“The environment was just completely different from anything I was used to,” says Brito, 41, who was working as a night attendant at a homeless shelter in Santa Fe, N.M., before he decided to pursue a higher education.

 

“I wasn’t sure that I could be focused and keep up with all of the different things that you have to do—like tests—in order to stay in school,” adds Brito, whose first classes at CNM were devoted to getting a general equivalency diploma (GED).

 

But with his GED secured and now entering his second year majoring in digital media, Brito says one thing has made the difference for him between enduring as a student and dropping out: a CNM “achievement coach,” who meets with Brito at least biweekly to talk about his needs, goals and aspirations as a student.

 

“The whole experience of being back in school would have just overwhelmed me if I hadn’t had someone to talk to,” says Brito, adding that his achievement coach, Yesenia Beltran, not only proved to be an empathetic presence, “but a person who has given me that extra push, which sometimes I’ve really needed.”

 

 

Brito is just one of up to 2,000 CNM students who each semester regularly call upon the services and support of an achievement coach, a position the college introduced in 1997.

 

The idea behind having such a coach on staff has been to provide clarity and determination to students challenged by completing their studies and dealing with nonacademic issues, such as finances, housing and work, says CNM President Kathie Winograd.

 

“In the process of traditional tutoring and mentoring, our faculty and staff would regularly be aware of problems that a student might be facing in their financial or home life,” Winograd says. “The achievement coach was our way of addressing what can we do to help students navigate such problems during what may be a very difficult time in their lives.”

 

The primary goal of the program is to ensure that students continue to attend classes and reach their college goals, she adds.

 

 

The program has been so popular with students that CNM now has a dozen onsite achievement coaches reaching out to students to help them manage many problems, both in and out of the classroom.

 

“The idea has never been to just give students advice,” says Barbara Burrows, an achievement coach with CNM’s School of Health, Wellness and Public Safety. “Instead, what we have tried to do from the start is to work with all of our different students, who may widely vary in age and circumstance, trying to help them come up with strategies that are based entirely on what they view as their own strengths.”

 

A key aspect of the program is that it is “outreach-oriented,” according to college officials.

 

“We don’t sit around and wait for the students to come to the coaches,” Winograd says. “The coach model is one of actively reaching out to students.”

 

The program’s approach can sometimes lead to moments of candor that may dramatically change or sometimes entirely do away with a student’s college and career plans.

 

“If I have a student majoring in accounting, and I know that things aren’t going well, I’ll be blunt and ask: ‘Can you really see yourself spending 40 hours a week doing this?’” says Kim Jeffries, an achievement coach in CNM’s School of Business and Information Technology.

 

By being frank, Jeffries says she can get a feel for a student’s passion for a particular subject.

 

“A student may be majoring in a given area just because they think this is something they want to do, or someone else—maybe even a family member—told them to,” Jeffries says.

 

“But if they are not truly interested in what they are studying, if they are not connected with what they really want to do, they are not going to do as well—and that’s something we try to help them work through.”

 

By exploring such questions with students—which helps them better develop their own decision-making and goal-setting abilities—achievement coaches also make it easier for students to cope with falling short of success.

 

“A student may be knocked on the mat if he or she doesn’t pass a particular class,” Burrows says. “But typically we can’t let that student stay there for very long.”

 

Burrows says she give the students “time to grieve” to personally work through the tough issues often associated with failing, such as college costs, student aid, family and aspirations.

 

“There is nothing wrong with dealing with the loss or actually honoring the experience of the loss,” she says.

 

After that brief period, it’s time to sit down and work together to revise or re-establish a new plan, based in part on what didn’t work previously, Burrows says.

 

 

CNM additionally also has an achievement coach available at its Center for Working Families, which has received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The college plans to expand the programs soon.

 

“Our goal is that every student here should have the opportunity of having an achievement coach,” Winograd says. “We think it’s essential that they have someone they can turn to and work with whenever they feel the need.”

 

For Phil Brito, such plans make perfect sense.

 

“I tell my friends on campus to go see an achievement coach whenever something is bothering them,” Brito says.