Finding Opportunity in Adversity
Lighting the Path for Community College Students
Community colleges and their constituents have been especially hard hit by the pandemic as glaring disparities have emerged across economic, racial and ethnic lines. Under-represented and under-served students continue to face greater financial and food insecurities and less access to technology, services and other critical resources. But hope is on the horizon.
In a recent University Business webcast, three community college leaders discussed how the pandemic has impacted their institutions and the steps they have taken to bridge the digital and economic divide, empower students with hybrid and accelerated programs and gain data-driven insight into student needs.
Anthology’s chief product officer, John “J.D.” White, Ph.D., moderated the panel that included Dr. Jackie Elliott, president of Central Arizona College; Dr. Mark Escamilla, president of Del Mar College; and Dr. Keith Miller, president of Greenville Technical College.
The following excerpts from the webcast are edited for length, organization and clarity.
JD: How has the pandemic impacted your community colleges and communities?
Dr. Escamilla (Del Mar Community College): Corpus Christi, Texas came out in the New York Times as one of the hot spots in the country. It has been profound and has shaken the community greatly. We’re an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as well a long-standing Title V. When you [breakdown] the individuals who are hospitalized or worse, it was disproportionately our students’ families. As a result, there are direct and indirect effects that we're still contending with.
Dr. Elliott (Central Arizona College): It’s been quite a challenge—scheduling students to ensure that they have hands-on learning experiences, but also keeping everyone safe. My biggest concern is that the equity gap is going to get much larger. We're a predominantly Hispanic-serving institution and our students rely on us for technology. I disaggregated the data and found the gap [in access to technology] greater among underrepresented and underserved, under-resourced students.
Dr. Miller (Greenville Technical College): The health and safety of employees and students have always been there but has intensified. We are a manufacturing-based community. A lot of the training that we were doing for them on-site took a pause when the pandemic first started. But that's picked up again because they've reestablished some of their supply chain.
JD: How have you adjusted your programs?
Dr. Elliot (Central Arizona College): We are probably about 90 percent virtual. Our faculty are interacting with students face-to-face, albeit in a virtual format. The hands-on, career technical education is happening on our campus in very small groups in highly structured schedules in which a few students and faculty are on campus at any given time.
Dr. Miller (Greenville Technical College): In terms of our courses, we offer three different options to students: face-to-face, virtual and hybrid. The way that mixture looks right now, 10 percent of the courses are face-to-face, 50 percent are virtual and about 40 percent are hybrid. The majority of students are choosing the hybrid option because [it] gives them a combination of flexibility plus that occasional discipline that's needed when you have that faculty member right in front of you.
Dr. Escamilla (Del Mar Community College): We have a huge industrial base and big technical programs that serve many refineries, the military army depot and other big industrial bases. We're about 60 percent online or some form of virtual or remote teaching. The others are still proceeding with their skills in lab classes. As such, we have anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 students who are still intermittently coming to classes, with their PPE, taking the skills-based instruction they need.
JD: How do you see technology helping your institution adapt to the times?
Dr. Miller (Greenville Technical College): Sometimes we talk about dissecting our programs to identify skills gained within those programs. But I think it's deeper than that. I think we have to dissect each individual course for the student to keep them engaged. Rather than the student [thinking]: “well, if I make it through this course, then I know I have to enroll into the next course.”
We need shorter term goals for the students in addition to those long-term goals.
Dr. Elliott (Central Arizona College): Technology has helped us look at our student experience differently. For example, [our LMS] is now releasing free data on student activity: how often students are logging on and how much time they're spending on the LMS platform, and that's not something that we really had before. It would be remiss of us if we didn't use that information, whether it’s from a predictive analytic aspect, course improvement, instructional improvement, or modality improvement.
Dr. Escamilla (Del Mar Community College): We value all learners equally here at Del Mar and our ERP has got to reflect that. That's what I like about Anthology. They're taking all that into consideration so we can track and monitor what our students are doing. We serve up to 25,000 individual students throughout the curriculum and have a very strong continuing education division. [Technology] is important with things like this.
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