Norco College's Summer Advantage Program: Leading Change to Increase College Readiness

Norco College, in Riverside County, California, developed the Summer Advantage program in 2012. This program is designed to reduce the number of students placed into precollegiate-level courses and increase first-year retention through participation in academic workshops, intrusive advisement, and college orientation. After four years, the Summer Advantage program has proven to be highly successful. A significant number of students who participated in the program have since enrolled in, and completed, college-level courses in English and math. In 2015 the program won the prestigious Bellwether Award for Instructional Programs and Services. This case study seeks to determine how a summer college readiness program can impact student success and whether Kotter's eight steps to transformational change contributed to the success of Norco College's Summer Advantage program. Information was gathered from Norco College's website, the binder it provided to the University of Florida's Institute of Higher Education for consideration for the Bellwether Award, and an interview with Monica Green, Vice-President of Student Services at Norco College. Kotter's eight steps to leading change were used as a framework for examining the steps Norco College took to implement Summer Advantage. The outcomes of this study will help guide other educational institutions in their efforts to implement transformational change and increase college readiness levels and completion rates.