College of the Canyons has been named a 2022 Champion for Excelling in Equitable Course Placement in Campus-wide English Enrollment, Latinx English Enrollment, and Black English Enrollment by The Campaign for College Opportunity.

“College of the Canyons successfully supported 100% of students, 100% of Latinx students, and 100% of Black students to enroll directly into transfer level English coursework,” wrote Michele Siqueiros, president of The Campaign for College Opportunity. “We applaud your dedication and commitment to California students.”

The college will be recognized with over 40 other community colleges on Thursday, May 12 at the Campaign’s inaugural award installation ceremony, which will be held at the Redbird in Downtown Los Angeles.

“We are honored by this distinction from The Campaign for College Opportunity for our continuous efforts to remove barriers for our students,” said College of the Canyons Chancellor Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook. “By taking college-level classes instead of remedial courses, students who seek to transfer to four-year universities are more much likely to achieve their goals.”

Over the past decade, the college has restructured its procedures to reduce transfer-level completion in English and math by two semesters, which has significantly reduced racial-equity gaps in student achievement.

For its efforts, COC was awarded a 2021 Bellwether Award for its innovative approach to assessment and course sequence redesign in English and mathematics.  Students placed into transfer-level courses rose from 16 percent to 75 percent in English (2012 to 2018) and 10.3 percent to 74 percent in mathematics (2011 to 2018), which allowed students to graduate faster and transfer to four-year universities.

The Campaign for College Opportunity is a non-profit bipartisan organization that works toward increasing the number of California students attending two- and four-year colleges and who complete their college education.