PQS, LEAP and University Now at PLNU

In 1992, PLNU instituted a program called Program Quick Start or PQS. PQS was designed as a way of increasing the number of minority students and Nazarene students at PLNU. Many of those students who applied to PLNU did not have either the high school GPA or the SAT scores that would have qualified them for regular admittance. Rather than simply turn them away, we created a five-week summer program for 20-25 of these students, a sort of academic boot camp designed to prepare these students for entry into classes at PLNU. Students took a remedial writing class, a general education class and a physical education course. Students received special attention and extra tutoring and lived in an environment highly controlled to eliminate typical distractors. Students who could not pass these three courses with a C average were not allowed to enter PLNU.

In 2005, it was decided that PQS would be discontinued as a summer program and moved instead into the school year. There were three problems with PQS. First, many of the minority and Nazarene students we most wanted to attract had been unable to participate in PQS because they could not use scholarship money to pay for a summer school session and PQS was too expensive to pay for otherwise. Secondly, because PQS functioned in the summer in the absence of a highly active campus social life, it did not succeed in preparing students for learning how to balance the demands of academic courses and the necessity of forming social bonds. Finally, the percentage of PQS students who actually graduated was lower than desired (a fact attributed to the previous problem).

In fall 2005, PLNU launched the first year of its LEAP (Learning Experience for Academic Progress) program. In its first cohort of 24 students, PLNU was able to bring in to the freshman class 15 minority students and 17 Nazarene students. LEAP students are placed in a semi-cohort academic experience. In the fall of 2006, LEAP students will take, as a cohort, a remedial Writing course and then will be placed in the same section of four general education courses where they will be among other students (13 units total). In addition, LEAP students will take a 2-unit Study Skills course designed to remediate certain study skills and to connect students to those student development offices that can support them. In the spring, LEAP students will be placed in the two courses that all PLNU freshmen are expected to take, Psychology 101 and Writing 110 as well as a general education biology course (13 units total). They will continue to take a Study Skills course for 1-hour a week. LEAP students will also have specially designated tutors for the classes that they take as a cohort or a semi-cohort.

In 1996, PLNU received a Hughes Grant to fund a project called University Now. Although University Now has not been successful in bringing low-income, diversity students into PLNU, it has not been a failure. Many of the students we had hoped would come to PLNU have instead done so well in the latter part of their high school experience that they have received admission to and substantial scholarship support from larger, more prestigious universities. University Now may not have greatly increased our percentage of diversity students, but it has certainly allowed us to serve the needs of the very population that we are seeking to serve. If we declare University Now a failure, it would only mean that we are more concerned with our own image than with the welfare of students we purport to care about.