Improving access no longer enough for community colleges

The original promise of community colleges was to provide access to higher education for all students. Today, access is not enough. We can no longer operate with the outdated notion that students will somehow leap over the high bar we set for them if they only have access.

It is true that many do succeed; however, it is also true that with the right counseling, support, and motivation, nearly all can do it. We must never lower the bar, but we also must find new ways to reach a variety of learning styles, availability, and capabilities.

In the past, education was one size fits all - classes with teachers who lectured for one hour per class to be complemented by long textbooks that had to be studied alone, outside of class. While this model worked for many, not everyone could adapt themselves to it and so they dropped out.

Dropouts filled society's need for manual labor. But today, nearly every occupation requires some education or training. Therefore, we need to find more educational models that work for more people.

Community colleges must adapt to the student who can't adapt to us. Our challenge is to help everyone who needs and wants an education find not just access, but success.

One measure of this success is persistence - whether students stay enrolled or drop out. The number of first-time college students who persist for a second year has dropped 1.2 percent since 2009, according to a 2014 report of the National Student Clearinghouse. This rate for community colleges has dropped almost twice as fast - 2.3 percent.

While the data is discouraging, especially given the 2008 Illinois Public Agenda for College and Career Success goal to increase the proportion of Illinois adults with a postsecondary credential to 60 percent by 2025, I believe there is real opportunity here.

Oakton Community College is among 200 colleges - including Elgin Community College and Harper College - participating in Achieving the Dream, a comprehensive reform network focused on student success and completion, particularly for low-income students and students of color. Ongoing efforts include collecting and analyzing data; formulating and recommending strategies and policy changes; and evaluating student success outcomes and ensuring equity in outcomes for low-income students and students of color.

The state and national landscape is changing. Just when higher education is needed most, we experience disinvestment in public higher education. We also face changing student demographics within our communities, including many who face numerous barriers to achieving academic and career success.

Change is difficult. However, it forces us to open our minds to new ideas and drives us to innovate. Some recent innovations include partnerships with area school districts to provide pathways for students to earn college credit while still in high school and partnerships with four-year colleges and universities to provide seamless degree pathways through "stackable" credentials. Innovations in the classroom include "flipped" classrooms in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed, increased access to tutors, online learning, increased emphasis on internships and hands-on learning, and various learning accommodations.

This year, Oakton embarked on a collective journey with an intentional focus on increasing student persistence. Our "All for One" initiative represents this commitment to bridging the achievement gap and helping more students to leap that high bar of an earned college credential.

Oakton also established new partnerships with local businesses such as Abt Electronics and Woodward MPC, creating apprenticeship programs and career pathways that provide access to meaningful employment and resources to grow our economy.

These are just a few examples of how community colleges are working internally and externally to change and to deliver on this new promise of access and success. There is much more work to do, but we're off to a good start.

Joianne Smith is president of Oakton Community College in Des Plaines.