Community colleges, along with other education-supporting organizations, continually work to promote student success with tools that encourage students to get involved in groups in school and in surrounding communities.
That was the theme Tuesday on the third day of the League for Innovation in the Community College Conference.
Richland College, one of seven fully accredited colleges in the Dallas County Community College District in Texas, has developed its own unique model. During roundtable discussions, Richland professors talked about ways to get students more involved with local and national matters. They presented statistics that suggested that millennials were not targeted as a group during the 2016 presidential election.
In response to that data, Richland is now encouraging students to research issues that are important to them and to demonstrate that they want their voices to be heard when decisions are to be made, specifically in elections.
The school’s student media club planned and broadcasted a town hall during which college students addressed issues such as immigration, guns on school campuses, jobs and other topics important to them.
Erica Edwards, Richland’s lead faculty and program coordinator for the Department of Journalism, said the college’s diverse background allowed students to engage in a way that was respectful toward each other and created an environment where students learned to listen to one another before replying – one of the numerous tools Richland uses to promote student self-direction.
Helping schools find ways to be flexible and accommodating in order to promote student success is part of the mission of Achieving the Dream, an organization that works with more than 220 community colleges and educational institutions in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
