Maintained by Jay Howard, 25 Apr 2002
What we have to decide: Does our mission mean we must educate all?
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Community College of Philadelphia is celebrating its 38th year as an institution of higher learning. No longer in our infancy or adolescence, we are firmly entrenched in our adulthood. As with the individual maturation process, the institution has developed a stronger sense of who we are and how we offer programs to our community. Yet, having reached this age, we should begin to reflect on whether we are satisfied with our program delivery. We have created offerings, done the research on their effectiveness, and now it is time to overcome institutional inertia and respond to what the data tells us about our programming. Nowhere is this more important than in our developmental programs at the CAP A level. It is imperative to the well being of students who are not succeeding at this level, and to the health of our institution, that we acknowledge their difficulties and establish sound alternatives to collegiate learning. In 1947 President Truman's Commission on Higher Education reported on their vision for community colleges: [Community colleges] will provide college education for the youth of the community certainly, so as to remove geographic and economic barriers to educational opportunity and discover and develop individual talents at low cost and easy access. But in addition, the community college will serve as an active center of adult education. It will attempt to meet the total post high school needs of its community. (Bogart, p. 62, 1994) This mission guided the construction of Community College of Philadelphia. Established in 1964, this college arose in an age of activism. Our development paralleled the Civil Rights era and rode in on the ideology of expanding opportunities for all. The idea of offering higher education to sectors of society that traditionally had no access to college was well received and gained political support. State and local governments joined in funding institutions which held opportunities out to returning servicemen, disaffected housewives, and minorities. Yet, offering Higher Education to those who were not well prepared for the academic milieu required some additional programming--thus was born developmental education. Entrance exams would establish the level of need for remediation in reading, writing and mathematics. Many nontraditional students could benefit from the classes and tutoring designed to lift their skills to the collegiate level. Community College of Philadelphia has succeeded in fulfilling the first part of the Truman Commission's mission statement. We have provided access and programming to allow students to enter the collegiate experience. In addition to curricular offerings, the College provides extensive Learning Lab and Counseling services to students who have the willingness and ability to become college students. However, what now is important to consider is whether we have or are able "to meet the total post high school needs of [our] community." I believe it is time to take a good look at the students who are not benefiting from our current programming and make decisions about how to and whether we have the ability to serve them. A confluence of societal factors has brought a host of students with problems beyond lack of preparation to our door. The 1970's and 80's brought about the de-institutionalization of those with mental health and cognitive impairments. There was a reduction of manufacturing jobs in our city which decreased the opportunities for those with less than a college degree. At the same time the urban public school system began to experience problems which led to a decline in the quality of graduates being turned out from its schools. Therefore, mixed in with the body of students we originally designed programming for were students with more serious academic and social problems. The array of programming that we designed at our lowest levels of remediation has not been successful in turning many of these students into college graduates. Institutional research has shown that after 4 years of taking courses only approximately 23% of our CAP A-level students are successful in completing English 101 and a much smaller percentage actually graduate (Grosset,1999). In general, the coursework is designed to build a student's academic skills such that they will be able to engage in the collegiate experience. Essay writing and analytical reading of complex texts are the main goals for students to attain. Yet, 77% of them cannot benefit from this type of programming. Currently we have no exit counseling or alternative placement for students who are not succeeding in our academically oriented programs. Because we have invited these individuals here to become college students-- each graduating senior in the School District of Philadelphia gets a letter of invitation to become a Community College of Philadelphia student-then we have an ethical responsibility to make an honest appraisal of a student's progress and provide realistic recommendations. Yet we need to put forth resources to investigate first, the population itself and then appropriate programming and alternatives for our students. We need to find out the variety of issues that confront our students and who can serve them. Some students who struggle with our English, Math and liberal arts courses show promise of success in purely vocational subject areas. The College has shied away from developing a strictly vocational track and maybe it is time to revisit this thinking. There exist many programs, both throughout the community and within our own Community Services Division, that are not academic in nature. However, many programs still require a reading competency around the 6th to 8th grade level. Additionally, many courses are expensive and are not eligible for funding through financial aid. So for some, the appropriateness of and access to current alternatives come into question. Yet, for the student whose competencies remain below the 6th grade or for the student whose mental health condition remains refractory to treatment, we do not currently possess an understanding of what would constitute "appropriate programming." I am not sure whether the Truman Commission considered this population when they spoke of meeting the "total post high school needs of [our] community." We have to decide whether it is within our mission as an institution of higher learning to serve these students. If we see it in our purview, we need to provide specialized programming, possibly within Workforce Development. Yet, we may also determine that these students fall outside the boundaries of "all who may benefit." If this is the case, then we may feel that we are satisfied with our offerings but there are some students who are unable to partake of them. However, if this is the case, it is incumbent upon us to provide appropriate feedback that informs the students early on when we realize that they are not meeting some basic remedial standards, instead of having them languish in our remedial levels indefinitely. As an institution of higher education with open access, Community College of Philadelphia can be proud that we have developed such comprehensive programming that leads students to benefit from the collegiate experience. Yet, with the same sense of activism and social justice, we must address the needs of those who are unable to partake of this experience. We must redefine our institutional objectives and respond with solutions that are both honest and fair. References Grosset, Jane. "Developmental Education Outcomes Three Years After the Developmental Education Task Force Report" : Office of Institutional Research Report #103, April, 1999. |
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Maintained by Jay Howard, 25 Apr 2002 |