MyMap. aces.alamo.edu
By ALMA LINDA MANZANARES
amanzanares6@student.alamo.edu
Incoming students for the spring will have to complete mandatory modules online before they are officially admitted in the district.
This is part of MyMap, or My Monitoring Academic Progress, an initiative that strives to improve student success.
JoCarol Fabianke, interim vice chancellor for academic success, said after incoming students have completed the ApplyTexas application and submitted a high school transcript, they will have to complete required modules.
She said students should receive an email or a phone call notifying them to complete the modules. Modules include “Paying for College,” “I-CARE,” “Assessment Information” and “Test Preparation.”
At the end of each module, students will be required to take a quiz based on the module. Students have three attempts to get a 60 for the module to be marked as complete.
“All of this is really just to better prepare a student to be successful,” Fabianke said.
After students complete the modules, they will have to go through HOLA, or hands online advising. The online advising is similar to the group advising students were required to take before, Fabianke said.
“It is to hopefully, for some students, make it easier to get through that so they don’t have to actually sit through a group advising,” she said.
Fabianke said there is a concern that enrollment will decrease; however, she said this is not the first time the district has been concerned.
She said the district was concerned when the Alamo Colleges board of trustees passed a policy July 26, 2011, ending registration early for spring 2012.
Board Policy F.6.1.1 states, “The last day for students to submit an application to enroll for classes starting at the beginning of all other parts of term will be two weeks prior to the first day of the part of term.”
Fabianke said concerns also arose this semester when Smart Start was enforced. Smart Start instructed faculty to drop students who do not attend a class at least once during the first week of the semester.
District Procedure F.6.1.5 states that if a student misses at least one session during the first week of class, the student will be dropped from that class. The procedure was approved July 26, 2011.
“There’s a balance of trying to keep enrollment up and do what we know is right for students,” Fabianke said. “So we feel like this is really important, and we’re trying to make sure students understand it and are going to do these things.”
She compared the modules to student development courses, which “nobody wants to take.”
“The results show us that that’s really valuable for students and that students have a higher GPA and persistence is greatly increased if they go through that class,” she said. “We’re trying to weigh what we need to do for students to get them ready.”
Time-ticketing registration for spring begins Monday-Tuesday for students who have completed 46 or more hours, Wednesday for students with more than 31 hours, Thursday for students with more than 16 hours and Friday for students with more than one credit hour. Registration opens to all students Nov. 19.
