{"id":3856,"date":"2017-04-03T11:56:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T15:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/?page_id=3856"},"modified":"2017-04-03T11:56:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T15:56:30","slug":"brian-clemmons-were-meeting-students-where-they-are","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/april-2017\/brian-clemmons-were-meeting-students-where-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Clemmons: \u201cWe\u2019re Meeting Students Where They Are\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Brian Clemmons<\/p><\/div>\n

The first things you notice about Brian Clemmons are his infectious grin, boisterous laugh and southern accent. He grew up in a small town 30 minutes from Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only things there were football and barbecue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Clemmons likes both, and he went to Duke University on a football scholarship. But he blew out his knee before the first game and never played a down for the Blue Devils.<\/p>\n

But the gridiron\u2019s loss was MCC\u2019s gain. He graduated from Duke, worked at two community colleges in North Carolina before becoming the Financial Aid director at MCC. He became dean of Enrollment Management in January of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to try to develop better relationships with students and to work to meet their ever-changing needs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a very good staff that is flexible and willing to try new things. It can be overwhelming, but at community colleges and higher education in general, we have to try new things. We have to meet students where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is the core of Mr. Clemmons\u2019 message: MCC needs to be flexible to help students become successful.<\/p>\n

For example, Enrollment Management is piloting a program, Schedule Builder on Demand, which will develop a student\u2019s schedule for him or her. The student can adjust as necessary, but it will provide a framework that he hopes will give the student the impetus to register early. It will also give students a schedule with classes at more convenient times.<\/p>\n

In addition, Enrollment Management now has two part-time financial aid hybrid advisors who counsel students on how to regain and keep their financial aid by filing appeals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese positions allowed us to increase the number of financial aid students with a Satisfactory Academic Progress Status by 400 students this past fall compared to last year,\u201d Mr. Clemmons said.<\/p>\n

He also developed an Early Fall Enrollment Fair on March 20 \u2013 the first day of fall registration \u2013 to encourage students to think ahead and register well before the end of the spring semester. The first 200 students who registered that day received a voucher for a tall Starbucks drink and anyone who registers by April 30 is entered into a drawing for up to $2,000 in tuition credits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose behind all this is to encourage students to register early,\u201d Mr. Clemmons said. \u201cFirst, it simply helps them to be more successful. Second, if they come in now, they can get more personal attention than in August when the lines are long.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about student success, retention and completion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first things you notice about Brian Clemmons are his infectious grin, boisterous laugh and southern accent. He grew up in a small town 30 minutes from Charlotte, North Carolina. \u201cThe only things there were football and barbecue,\u201d he said. Mr. Clemmons likes both, and he went to Duke University on a football scholarship. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"parent":3850,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3856","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3856\/revisions\/3858"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/mcc-publications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}