‘Future Proofing’ Institutions, Listening to Students, and New Priorities for 2019
Days 3 & 4

During the third day of the 2018 ACCT Leadership Congress, community college leaders were urged to “future-proof” their institutions in the face of evolving needs from students and employers.
Outlining shifting trends in how companies are recruiting and training their workforces, keynote speaker Kevin Mulcahy urged community college leaders to focus on disruptive practices such as massive online learning courses (MOOCs) across companies and sectors, stackable credentials, and ongoing learning experiences including badging and skills registries being adopted by leading employers in a variety of sectors.
Keynote speaker @KevinMulcahy explains how the experience economy reshapes expectations: “If you were to pick a single item that affects the student experience, that is the silver bullet. Aim for experience—because they’re rating you.” #ACCT2018 pic.twitter.com/QB7mmgzZTo
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 26, 2018
“This is the intersection you have to figure out,” said Mulcahy, co-author of The Future Workplace Experience and partner at Future Workplace. “If you don’t meet companies where they are going, your students are not going to be as valuable to them as they could have been.”
Meeting Student Needs
At the same time, community college leaders also must focus on attending the basic needs of the growing numbers of low-income and minority students for whom academic success is imperiled by a wide range of out-of-school factors, including hunger, homelessness, and child care issues.
About half of all community college students face food or housing insecurity, and between 12 and 14 percent have experienced homelessness in the past year, according to Sara Goldrick-Rab of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice and a professor at Temple University. “We’ve moved beyond the numbers,” she told Congress attendees. “The conversation today is about action.”
“Community colleges are where real people go.”
“Food pantries, ‘safe parking’ areas—where students are guaranteed safety if they sleep in their cars on campus because they can’t afford homes—are Band-Aids. We need solutions.”
—@saragoldrickrab #ACCT2018 https://t.co/VrLWtOSSYm
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 26, 2018
Leaders from three Texas community colleges described their institutions’ efforts to support students’ nonacademic needs, including connecting students to resources such as emergency financial support and food pantries. At Amarillo College, leaders discovered that the top 10 things students identified as barriers to success “had nothing to do with the classroom,” said President Russell Lowery Hart. “We had a robust and profound student success agenda that has taken hold in the community college, but we were ignoring the one big reason” students dropped out or stopped out.
“We penalize poverty in this country. It costs a lot to be poor. When I learned 59% of our students are housing insecure & 54% are food insecure, it was hard to bear. It was devastating. So @AmarilloCollege we’ve built a culture of caring into all we do.”
—@LoweryHart #ACCT2018 pic.twitter.com/gb8M1EfhZo
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 26, 2018
Adjusting systems involved creating new supports — and retooling existing ones to meet students’ real-world needs. “We had resources to deal with the electricity being cut off. We didn’t have good systems,” said Joe May, president of the Dallas Community College District. “It takes a week to cut a check — in a week, they’ve missed classes.”
“The more you learn, the more you earn. But how do you learn when you’re hungry?”
—William Serrata, president @EPCCed @EPCCNews #ACCT2018
Learn more: https://t.co/YD5bISbH5o pic.twitter.com/yvkT9johhy
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 26, 2018
Another key factor involves helping students rethink what it means to accept support, said William Serrata, president of El Paso Community College. “You’re not asking for help, you’re ensuring that you’re taking advantage of what you paid for,” he said.
Like rethinking delivery systems to meet employer needs, addressing students’ needs involves radical rethinking, Congress speakers said.
“The world we live in in higher ed is not going to improve by polishing systems that aren’t working,” said Hart. “We have to be disruptive and reimagine the fabric, and sacrifice things that might be working on a small scale for things that might work on a bigger scale.”
The Final Word
To that end, the 2018 Congress came to a close Saturday morning by giving community college students the final word, by discussing ways that institutions and their leaders could better serve them.
Michael Aguilar, a former Lone Star College student now at Washington University in Missouri, pointed to his Phi Theta Kappa sponsor, who connected him and others to scholarships and encouraged service projects, including one which led to the creation of a food pantry. “Each one of you plays a huge role in continuing to help students grow,” he told Congress attendees. “What’s really important is for community colleges to focus on helping those people committed to student success. They’re going to push more than one student through the door, but whole generations of people through the door.”
Michael Aguilar, 2018 @PHITHETAKAPPA Dr. David Pierce Scholar, says that community colleges support disadvantaged students—offering protected areas on campus for homeless students to sleep, for example—and give them the opportunity to change their lives.
#ACCT2018 pic.twitter.com/fBCMMLz3ke
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 27, 2018
Elda Pere, international president of Phi Theta Kappa and a student at Bergen Community College, discussed her challenges navigating financial aid, registration, and transportation as an international student from Albania. “It’s important to let students know what they don’t know and allow them to ask even the silliest questions,” she said. “We [also] need more individuals focused on opportunities for students instead of just helping with processes like registration and financial aid — people who think of the whole spectrum.”
Elda Pere, international president of @PHITHETAKAPPA, immigrated from Albania and ran into bureaucratic barriers in enrolling in a four-year university—the math major at @bergencc will transfer to @CalPoly soon. #ACCT2018
“Community college is the best decision I ever made.” pic.twitter.com/mYWIk2cneO
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 27, 2018
Alicia Moreno, a former student trustee at Alamo Colleges in Texas and a member of ACCT’s newly formed student trustee advisory board, shared her experience as a military veteran returning to earn her degree. “My college had a veterans office, which helped me navigate” financial aid, Moreno said, pointing to the large number of active duty members of the military in Texas. “It’s an opportunity to not only serve them, but their families,” she said.
Retired U. S. Army veteran and @AlamoColleges1 student trustee Alicia Moreno: Community colleges go out of their way to serve military veterans like me. #ACCT2018 pic.twitter.com/ZdvQsugKWa
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 27, 2018
New Priorities—and a Second Chance
Taking the gavel during the final session, 2018-19 ACCT Chair Connie Hornbeck pledged to continue 2017-18 Chair Emily Yim’s emphasis on partnerships and introduced two priorities of her own for the upcoming year. Hornbeck, a trustee at Iowa Western Community College, stressed the importance of improving ACCT’s engagement with member boards and urged trustees to support efforts to provide educational opportunities to the 2.3 million incarcerated Americans, the vast majority of whom have no postsecondary education.
“It’s an issue worthy and uniquely related to the mission and value of community colleges as transformative and life-changing,” said Hornbeck.
Since a 2016 U.S. Department of Education pilot of Second Chance Pell allowed 39 community colleges to offer postsecondary programs inside correctional facilities, 701 certificates and 230 associate degrees have been awarded to incarcerated individuals, Hornbeck said. “Amid growing evidence of positive impact…. there’s truly an opportunity” to reinstate Pell funding for incarcerated students through the Higher Ed Act reauthorization or other federal programs, she said. “We can serve as the shining light for those who need a second chance to what access to education can bring."
New ACCT Chair Connie Hornbeck from @IowaWesternCC announces her initiative “to help our incarcerated brothers and sisters to earn a postsecondary credential” to give them greater employment, civic engagement and other opportunities. Stay tuned—more on this to come. #ACCT2018 pic.twitter.com/GNB2t9G5MQ
— ACCT (@CCTrustees) October 27, 2018