Suffering from “initiative fatigue” and stymied by “curmudgeons” intent on blocking new ideas, community colleges are nonetheless making progress on promising new strategies for reaching students at greatest risk of dropping out, according to speakers here at the annual meeting of the League for Innovation in the Community College.
The meeting, which continues through Wednesday, is shining a spotlight on successful practices at colleges that are under increasing pressure to improve their completion rates without watering down their curricula or turning away the least-prepared students.
And it’s giving faculty members a chance to weigh in on a completion movement that many feel has taken off without their input as policy makers scrutinize their data and dole out money accordingly.
One program highlighted on Monday is focused on changing the mind-set of at-risk students who don’t consider themselves college material.
That attitude is often a bigger barrier to success than the student’s actual abilities, said Charles M. Thompson, director of a program at Edmonds Community College, in Washington State, called Creating Access to Careers in Health Care.
The program, which is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is also offered at Everett Community College, is part of a national research study involving 32 colleges nationwide.
It provides a free education, along with social and academic support, to low-income students seeking short-term certificates to become, say, a certified nursing assistant as a springboard for a better-paying job later.
The program, which is partly online, lends students computers that they can earn by completing at least one industry certificate. It also provides them with Internet access and computer-literacy lessons.
Building trust early on is essential, Mr. Thompson said, so students don’t wait until they’re three weeks behind to reach out to an instructor or adviser.
“They’re living so close to the edge already that it doesn’t take much to push them into crisis,” he said. “It’s pretty hard for someone to do their homework if they don’t have a place to stay or if they’re couch surfing.”
The confidence boosts start during orientation, when a student who is nervous about her first clinical experience is reminded that if she’s been responsible for children or aging parents, she has already demonstrated an ability to be a caretaker, said Aaron Modica, a retention specialist at Edmonds.
Interventions are worded in ways that reassure students they deserve to be there, but that still require responsible behavior.
If a student is repeatedly late for class, an instructor might ask how he would feel if he were a patient waiting for breakfast and the nurse was continually late.
Remedial education is taught in career-based contexts through a program known as I-Best.
A New Goal
Across the country, getting students into community college is no longer the big push. Getting them through is, said Gerardo E. de los Santos, president of the League for Innovation.
He highlighted the findings of a survey of college presidents the league conducts every three years.
“The trend surveys five to seven years ago were all about enrollment. That has been totally overtaken by focus on completion,” he said.
The turning point came in 2009, when President Obama set a goal for the United States of leading the world in college completion by 2020.
The push has continued with major foundations and nonprofit groups all promoting practices they believe will push students through college more quickly and effectively.
The nation remains far from reaching Mr. Obama’s goal.
Meanwhile, campus presidents are suffering from “initiative fatigue,” as colleges respond to the dozens of strategies that have been promoted to increase graduation rates, the survey has found.
This year’s survey, which the league hopes to release in the next month, is based on responses from 280 presidents.
Some wanted to see data analytics made more accessible to students, an idea that Mark D. Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer of Civitas Learning, cautioned against.
“One of the worst things we can do,” he said, “is bring a predictive model to an at-risk student that shows them a flashing red light that says, ‘You probably aren’t going to succeed.’”
Fears that colleges will turn underprepared students away “is part of the angst that comes with the completion agenda,” Mr. de los Santos said.
Some also worry that there won’t be enough jobs to absorb all of the graduates, especially if colleges adopt what one speaker referred to as an “assembly line” approach.
Faculty members are also weighing in on a site called Faculty Voices. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation began supporting the site early last year after faculty members said their voices were being drowned out by those of major foundations whose definitions of college completion don’t always reflect the realities facing two-year colleges.
Among the questions they have raised so far: What does completion mean, and whose definition will drive community colleges? Should it include a student who takes a couple of courses in cooking or Spanish just for personal fulfillment, or only those who seek a credential?
College presidents who are losing sleep over questions like those have another reason to reach for a nightcap, according to a longtime leader of the League for Innovation.
An overflow crowd spilled into the hallway to listen to Terry O’Banion, the group’s president emeritus, describe what he billed as the first national study of curmudgeons in the community college.
Curmudgeons slow or block change, create unhealthy environments, and undermine trust, according to the study, a joint project of the league and the Roueche Graduate Center at National American University.
Curmudgeons are “masters of the rumor mill” who feed on paranoia, insist on being heard, and often can’t be reasoned with, Mr. O’Banion said. Not every complainer is a curmudgeon, he conceded. And even those who are the biggest pains to deal with may have legitimate gripes or may have been passed over for promotions they deserved.
Still, “if you have a curmudgeon on your back, life is not easy,” Mr. O’Banion said. “You have to go home every day with the anger and the meanness resonating in your ear.”
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.
