I've been involved with the Student Success group for the past two years. The 1998-99 faculty group was made up of a cross-section of faculty members, while the 1999-2000 group was comprised of social science faculty. I mention this for two reasons. First, while the diversity of disciplines represented in the earlier group added scope to discussing student success, the cohesiveness of all-social-science faculty in the second group added more focus. Second, the ideas and general format generated in the 1998-99 group provided a beginning structure for this year. Leadership in both years was outstanding. What have I as an instructor learned about student success? 1) I've learned that SBCC faculty are dedicated not only to providing quality instruction in their areas of expertise, but are equally dedicated to the student's overall success in learning and in achieving his or her goals; 2) Methods or techniques for helping students improve in targeted areas of this project are subject to "trial and error." The methods must be "tried." Instructors must take a little time to try some techniques (which often can be integrated with lesson material). Students must take time to try something new to improve their own success. Both faculty and students must keep trying (the "error" part of the equation) if things don't work as expected. There are many great ideas on this web site; and 3) students should be more actively involved in this project. What do I mean by #3 above? Over both years of my involvement, we have taken ideas generated and discussed in the faculty group back to the classroom to present to students. In some of my classes I even initiated extra credit assignments based on the student success target areas. Instructors have used small group discussion and other methods to work with students. However, the demands of covering course material exacerbate the task of "teaching student success" to students. My recommendation is that now that several topic areas have been discussed by faculty and tried out in the classroom, the time has come to form a core group of students interested in directly participating in discussions (and technique trial and error testing) with next year's faculty group. These students should be those that are willing to actively use ideas generated on this web site, keep a journal, be willing to share progress (or lack thereof) with the faculty team, and finally, be willing to share their experiences in some forum with other students. It has been a privilege and a wonderful learning experience to work with the Student Success faculty teams for the past two years. In addition to having a core student group working with faculty on this project, I recommend that each division formulate an active plan for integrating student success in the classroom with "report back" time given either on in-service days or for a few minutes at division meetings. Faculty mentors to newly hired part-time (or even new full-timers with relatively little teaching experience) would be great. Lastly, take advantage of the wealth of information and ideas you'll find at this web site. You'll be happy you did! Take the time to volunteer to be part of the Student Success team. It will afford you a unique opportunity to get to know your peers and strengthen bonds.