From its role in workforce development to its function in sustainability, the issue of college completion permeated discussions at this week’s fall meetings of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
In fact, every session at the joint meeting of AACC’s commissions, committees and board of directors this week in Washington, D.C., specifically addressed the college completion agenda in all aspects of community colleges. College leaders mulled over how to define college completion, strategies to reach those goals and ways to convey the message to stakeholders in their communities—from businesses and lawmakers, to faculty and students.
It’s a daunting but necessary task in order to reach President Barack Obama’s goal of helping an additional 5 million community college students attain a credential by 2010, which is the foundation of the president’s plan to once again make the U.S. the top producer of higher education graduates.
Aside from efforts at their own institutions, college leaders emphasized that four-year colleges and universities and K-12 should be involved in the discussions and participating.
“It’s all-hands-on-deck, but community colleges need to be the leaders,” said Stan Jones, president of
Complete College America.
K-12 and four-year institutions are critical partners at several community colleges that have already started to develop comprehensive completion strategies. Kenneth Ender, president of
Harper College (Illinois), outlined his college’s efforts to add an extra 10,604 graduates by 2020—which the college determined was its proportional share of the 5-million goal. Through the college’s
Building Community Through Student Success initiative, Ender has reached out to civic, business and education organizations to develop strategies and goals for college completion.
Efforts underway
The organizations representing community college presidents, governing boards, faculty and students that this past spring
agreed to make college completion a focus provided an update on their efforts at the meeting.
AACC, for example, is a partner on the
Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA), which is developing measurements that community colleges can use to gauge their success. The data will help participating colleges determine how well they currently are serving students, as well as help them develop strategies to improve, noted Keith Miller, president of
Greenville Technical College (South Carolina) and chair of the VFA steering committee.
Phi Theta Kappa will soon launch a national campaign focused on getting students involved in the completion agenda.
“Everyone has a role to foster this culture of completion,” noted Rod Risley, executive director of the two-year college honor society.
Phi Theta Kappa will ask students to help improve completion through various activities, such as serving as mentors to at-risk students. It will ask students to spread the message of the “benefits of completing, and the consequences of not,” Risley said.
In addition, Phi Theta Kappa will manage a Web site that the five other organizations will use to promote the completion agenda. It will include various white papers, tool kits and outlines of their activities.
Meanwhile, the
Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, plans to conduct a special national study this spring on high-impact practices at community colleges, said Kay McClenney, director of the center and an adjunct faculty member of the
Community College Leadership Program at the university. The study will query students, faculty and administrators regarding how different initiatives—from learning communities to student mentors—help students succeed, she said.
The
Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) has focused on educating its members about the importance of college completion and asked them to serve as advocates on local, state and national levels. It has developed an institute to help trustees understand their roles at the colleges and what they can do to help, noted ACCT President Noah Brown. The association recently completed an institute that included all 23 institutions in Ohio. It will host another one in Washington next summer, followed by an institute for colleges in Texas.
The Gates Foundation, which is funding the project, wants ACCT to accelerate the program and develop a platform to share lessons learned, Brown added.
Effect on access
Some college leaders questioned whether focusing on completion could lower student access, noting that some institutions may opt to limit access through enrollment caps in order to focus on current students or the most-promising students in order improve completion rates.
“It’s one of the toughest things we are going to face: How are we going to maintain access?” said Stephen Curtis, president of the
Community College of Philadelphia.
That doesn’t have to be the case, noted James Kvaal, deputy undersecretary at the
U.S. Department of Education who previously served as an economic adviser in the White House. He noted there are models showing that access and completion can be done in tandem.