Year 3 Summary Report

Year III was marked by the scaling of integrated skills ESL course sections and targeted success coaching for ESL students, a continued increase in the use of embedded language support services, and sustained increases in ESL students' progression into and successful completion of College Writing I (ENG-111), the college-level gateway course in English. The total number of faculty and staff trained in Local-Global Learning increased, the total number of course sections infused with Asian American content more than quadrupled from the previous year, and the number of students enrolled in these courses (total as well as AAPI students only) continued to rise. The percentage of AAPI students to total student enrollment increased from 13% in Year II to 14% in Year III, as well as the three-year graduation rate for AAPI and Pell-eligible students, from 12% for the fall 2015 cohort to 15% for the fall 2016 cohort. Nearly all project measures for Year III exceeded annual and overall grant goals.

The ESL DESIGN TEAM quickly scaled its ESL integrated skills course sections. In AY 2018-2019, ESL faculty taught a total of 34 integrated skills courses (13 in the fall and 21 in the spring) that served a total of 630 students (276 in the fall and 354 in the spring), while simultaneously continuing their alignment work with English faculty that differentiated the acceleration of ESL students into College Writing I (ENG 111). These two major activities led to (1) the accelerated progression of 187 out of 395 first-time enrolled ESL students into ENG 111 within two semesters, or 47% of the total -- roughly the same percentage rate in Year II, which was 48%; and the successful completion of ENG 111 within three semesters by 171 students, or 43% of the total - an increase of 2 percentage points from 41% in Year II; (2) acceleration and enrollment of 228 students into ENG-111 via differentiated acceleration, with demonstrated successful course completion rates of 84% in fall 2018 and 93% in spring 2019.

Use of the Language Lab, which increased significantly from Year II, continued to support ESL students' accelerated progression into and successful completion of ENG 111. In Year III, Language Lab staff documented a total of 530 class visits, of which 384 (72%) were ESL classes that primarily integrated AAPI-themed programming into the course curricula (e.g., e-Portfolio orientations for assignments related to field trips to Boston's Chinatown, online reading, writing and responding to AAPI-themed texts). A total of 2,220 unique students (up by 24% from 1,783 in Year II) engaged in 12,226 visits to the Language Lab - an increase of 43% from 8,583 visits in Year II. Students in Year III also spent a total of 15,869 hours working on the Language Lab computers, compared to 13,118 hours in Year II, an increase of 21%.

Finally, the ESL Design Team continued to work with the Asian American Civic Association (AACA) of Boston Chinatown. BHCC English faculty worked with AACA staff to align AACA's ESL courses with BHCC's ENG-111 course learning outcomes. Our Targeted Success Coaching Team also partnered with the College's Office of Community-Based Initiatives to host a college visit for 25 AACA students in two college-level classes in PSY 215/Counseling (15 students) and ENG- 112/College Writing II (10 students).

The TARGETED SUCCESS COACHING (TSC) TEAM grew from just one to three AAPI Success Coaches between Years II and III, increasing the team's capacity to provide success coaching to a growing number of ESL students enrolled in integrated skills courses. In spring 2018 of Year II, there were only 142 students in the initial pilot of ESL integrated skills course sections who received success coaching. By Year III, this number more than quadrupled to a total of 630 students enrolled in ESL integrated skills courses: success coaches served 276 students in fall 2018 and 354 students in spring 2019, or 41% and 68%, respectively, out of the total number of students enrolled in any ESL course in those semesters. Use of the five in-classroom visit model and the assistance of trained student ACE mentors continued from Year II with some slight modifications. Four trained ACE Mentor 'Plus' students, under the supervision of the lead AAPI Success Coach, were specifically assigned to handle the classroom visits to ESL Level I classes, while the other AAPI Success Coaches continued to handle all success coaching for students in ESL Levels II and III classes.

The combined interventions by the ESL Design and TSC Teams resulted in a 55% fall-to-fall retention rate for all ESL students who enrolled in fall 2018 - at par with the overall fall-to-fall retention rate for all BHCC students enrolled in the same semester. The sub-group of ESL students who are both AAPI and Pell-eligible demonstrated the highest fall-to-fall retention rate for Year III at 74%, followed by the sub-groups of Pell-eligible ESL students and AAPI ESL students, which had one-year retention rates of 65% and 64%, respectively.

