Recently I read an article in the Times by Tina Rosenberg about the completion rate for community colleges. I participated in a focus group about the same subject a year or two back. I always try to stay up on the changes Sinclair is making as they impact students, so as to impart that information to as many of our readers I can–but I had to really step back for this one.
Reading all the information and the structural changes from the college’s perspectives really puts the puzzle pieces together–and it doesn’t feel too good. Students are no more than products for many colleges.
I can understand how monotonous the fine detailings–many of which I have read in my years of digging–that one may be tempted to treat our community college as just another business. However, we’re not.
Everything is about completion to measure a community college’s success. Our funding comes from our completion rate now. We’re seeing pushes of full-time enrollment being 15 credits or more, faculty requirement changes, everything is now being designed to move students along the conveyer belt of post secondary education.
Degree credit hours are being cut, alternative ways to earn credit are discussed, all of this is supposedly to “benefit the student” and yet the primary beneficiary is the financial portion of the college.
What a perverse mindset. It’s managed to plague my own, always hearing the droning about community college buzzwords to sell ourselves to more students. Can we do it faster, cheaper, easier? Perhaps I need to invoke Jurassic Park here–just because you can does not mean you should.
They want you to know what you’re majoring in the second you step foot here. They design programs so you’re on this track and monitored in your every academic move. They want you to complete, as a student. But do they want you, the person, to complete your educational journey here?
That’s my question to all of community colleges. Are we supposed to graduate, simply be awarded our piece of paper? Would that make our community stronger? Would it do any remote positive for that to be the only goal Sinclair and other community college institutes should strive for?
While I was discussing the article and several others on the topic, I was hit by the strangest, most foreign idea: that Sinclair should be somewhere we learn. If you want to go take a course in social work, if you want to learn sign language, if you want to try out a field–why should you not be welcomed with open arms?
I do not care remotely if you graduate. I care that you, as a person, fulfill your goals here at Sinclair. That goal doesn’t have to be graduation, but if it is, you have my full support, too.
Growing up, I always knew of Sinclair. I’d been to fundraisers many times that were held at Building 12 with all sorts of powerful Daytonians. Virtually every weekend I was out doing something for Dayton. And so, Sinclair was associated to me as a part of my possible future. Affordable, quality and right next door.
Yet, as a student, the idea that Sinclair and learning are inseparable escaped me. There’s so much jargon of everyone trying to tell you what to do, what this requirement and that requirement is to the point you can forget why you chose community college in the first place.
No quota you can make, no diversity pitch, no amount of “it’ll be easy if you do x, x, and x” will ignite the thirst for knowledge that Dayton needs to flourish. Not a single student cares about the name of the next big program to increase graduation rates or the next grant award.
We want to have our experiences valued. Not our graduation–and what monetary amount that provides–solely.
I have been out many a nights, for business, for fun or otherwise–and you can guess what educational institute’s name pops up: Sinclair. Not a single time has someone said “I was worse for going” and that is our school’s pride. That is our Dayton’s gem. That is Sinclair, to me and I hope to our board, community and president.
My Sinclair community doesn’t just include those that get to wear a cap and gown. What a family we have–it would be a shame to estrange it.
Barton Kleen
Executive Editor