Clovis’s website to provide information about careers

As the team moved toward this model, a designated counselor and adjunct worked to coordinate the early alert system in Starfish. They continued to discuss how Starfish Connect would be implemented, receiving release time.

To avoid counselor burnout and ensure continued sharing of information, full-time counselors began meeting regularly to check in, shift work assignments as needed, and host twice-monthly trainings that include adjuncts.

With a supportive dean of students and with the student voice in mind, Clovis’s counseling team was able to innovate, collaborate with faculty, and meet the needs of students. Counselors have been attending faculty and division meetings to share information about their services and serve as a resource. They also established partnerships with community organizations to increase internships and other opportunities for Clovis students.

Student Experience

Though the Clovis counseling team hosts a Student Ed Campaign each semester to encourage students to complete an ed plan, they’ve seen great increases in student traffic since implementing the case management model in July 2019.

Counselors have been sharing their business cards with students, students are following up more often, and they are forming relationships with counselors since they have a designated counselor they see each time.

Early Outcomes

With the implementation of case management, 95% of Clovis students now complete ed plans within their first year on campus.