The LOCAL-GLOBAL LEARNING (LGL) TEAM engaged in three major activities in Year III. First, the LGL Team continued to integrate Asian American content into course curricula. The LGL Team provided training and support for a total of 14 Local-Global Learning faculty fellows who designed and taught 26 Asian American infused courses in AY 2018-2019. These included courses that were designed and piloted by 11 faculty fellows who engaged in the second AANAPISI Local-Global Learning Institute held in summer 2018.

Second, the LGL Team helped develop programming for the One Book selected for AY 2018- 2019. The LGL Team collaborated with the One Book Program and the Office of College Events and Cultural Planning to develop programming for the One Book selection, Seng Ty's  "The Years of Zero: Coming of Age Under the Khmer Rouge," by creating opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and administrators to engage with Cambodian American scholars, artists and writers in learning about the cultural wealth of Cambodia and the experiences of inequity that Cambodian American communities in the U.S. struggle with. These included: (1) holding a two-part lecture, first on "U.S. Presence and Intervention in Southeast Asia," then second, on the "Experiences of Cambodian Migrant Communities in the U.S. from 1975 to 1994" that was followed by  a field  trip to the Cambodian American community of Revere, Massachusetts; (2) holding a ceramic exhibit by renowned artist Yari Livan, who was also invited to talk about his artistry as a vehicle for learning about the cultural wealth of Cambodia; (3) inviting Princess Moon to hold poetry reading sessions in classes as a way to encourage students, specially AAPI students, to reflect on their evolving identities; (4) holding a public conversation between author Seng Ty and BHCC's Artist-in-Residence Dr. Chandler-Smith, on the topic of resilience and spirituality; and (5) helping to host Mr. Seng Ty's One Book Author visit to the College as a culminating event of the One Book Program.

Third, the LGL Team continued to offer faculty and staff professional development through the AANAPISI Local Global Learning Institute. In collaboration with the Center for Equity and Cultural Wealth (CECW), the LGL Team held the Third AANAPISI Local-Global Learning Institute in summer 2019 through the Second Annual CECW Summer Institute with the theme, "Power and Place: Valuing Cultural Wealth to Advance Equity in Higher Education." A duplicated headcount of about 90 participants -- comprised of students, faculty, and staff -- engaged across six Asian American-themed workshops and three field studies, with 25 unique participants completing at least one workshop and one field study. A keynote address by Dr. Peter Kiang, Director of UMass Boston's Asian American Studies Program, also elicited engagement from 163 CECW Institute participants.

Major Milestones Achieved

The ESL DESIGN TEAM achieved FULL SCALING of integrated skills course sections taught during the day by spring 2019 of Year III (a total of 20 sections), within just three semesters of launching the first pilot of 7 courses in spring 2018 of Year II. This is a significant milestone because at least 75% of ESL students enroll in day courses.

Student demand for integrated skills courses also surged soon after the first pilot courses were launched, a trend which further pushed the   ESL Department to convert all its day sections into integrated skills courses. One evening integrated skills course section was also piloted to help the department design curricula that   may be more suited to the needs of ELL students who take evening sections.

Concurrently, the collaboration between ESL and English faculty in curriculum alignment work and differentiated acceleration of ELL students into ENG-111 continued. A total of 40 faculty (27 ESL and 13 English) participated in this task, resulting in the recommended acceleration of 283 students from any level of ESL into ENG-111, and actual enrollment of 228 or 81% of these students in ENG-111. From Year I to Year III, a total of 1,165 students from ESL courses were recommended for acceleration into ENG-111, and 965 or 83% of them actually enrolled in ENG-111. Successful course completion rates for these ESL students in the last three fall semesters (86% in fall 2016, 86% in fall 2017 and 84% in fall 2018) and last three spring semesters (86% in spring 2017, 85% in spring 2018 and 93% in spring 2019) have also been consistently higher than the overall ENG-111 success rates for fall 2016, 2017 and 2018 (74%, 74%, and 70%, respectively) and spring 2017, 2018 and 2019 (71%, 69%, and 67%, respectively). Even more impressive is that the success rates of these accelerated ESL students were also much higher than the success rates of students who did NOT take any ESL courses prior to taking ENG-111 in fall 2016, 2017 and 2018 (72%, 69%, and 63%, respectively) as well as in spring 2017, 2018 and 2019 (68%, 65%, and 63%, respectively). These success rates clearly indicate that ESL students who are accelerated into ENG-111 do not need to take developmental English courses prior to taking ENG-111.

