Understanding Inclusion
College leaders have largely understood for years that work-based learning programs, such as internships, co-ops, and project-based employment, benefit students. The programs help students make connections between the skills they learn in courses and what they could eventually do in the work force. They connect students with potential employers, and allow recruiters to identify potential talent.
Though many institutions have the programs, a New America report published last month found that some community colleges struggle to provide equitable opportunities for their students, especially low-income, first-generation, and racial-minority students. Mauriell H. Amechi, a senior policy analyst at New America and the report’s author, said there’s general understanding that work-based learning opportunities can help with career readiness, but there’s little research about their structure and what makes them successful.
The report studied five programs across the country to understand the goals, design, and motivation of paid work-based learning programs at two-year colleges. It found that some students are not included in the opportunities. Sometimes students self-select out, thinking that they are not prepared for the work. In other cases, students aren’t even aware the programs exist. And some institutions don’t audit or evaluate their programs to understand if and how they benefit students and who is using them.
Changing Outreach
The internship program at Bunker Hill Community College, in Massachusetts, one of the colleges studied for the report, moved under Austin Gilliland’s supervision in 2018. Gilliland, dean of the division of professional studies, said that, within a few weeks of the move, several students came to her office to ask why they couldn’t do internships or why they weren’t being offered opportunities to participate, she said. They were all young men of color.
So Gilliland and her team gathered information about the program to see who had participated in the last few years, she said. They found that it was serving mostly white male students, and that the demographics of participants did not reflect the student body.
Gilliland also reached out to frustrated students to identify what had derailed their participation. Every situation was different. One student showed her his résumé, and Gilliland noticed that he had not listed his experience in accounting work at the college. He told her that he considered it boastful — and contradicting his culture — to do so, Gilliland said. After that meeting, she realized that many students didn’t have a typical experience in applying for an internship, and that the college needed to reach out to them differently.
In the past, students were sent a standard email stating that they should apply to an internship with a specific company. Now, potential interns get a more-personalized notice, stating that because they’ve taken a specific course, they are qualified for a particular internship, Gilliland said. This approach helps students understand how their coursework is connected to the work they’d do at an internship.
The college also ended its GPA requirement to allow more students to apply. “We know that GPA is one measure of a student’s ability to work hard,” Gilliland said. “But again, our students know how to work, and they’re balancing so much. If they’ve had a rough few semesters, they have to make choices every day about where to spend their focus.”
Demographic data about program participants show the college is making some progress toward racial equity.
For example, in the 2017-18 academic year, 10 percent of the program’s participants were Hispanic or Latino. In 2021-22, that number shot up to 31 percent, according to data provided by the institution. In those years, the proportion of Asian participants also increased, from 10 percent to 12 percent.
However, there was about a 10-percentage-point drop in the share of Black participants. In 2017-18, Black students made up 29 percent of participants, but in 2021-22 the figure was 19 percent. In the fall 2021 semester, the latest with available data, Black students were 22 percent of the enrollment at Bunker Hill, according to the college’s data.
In an email, Gilliland wrote that the division of professional studies does not know why the percentage of Black participants dropped recently. The program is working with the Halting Oppressive Pathways Through Education Initiative at Bunker Hill, which aims to support men of color, to reach Black students.
Bunker Hill will continue to collect demographic information every year on its internship participants, and keep an eye on that information, to see where it can improve, Gilliland said.
More Transparency Need
Among its recommendations for colleges, the New America report singles out annual evaluations like Bunker Hill’s as a way to make work-based learning more equitable.
Amechi, the report’s author, said that college leaders who want to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion need to figure out who is included and excluded in the paid programs, and understand students’ intersectional identities.
There also needs to be “greater transparency and clarity on the design of these programs,” he wrote in an email to The Chronicle, “to broaden work-force pathways, ensure the transferability of exemplary program models, and support the advancement of equitable outcomes for all students, especially individuals from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds.”
