Education company EAB has recognized UW-Milwaukee and three other southeastern Wisconsin institutions for their roles in launching the first regional Moon Shot for Equity partnership in the country.
The Moon Shot initiative is dedicated to ensuring that students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds graduate at the same rate by 2030. UWM, along with Carthage College, Milwaukee Area Technical College and UW-Parkside, launched the Milwaukee-Kenosha Moon Shot Region collaboration with EAB in 2020.
EAB announced Thursday during its CONNECTED21 virtual conference that the southeastern Wisconsin partnership won the Student Success Collaborative-CONNECTEDness Award. The honor recognizes institutions that build relationships across community colleges, four-year schools and the broader higher education community to find strategic and innovative ways to benefit all students.
“The winners of EAB’s 2021 Student Success Collaborative Awards have gone above and beyond in their mission to keep students on track to graduate at a time when the pandemic has completely upended the traditional student support model,” said Scott Schirmeier, EAB’s president of technology.
UWM Chancellor Mark Mone said he was grateful for the collaboration with Carthage, MATC and UW-Parkside “to eliminate equity gaps in college completion. Our efforts have led to an uptick in success rates for underrepresented students, including graduation rates.”
“With the pandemic, our students need help like we have never seen before,” Mone said. “We want them to become rising stars.”
UWM is working to accomplish more than a dozen goals that administrators hope will help more underrepresented students of color and other historically underserved populations graduate from college. The goals cover areas like easing the transition for transfer students, coordinating support services and using technology to better serve students.
The regional Moon Shot partners share information and best practices with each other as they work to accomplish similar objectives.
The most comprehensive work so far has resulted in the streamlining of financial or administrative holds that can prevent a student from enrolling in classes, and offering retention grants up to $500 to help low-income students or others in need who are in their junior or senior years.
Since the launch of the southeastern Wisconsin partnership, new Moon Shot regions have launched in Cincinnati-northern Kentucky and southeastern Pennsylvania.
