WDLL – Student Success: OSSR
Mission – The Office of Student Success and Retention is responsible for ensuring the successful transition of WDLL diverse student population. The office works to increase WDLL’s persistence, matriculation, retention and student certification earnings. This is done by focusing on initiatives that include enhancing academic advising, promoting career and job placement training, and ensuring that effective outreach is available to students.
Vision – The Office of Student Success and Retention vision is to provide wrap-around services for the whole student. The services of the office focus on four pillars to improve student success:
- Career Education
- Academic Advising Services
- Student Development and Counseling
- Persistence, Matriculation, and Retention
The WDLL Student Success Team is comprised of Student Success Specialist and Career Counselors. Each area is supervised by the Director that reports directly to the Dean of Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning.
The Student Success Specialist staff provides services and resource referrals that support students with academic services and also non-academic matters that may impact a student’s ability to complete their coursework. Staff provide academic advising and academic support for students from the intake process through a course or pathway completion as well as a comprehensive and culturally sensitive set of support services designed to ensure the academic success of at-risk students.
The Career Counselor staff provides services that support student transitions to degree-based educational opportunities and/or employment opportunities that are aligned with a career pathway. Staff provide a comprehensive range of career services designed to assist students and other stakeholders in reaching their career goals and objectives. Staff also develop and manage external employer relationships purposed to collect employer feedback and to generate potential employment, internship, or externship opportunities. In addition, staff also provide assistance to students interested in transitioning to degree programs offered by two or four-year institutions of higher learning.
OSSR Staff
Mr. Seven Lee, Director
Congress Heights – SE
Mr. Derek Andrews – Career Counselor
Ms. Kim. M. Blaney-Bivings – Student Success Specialist
Mr. Bobby Marshall – Student Success Specialist
Ms. Sabrina Simmons – Student Success Specialist
Ms. Paulette Wooten-Martin – Career Counselor
Contact Us
For information, please call a campus near you 202.274.7181 (see WDP Locations), or contact the UDC-CC Division of Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning at workforce@udc.edu.
WDLL courses are offered at two UDC locations:
Bertie Backus Campus
5171 South Dakota Avenue NE
Washington, DC 20017
(202) 274-7209
Congress Heights Campus
3100 Martin Luther King Jr SE
Washington, DC 20032
(202) 274-6525