Athletes’ Advantage

1. Athletes’ Advantage Learning Resources Commission Exemplary Practice Award 2005

3. IRCC: Dedicated to Student Success • Serves four counties and 11,700 full time students • Offers Associate in Arts Degrees, Associate in Science Technical Degrees and certificates

4. Community College Survey of Student Engagement • Office of Institutional Effectiveness administered CCSSE to all campuses, 65 instructors, and 775 students • Rankings were similar to community colleges of the same size

5. IRCC’s Rankings • Active and Collaborative Learning 48% • Student Effort 49.9% • Academic Challenge 50.2% • Student-Faculty Interaction 50.2% • Support for Learners 51.5%

6. IRCC NJCAA Athletic Teams • Men’s Baseball I • Men’s and Women’s Basketball I • Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving I • Women’s Volleyball I • Fast Pitch Softball I

7. Eligibility • Held accountable to NJCAA rules of eligibility, rules of the Southern Conference, and rules of IRCC • Allowed two seasons of competition of any one sport • Must maintain full time status • 1st semester must pass 12 credits with 1.75 • Second season must have 24 credits with a 2.00 GPA

8. Why focus on athletes? • College athletics focus of news due to NCAA decision to enforce Academic Progress Rate • Teams held to strict standards based on point system of 1000 • Every team scoring below 925 loses a scholarship for every failing student • Our athletes will have to follow these rules or risk losing their scholarship

9. Library’s Role in Engagement • Has supported student-athletes study halls for years • Library staff work closely with athletes and coaches • Unique partnership developed to engage the athletes • Library developed practices to address all five CCSSE benchmarks

10. Active and Collaborative Learning • IRCC Library remodel will incorporate learning styles and will house tutoring center • All incoming student-athlete learning styles will be tested • MLA citation learning object created

11. Student Effort • Student effort can be gauged by noting percentage of students who integrate ideas from other sources in their papers • Library staff make it a priority that students walk out with research • Teach them how to do research and cite themselves

12. Academic Challenge • Entire teams offered LIS 2004 • Athletes taught research and citation skills • VP of Student Affairs has discussed making this a mandatory course for those on scholarship

13. Student-Faculty Interaction • Library participates in special athletes only orientation • Team library tours, database training • Email contacts • Team pictorials • Syllabi for gatekeeper courses • Announcment board • Game attendance

14. Support for Learners • Library survey • Coach liaisons • Collection Development

15. Evidence of Effectiveness • GPA for girl swimmers went up • Planning to record data to chart progress • Pre and post Information Literacy Test • Usage of library outside study hall

16. Duplication of IRCC Library’s Practices • Engage student-athletes early on • Attend their games • Understand their learning styles • Offer a research course early on • Be flexible with them!