The work of the TARGETED SUCCESS COACHING (TSC) TEAM also increased student engagement. As procedures for implementing the success coaching model became more established, more ELL students sought individual consultations with the AAPI Success Coaches at the College's LifeMap and Advising Center. In spring 2019, AAPI Success Coaches documented a total of 102 appointments with ESL students. Encouraged by this turnout, the AAPI Success Coaches piloted a parallel drop-in advising service intended to provide targeted support and advising for AAPI students enrolled in non-ESL courses. AAPI Success Coaches sent out an email to this sub- group, which yielded a total of 30 visits to the drop-in advising service by16 unique AAPI students enrolled in non-ESL courses 

The TSC Team also expanded its activities in Year III to develop more programming events that would benefit all AAPI students, not just those enrolled in ESL. These included: (a) piloting a transfer visit to UMass Boston for two interested BHCC students; (b) collaborating with the TRIO Talent Search Program of Excel High School to organize a college visit for 15 students of predominantly Vietnamese descent who intended to enroll in a program of study at BHCC prior to transferring to UMass Boston; (c) leading a Ramadan Awareness Task Force that organized, in collaboration with the Offce of College Events and Cultural Planning and the Muslim Students Association, an Iftar event in May to better educate the College about its Muslim community, one that elicited engaged participation from over 100 students, faculty and staff; (d) running a Cultural Competency Workshop for 30 professional staff that consisted primarily of LifeMap Success Coaches/Advisors; and (e) organizing the first New AAPI Student Welcome Day and Orientation in August, where 50 newly enrolled AAPI students met with AAPI faculty, AAPI success coaches, ACE student mentors and community artist Wen-Ti to engage in community- building activities and learning sessions about college resources and tips for academic success.

With an expansion in the activities of the TSC Team, it became more appropriate to rename it as the AAPI PROGRAMMING TEAM by the end of Year III.

The activities of the LOCAL-GLOBAL LEARNING (LGL) TEAM have led to a better articulation of Local-Global Learning at the College as a process of becoming aware of the impact that global realities and diasporic patterns have on the evolving identities of persons from local communities of color in America. Under the AANAPISI grant, local-global learning refers specifically to the practice of infusing course curricula with Asian American content and using that knowledge to recognize the cultural wealth of its AAPI population and encourage students to be agents of change in enacting equitable and culturally responsive practices that allow AAPIs to thrive in safe and welcoming environments.

At the end of Year III, a total of 113 faculty and staff had undergone training through the Annual AANAPISI Local-Global Learning Institute, exceeding the grant target of 90 (or a completion rate of 126% of the grant goal). To date, Local-Global Learning participants have included 50 full- time faculty, 26 adjunct faculty, 25 professional staff, and 12 administrators. Participation of the latter group, which occurred in Year II, has had a positive impact on the ongoing progress of the grant through Year III. The involvement of administrators in the maiden launch of the AANAPISI Global-Learning Institute provided them with a good understanding of the grant's goals and how these align with the College's mission and strategic plan, creating early buy-in and sustained support in Year III for the grant's activities from the institution's top leaders.

Since the first General Education course with a local-global theme was offered in fall 2017 (Year II of the grant), the number of Asian American themed courses has increased to 26 courses at the end of Year III. A total of 511 students enrolled in these courses in Year III, nearly three times more than the total of 132 students enrolled in similar courses in Year II. The courses have also attracted a growing number of AAPI students, from just 26 AAPI students in Year II to 75 AAPI students in Year III, an increase of nearly three times. In Year III, AAPI students made up 15% of total student enrollment in Asian American themed courses.

Finally, the LGL Team was poised to continue its collaboration with the One Book Program into Year IV. Towards the end of Year III, the One Book Program announced its selected One Book Reading for AY 2019-2020: "If They Come for Us," a collection of poems by Pakistani Kashmiri American author Fatimah Ashgar. For the second year in a row, the One Book Program provided another platform for AAPI representation and curricular integration -- this time of the South Asian community of BHCC.