Authentic Dialogues Yield Rich Results
By Madeline Patton “College readiness summits,” “campus dialogues,” “courageous conversations,” and “talking circles” are the various names Achieving the Dream colleges use for the structured sessions they convene for people to share their experiences and opinions. When done right, the meetings inform student success initiatives and engage more people in those efforts.
At South Texas College (McAllen, Texas) the conversations led to partnerships with public school districts that have improved students’ preparation for college.
At Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas (Helena, Arkansas) having all the college’s employees read and discuss Bridges Out of Poverty and Them transformed the faculty and staff’s understanding of students. The book discussions have also helped the college address issues of class and race on its three campuses.
At El Paso Community College (El Paso, Texas) sharing dismal student placement data with public school officials led to a College Readiness Consortium that has educators from the elementary schools to the university collaborating on curriculum improvement and alignment.
At the University of New Mexico-Gallup a talking circle provided important feedback from the informal leaders of the Native American communities the college serves. The college will hold talking circles off campus this spring with residents of the Zuni and Navajo nations to gather information for its new strategic plan.
“It makes a great deal of difference to engage the community in bridging the achievement gap at their local college,” said Maria Martha Chavez, senior engagement research associate at Public Agenda.
As Chavez explained in an email, “Oftentimes, a lot of the issues that interfere in a student's ability to stay in school and graduate are external and beyond the control of the college. Students may have concerns regarding housing, food or health care. For students who are parents, sometimes childcare can interfere with being able to attend classes.
“But when a college works with its community assets, with its community resources, it is easier to give students the support necessary to stay in school and eventually graduate. Students doing better at the college means that students have greater opportunity to succeed in the workforce and thus improve community life.”
As an Achieving the Dream partner organization, the non-profit, non-partisan Public Agenda has provided technical support, training, and materials for pilot projects to engage communities. It has also developed a toolkit that community colleges can use to build their capacity for public problem solving.
From its Achieving the Dream research, Public Agenda learned that when faculty and students are brought together in carefully-designed dialogues they move beyond the negative attitudes they expressed in faculty-only and student-only focus groups to embrace student success initiatives.
“When done skillfully, the authentic involvement of critical stakeholders such as faculty, staff, and students in planning and implementing institutional change can minimize resistance, foster a sense of shared responsibility, and create a ‘distributed leadership’ model,” Lara Birnback, Public Agenda’s senior engagement project coordinator reported in Education Insights Newsletter in Winter 2007-08.
Community college leaders report that effective community meetings include a broad cross section of the targeted community—whether it is college personnel and students or community residents—in the conversations, utilize facilitators and recorders who have been trained in advance, and begin with a meal for all participants.
Christine Marlowe, dean of instruction at UNM-Gallup, said the talking circles “certainly provided us with important feedback from the community, especially from people we would not usually hear from.” Having the college’s Cedar Lodge Drum Group perform at the opening of the talking circles was intended to show an appreciation of Native American traditional gatherings where people share their views.
In addition to being sensitive to local customs, Steven F. Murray, chancellor of Phillips Community College, said it is important for colleges to make summaries of community dialogues available for everyone to read. His college’s Achieving the Dream Web site has accounts of community meetings, and staff and faculty data discussions, as well as student and faculty survey results.
“Sometimes it’s not pretty, but it’s always unfiltered,” Murray said, adding, “We’re trying to be very transparent.”
South Texas College Creates College-Going Culture
By Madeline Patton
South Texas College (McAllen, Texas) used community conversations to reach beyond the individuals and organizations that college faculty and staff typically encounter. It then used what it learned from those conversations to launch multiple initiatives to encourage a college-going culture.
The key message college officials received was that Hispanic parents want their children to go to college, but lack the information they need to make it happen, according to Luzelma Canales, interim associate dean for community engagement.
The community conversations were a Public Agenda pilot project that augmented the college’s partnerships with secondary schools. Achieving the Dream strategies to improve teenagers’ college readiness have already increased the proportion of students in the region enrolling in college directly after high school graduation from 48% in 2004 to 60% in 2008.
To inform teens and adults about how to enroll and succeed in college, the college is producing videos that will air on the local public access and public television stations.
To address the needs of the 120,000 residents who do not have high school diplomas, the college obtained $800,000 from the regional workforce development board to offer adult basic education courses. A college task force is also advocating for legislative changes so state adult basic education funds can go to community colleges in addition to current funding of school district programs.
To assist Americans who work in Mexico and Mexicans who work in the U.S., South Texas College leaders met with officials in Reynosa, Mexico—McAllen’s sister city—about offering dual diplomas. However, the economic downturn and stricter immigration policies have pushed aside the discussion of uniform educational standards between the border communities.
Nevertheless, Canales said the community conversations and the other discussions they prompted have helped the college become a catalyst for cultural change.
“The more you engage all stakeholders in the same discussions, the more you can leverage the resources to reach a common goal,” she said.
>> More Reporting from the 2009 Strategy Institute