(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Seven Community Colleges Selected for National Program to Improve Student Experience [1] ['Kristi Eaton', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2024-05-13 The small community of Spindale in western North Carolina and the surrounding area was once known for its textile mills, offering generations of families a way to create a solid life for more than 100 years. Now, however, the area is home to more medium-sized companies in industries like healthcare and small business ventures, said Isothermal Community College President Margaret Annunziata. “[Students] had to shift as our economy has shifted,” she told the Daily Yonder in a Zoom interview. The institution serves about 6,000 people, both in curriculum and continuing education programs. “The college, just like, really, most any community college, is at the table, in both the planning for economic development for the region and delivery of the skilled workforce to meet those needs,” she said. “In rural communities, that looks a little different, I think. Certainly, in our community, it is about maintaining relationships with existing businesses, and helping them to kind of look to the future and plan for their own growth and sustainability, vibrancy and in the region, but to make sure that the skills that they’re going to need are available in our local workforce.” Isothermal is one of seven rural-serving community colleges around the United States to participate in an initiative focusing on transforming students’ experiences. The nonprofit organization Achieving the Dream selected the colleges to join its second cohort of its Accelerating Equitable Outcomes initiative, which is funded in part by using a donation the nonprofit received from MacKenzie Scott, a private philanthropist, in 2021. Community colleges are how almost 40% of undergraduates, including the majority of Hispanic undergraduates and the largest number of lowest income students, start their college career. And most of those students aspire to earn bachelor’s degrees, according to the Community College Research Center. However, only 28% of Black adults and 21% of Hispanic adults over the age of 25 in the United States hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with 42% of white adults, according to the Research Center. Further, 15% of young adults from the lowest income backgrounds complete a bachelor’s degree by age 24, compared with 59% of their wealthier peers. Achieving the Dream works with community colleges across the country to help more students get into and through community colleges with a degree or credential that helps colleges keep better track of at-risk students, to help more minorities and non-traditional students get enrolled, and to build curriculums that help graduates fill jobs in their communities. This latest cohort is focusing specifically on rural-serving community colleges, she said. “We believe that these rural community colleges are really important to the fabric of the country, to the fabric of their communities, and they’re under-supported, and in a lot of cases, don’t have the internal infrastructure and capacity to make some of the changes that will help support students’ success,” Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, told the Daily Yonder in a Zoom interview. For example, most community colleges track student performance to determine which students are succeeding in different programs, and why. “We deploy coaches to the colleges, and we help them build the data capacity,” Stout said. “And if they don’t have the data capacity, we try to help them understand the data that they do have in new ways so that they can begin to make changes in processes, practices, pedagogy, anything that can help more students come into the college and more students move through programs that have value.” Sunem Beaton-Garcia, president at Chippewa Valley Technical College, which serves 11 counties in northwest Wisconsin, said their students have different backgrounds and different needs. “A lot of the manufacturing, a lot of healthcare, and agriculture _ some of those things are very much more rural sectors,” Beaton-Garcia told the Daily Yonder. “And so being with other colleges that serve the same populations that we do, and have that diversity, means a lot to us, because we can share information, we can help each other with strategies to help our diverse students.” Stout said each college will come in with some baseline data. “Too often, it takes community college students too long to complete a degree or credential. So we’ll be looking at time to get a degree or credential,” Stout said. “And our goal will be to accelerate completion rates to shrink time to degree. We’ll be looking at whether programs that are at the college are aligned with the labor market requirements in the community.” Rural community colleges play an important role in a small community, Stout said. “They’re much more than a community college. They are a community destination,” she said. “They are community hubs, they are access to child care for some, they’re access to cultural activities for some. Some of these rural colleges with their health sciences programs have partnerships where they have first level access to basic health care.” The seven rural community colleges selected for the program are: Arkansas State University, Arkansas Chippewa Valley Technical College, Wisconsin Coconino Community College, Arizona Eastern Shore Community College, Virginia Isothermal Community College, North Carolina Riverland Community College, Minnesota Wor-Wic Community College, Maryland Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. 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