Introduction

Moraine Valley Community College is in the seventh year of its continuing effort to become a Learning College. Challenged by Terry O'Banion, keynote speaker at the 1995 college in-service program, Moraine Valley initiated activities focused on improving the learner-centered environment.

In the last three years, numerous initiatives have been introduced that focus attention on increasing student success. The Learning Challenge Grant Program was established by the college in 1996 to support faculty with training and technical resources to facilitate learner-centered instruction. Approximately 72 courses have been revised to accommodate diverse learning styles.

In 1998, departments revised Vision 2000 goals to develop enhanced approaches to curriculum delivery. Faculty was encouraged to design learning experiences unencumbered by the traditional time- and place-bound classroom architecture.

The college continued its commitment to expand learning options through its collegewide technology plan. The plan, completed in 1998, recommended 45 projects with action steps and identified the need for a Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. The Center was introduced in 2002, to assist faculty and Student Development staff in developing innovative approaches to improve student success.

The Student Development staff began the process of improving services and learning options by developing and implementing alternative delivery in many of the services currently provided to students. Enhancements include online advising and implementation of a Web-based new student orientation program.  These delivery methods have been ontroduced to improve and provide access to consistent, accurate information received by students, ultimately achieving the goal of enhancing student success.

The college also introduced a student success course COL-101-College: Changes, Challenges, Choices as a required 1 credit-hour course for all new full-time students. This course emphasizes the importance of learning and identifies the skills students need to be successful in college. 

Over the past five years, Moraine Valley Community College has taken major steps on the journey to become a Learning College. Many of these steps are identified and defined in this Web site. Outstanding Features provides links to many of our important documents. The Project Plan identifies specifically what we have accomplished and our future goals. Advice to Our Colleagues includes a listing of our successes and challenges. Contact Information lists our Vanguard contact and the individual members of the Vanguard teams.

This project and our Web page is a "work in progress." Our focus has been on identifying the many things that we have accomplished collegewide to date. Our focus for the Vanguard project is on enhancing and building upon our strong foundation as a student-centered college.