Michigan Partnership for Academic Transitions (MI-PAT)

INITIATIVE OVERVIEW 

Michigan Partnership for Academic Transitions (MI-PAT) is a multi-year collaboration between Michigan College Access Network (MCAN), the Michigan Center for Student Success (MCSS), and the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA). MI-PAT aims to close racial equity gaps and significantly increase the number of first-year community college students who complete a gateway math course (a credit-bearing math course in one of the three pathways identified in the Michigan Transfer Agreement).

The initiative will join the creative energies of high schools and colleges so they can work together to remove barriers and support student success. This will be achieved through redesign of developmental education and improved academic transitions in three key areas: readiness, placement, and remediation. Funding for this innovative partnership is provided by the Kresge Foundation.

LEARNING TEAMS

Early in this initiative, MCAN and MCCA will bring together “learning teams.” Each team will be composed of community college and high school partners, whose campuses will serve as demonstration sites. Learning teams will use the updated 2020 Core Principles for Transforming Remediation, which will serve as the framework to design and implement projects that improve academic transitions, described below. 

SUPPORT AND COMMITMENTS 
 The network of learning teams will receive support from MCAN and the MCSS. This includes grant funding, broad design parameters, and access to technical assistance and national experts who work on high-impact practices associated with improved academic transitions and gateway course completion. In return, teams will commit to working toward specific improvements that are consistent with the core aims of the initiative. In addition, teams will engage in knowledge development and the sharing of lessons learned through the partnership.  

Each learning team project will focus on closing racial equity gaps with respect to increasing access to, and success in, gateway math courses. Project examples include: 

  • A senior-level transition course for high school students who are not yet college-ready at the end of their junior year that prepares them for gateway college math
  • Math course placement reform (e.g. grade-point average, multiple measures) aimed at increasing access to gateway math for more students

Current Partnerships

Cohort 1

Kalamazoo Valley Community College, in partnership with

  • Comstock High School
  • Gull Lake High School

Macomb Community College, in partnership with

  • Chippewa Valley High School
Monroe Community College, in partnership with

  • Jefferson High School
  • Monroe High School
  • Dundee Community Schools

Cohort 2

Gogebic Community College, in partnership with

  • Ewen-Trout Creek High School

Grand Rapids Community College, in partnership with

  • Grand Rapids Public Schools

Apply

Michigan community colleges are eligible to apply for this grant opportunity. Though Cohort 1 has already began work, there is still space available in Cohort 2 to begin work in June! To learn more and apply, contact autumn@micollegeaccess.org. 


QUESTIONS?

Contact Autumn Kearney, Strategy Manager for High School Innovation.

Michigan Partnership for Academic Transitions (MI-PAT)

Contact

Autumn Kearney
517-316-1713

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