RMC's Strategic Plan

OUR SIGNATURE OUTCOMES-FOCUSED EFFORT

Four-Year EDGE Program

This ambitious new effort aims to set first-year students on a course that improves their four-year path to graduation and their outcomes once they depart RMC. This is an integrated, institution-wide approach to student success that helps students discern their individual path, take meaningful steps toward career- and future-focused experiences, track progress toward crucial milestones, and translate their learning into post-graduate outcomes that meet their goals. More than academics or career preparation, it’s a holistic approach to student success that builds on RMC’s existing strengths to launch our students – and our institution with it – into rare air.   

The EDGE acronym details the path that students travel – Explore, Discern, Grow and, finally, Embark.

EDGE First-Year Transitions Course

In 2025, the College enrolled a cohort of 100 incoming students, in groups of 20, in a two-semester sequence of courses designed to effectively orient students to RMC and to help them establish and activate a meaningful plan for their college experience and beyond. This pilot cohort and program was led by an Academic Success Advisor, who mentored the students through both one-on-one meetings and participation in the course.

This approach will be expanded to all first-year students in fall 2026. The course—now called EDGE 181 and EDGE 182—is designed as the first phase of a student’s journey.

Four-Year Approach – A Network of Support

This is much more than just a first-year transition program. It is a four-year framework that helps students to integrate and synthesize the knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences they develop through academics, co-curricular activities, athletics, and employment to prepare them to meet their desired career outcomes. Their network of support includes their academic success advisor, a faculty advisor in their major (once declared), as well as key campus partners, like the Edge Career Center team who provide programming and expertise.

And it’s not just people! RMC will soon launch a curated library of LinkedIn Learning opportunities that will be available to students, as well as faculty and staff, and alumni, to help strengthen credentials in key areas that might not be part of the standard curriculum. 

The resulting path, with milestones along the way, is a plan customized for each and every student. All along the journey is a network of support tuned to a student’s progress and goals.   

TrACKING For students, TRACKing for rmc

Let’s be honest. We all need a system to help track our progress – and that’s where microcredentials come in. Students will earn badges as they build valuable skills, using the nationally recognized career readiness framework of NACE Competencies.

And how will RMC measure our program? Our ambitious goals include:

• Improved retention and persistence to graduation
• 100% participation in career preparation Boot Camp
• Increases in student participation in high-impact practices like internships, research, or relevant creative experiences
• Increase in students reporting first-destination plans at or before graduation, with 100% knowledge rate by September
• Reduction in retention and graduation rate gaps for Pell-eligible students and identified demographic groups

We will track and measure students’ career readiness confidence along the way, as well as post-graduate outcomes such as alignment of employment sector with long-term goals, satisfaction with their outcomes, salaries, and long-term career trajectory.