Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) 2025-2030
Our New Experience (ONE) Mentor Program
Northwest Vista College’s 2025-2030 Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), Our New Experience (ONE), is a five-year initiative to increase first-generation student persistence and degree completion by fostering sense of belonging through identity-affirming mentoring, mentor development, and campus-wide engagement. First-generation refers to students who will be the first member of their family to attend college or whose parents/guardians have not attained a bachelor's degree in the United States.
ONE uses the Mentor Collective platform to connect first-generation NVC students with caring, trained NVC faculty and staff who are also first-generation college graduates. The platform facilitates identity-affirming mentoring through shared experience matching, guided conversation prompts, and communication tools. Mentor Collective also provides engagement analytics that support continuous program improvement and advances NVC’s Strategic Plan by building a sustainable, campus-wide culture of belonging.
Our Goals
In reviewing student data for the formation of the NVC 2024-2026 Strategic Plan, the QEP Team found that 52% of entering NVC students are first-generation students. While NVC's student retention and completion rates (34% 3 year completion rate in 2018), are some of the highest among community colleges in Texas, there is opportunity for improvement.
- QEP Primary Goal: To increase first generation NVC student sense of belonging, persistence, and degree completion through high-impact mentoring and first gen-affirming practices.
Our Objectives
1. Persist:
Students who participate in mentoring activities will be more likely to persist from fall-to-fall.
2. Connect:
Students who feel like they belong at NVC and participate in mentoring activities will increase their use of existing on-campus resources (advising meetings, tutoring services, advocacy center) and be better prepared resulting in increased persistence.
3. Transfer:
Transfer rates to other institutions of higher ed will increase for ONE Mentor Program Mentees.
Our Measurement
The impact of our QEP will be measured by the following student learning outcomes:
- First-generation students will demonstrate an increase in their self-reported sense of academic and social belonging on campus;
- First-generation students will self-report an increase in trust of NVC faculty and staff;
- First-generation student data will reflect an increase in self-efficacy by students reenrolling in next semester courses and successfully completing coursework while engaging in campus activities/seeing advisors resulting in increased completion and transfer rates.
- First-generation student data will reflect an increase in academic help-seeking behaviors.
Our Focus
By fostering a sense of community through collaborative mentoring via the Our New Experience (ONE) Mentor Program, we will focus on creating places, spaces, and events where trained mentors will serve as knowledgeable, passionate, guides for NVC first-generation college students. NVC first-generation students will be offered various opportunities and experiences to develop academic and career paths through reflection assignments, campus events such as Lunch and Learns, and monthly one-on-one collaborative meetings with their mentor using Mentor Collective, a student engagement platform that cultivates community and offers NVC critical insight into students’ needs along their higher education journey.
ONE Mentor Program Registration
Our New Experience (ONE) Mentor Program Registration Links