THE FOLLOWING IS A DANVILLE AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE RELEASE
ABOVE: Student winners of Danville Area Community College’s Spring “iPhone 15 Contest”: Lee Hernandez and Katlyn Ray. They’re flanked by DACC Mascot Mick Jaguar and DACC President Stephen Nacco.
DANVILLE, IL, Feb. 27, 2024 – The slogan for most lotteries is, “You have to be in it to win it.” But for Danville Area Community College students, to be in the College’s iPhone 15 contest, all you had to do was register as a full-time student for Spring classes.
DACC College Relations’ Executive Director Lara Conklin is the architect of the College’s iPhone 15 Pro Max contest. On Fri., Feb. 23, she invited the contest’s two winners—Lee Hernandez and Katlyn Ray—to the president’s office in Vermilion Hall to receive their phones.
“As you can well imagine, both students were over the moon,” Ms. Conklin says. “We drew from two categories of full-time registered students for Spring classes. Lee was chosen at random from among the pool of current students, while Katlyn was included among our new students.”
Mr. Hernandez, who’s a Danville resident, says of the contest, “I remember seeing it when I chose my classes, but I didn’t think about ever winning an iPhone. I really like being in the Auto Tech program and was going to take all my classes anyway.”
Ms. Ray had been a DACC student in the past but then took time off to give birth to her second child. An Indiana resident, she says, “My goal is to get some pre-requisite classes out of the way so that I can get into DACC’s nursing program.”
As for the new phone, she says, “The real trick will be to keep it out of Hadley’s hands.” Hadley is her infant daughter.
DACC’s iPhone contest is the College’s latest initiative to encourage students to stay on track toward graduation. Says DACC Provost Dr. Carl Bridges, “I’ve never met a student who came to DACC or any College not wanting to graduate. It stands to reason that our students will get closer to achieving their goals by taking as many classes as they can rather than just cherry-picking a class or two every semester.”
Over the past couple of years, DACC’s efforts to boost full-time enrollment has featured a “Bonus Class” program. As College Relations Executive Director Lara Conklin explains, “If students registered for at least 12 credits, they could take another class for free, giving them 15 or more credits for the semester—a $600 value. With most associate degrees requiring 60 credit hours, earning 15 credits per semester keeps them progressing toward graduation in two years.”
Besides boasting a graduation rate of approximately 40 percent—which ranks DACC in the upper echelon of community colleges—the College’s overall enrollment the spring semester is up by 6 percent. As Ms. Conklin says, “You could safely assume that the iPhone contest has had some impact on both graduation and enrollment.”
For Fall registration, which begins on Apr. 15, DACC will undoubtedly offer an incentive for students to register early and full-time. Even so, the College is remaining coy about its plans.
Dr. Bridges says, “I’ll tell you this: what we’d like to do for the Fall could have a major impact on boosting our students’ success at DACC. But to pull it off, we’ll have to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row. We’re going to need a real team effort involving several different DACC departments.”
As the provost, Dr. Bridges manages both the academic affairs and student services divisions at the College.
Danville Area Community College is a comprehensive community college serving Illinois District 507, which consists of Vermilion County and parts of Champaign, Iroquois, Edgar, and Ford counties. DACC’s main campus is located at 2000 East Main Street, Danville. The College has a higher-learning center in Hoopeston at 847 E. Orange St. in Hoopeston, IL.
