St. Mary’s University President Charles L. Cotrell, Ph.D., is the 2008 Chair of Texas Campus Compact, which is part of a national coalition that promotes service-learning and is committed to the civic purposes of higher education.

On the local level, in response to the Mayor’s Summit on Education and Workforce Development, Cotrell served as co-chair of the formation committee charged with developing the framework for the P-16-Plus (pre-school through college and workforce education) Council of Greater Bexar County. At San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger’s request, Cotrell will remain on the Council, serving as the group’s vice president, as it strives to build a college-going culture in Bexar County. The Council, chaired by business leader Bartell Zachry, will focus on building a college-going culture in Bexar County by addressing a number of issues, including early learning through pre-school, access and persistence from K-12 and college, performance and transitions throughout, and career and life-long learning.

Terri Boggess, Ph.D., Faculty Senate President and Associate Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, has been selected to serve as the University’s liaison to the Texas P-16 Council. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), in partnership with the Texas Education Agency, has recently released a new draft of college readiness standards defining what Texas students should know and be able to do to be successful in entry-level college courses. The standards can be found at www.thecb.state.tx.us.

Each college and university has identified a special adviser to the THECB – Boggess in the case of St. Mary’s – to participate in both the college readiness implementation phase and the expansion of initiatives designed to increase student success in post-secondary options. Although the development of the standards is a major component of the THECB’s commitment to create a college-going culture in Texas, it is only one part of a major initiative designed to support the goals of “Closing the Gaps by 2015.”

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