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Community colleges adjust for working professionals

[1]
A growing number of working professionals are returning to campuses across the nation.

Since the “Great Recession” of 2008, community colleges have sought innovative ways [2] to simultaneously reach wider student audiences and achieve lower costs. American workers are returning to college [3]in record numbers to obtain, finish, or supplement their postsecondary degrees.

Community colleges are responding to their needs by making their programs more flexible. Besides offering online classes, a growing number of schools are scheduling face-to-face classes at all hours of the day and night.

In a move to accommodate a new crop of students consisting mainly of working professionals with standard 9-to-5 job requirements, Southern Maine Community College [4] (SMCC) in South Portland will offer early morning classes [5]at 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. beginning in January. This will mark the earliest course start time in SMCC’s 67-year history. A recent SMCC survey found that 28.5 percent of SMCC’s students work full-time and 42.9 percent work part-time.

“We were really looking at a student population of working students who might be interested in credentials that will be related to the work that they’re doing that will help them to aspire to career advancement,” said Janet Sortor, vice president and dean of Academic Affairs. “This would allow students to take a class before they go to work. We’ve had evening classes for many years, but they’re not always as convenient.”

Sortor cited later working hours and family responsibilities as two key inhibitors when students register for evening classes. Early morning classes should diminish these problems and are “less competition for one’s time,” Sortor said.

SMCC’s recent survey also found that 162 of its students already hold associate degrees, 224 hold bachelor’s degrees, and 20 hold master’s degrees. If so many students already hold degrees, why are they returning to community college?

“It’s an interesting thing, it’s a lot of second-career people,” said Sortor. “[Early morning classes] really cover the gamut from people who are changing careers because the career they were in no longer has viable job opportunities, to [those] changing jobs to something that they’ve always wanted to go into.”

Science and health are two of the most popular fields of study for SMCC’s students. Sortor attributed this to the economic downturn, and scarcity of job opportunities in creative fields.

“A lot of students whose undergraduate major is not something they’ve found to be conducive to a career [are] coming back to take courses at the undergraduate level to go on to graduate school, particularly in the sciences,” said Sortor. “Science, biotechnology—it’s a real niche area.”

While working professionals may embrace the opportunity to take classes at such an early hour, the jury is still out on how faculty members view the new offerings.

“I think that’s not clear yet,” said Sortor. “I think that some faculty may be interested in teaching early, but we won’t require faculty to become all early birds. I think there’s an opportunity here for everybody, and I don’t think we’ll have a hard time finding faculty to teach—[in fact] this may provide faculty the opportunity to have an earlier day.”

The first wave of early morning courses will include Introduction to Literature, English Composition, College Algebra, Introduction to Algebra, Introduction to Psychology, and Introduction to Sociology. SMCC plans to first offer core general education courses and examine student interest before offering higher-level courses at earlier times.

“It’s for a very specific demographic, and I think it will be popular,” said Sortor. “What we’ll be watching for and collecting data on is where and how we can expand it beyond core gen-ed classes. If there’s a trend of any kind, we’ll try to identify it and support students.”

Reducing the heavy traffic situation on its 7,574 student campus is another key goal of SMCC administrators. By offering early morning classes geared towards working professionals, administrators hope that driving patterns will stagger and traffic will decline.

SMCC officials will evaluate the early morning classes next semester, and if student retention and demand remain high, they plan to expand course offerings. Sortor believes that offering better opportunities for SMCC’s diverse student population will reflect promising results.

“We try to keep our eye on how we can better meet the needs of our students,” she said. “With working people, it’s that combination of opportunity and flexibility that may allow students to finish degrees that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.”

On the other side of the time spectrum is Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) in Boston. In September 2009, BHCC became the first college in the country to offer midnight courses for its students.

The idea was spurred by Kathleen O’Neill, director of Single Stop at BHCC, a former adjunct psychology professor who noticed students falling asleep during her 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. lectures. After speaking with the students, she discovered that many were exhausted from working night shifts or taking care of children.

“After working all night, 1:30 p.m. is still early,” said O’Neill. “They were good students, and they’d say, ‘I want to do well in school but I have to work,’ so it wasn’t working them. I thought, “This is crazy! There are so many students who have stories like that, why don’t we just offer classes late at night and see how that goes?’”

O’Neill brought her idea to John Reeves, chair of the Behavioral Science Department, who then brought the idea to BHCC President Mary L. Fifield, who loved the idea. From there, “it really mushroomed very quickly,” said O’Neill.

Understanding that some professors might be put off by the idea of having to teach lengthy late-night lectures, O’Neill volunteered to spearhead the movement and taught “Psychology 101: Principles of Psychology” from 11:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. in the Fall 2009 semester.

“[Midnight courses] fit into a lot of people’s schedules,” said O’Neill. “A lot of people are not 9-to-5 workers. The students in that first class—there was one mother who had two young girls who didn’t have to get a babysitter because her husband was home. There was a detective who would come in right after his shift, and a police officer who would take a class then go to work. There was another mother of five who worked during the day who was determined to get an education and did it.”

Midnight courses allow non-traditional students the opportunity to achieve a degree while simultaneously fulfilling the other demands and responsibilities in their lives. BHCC will offer five midnight courses this coming spring: College Writing II, Colonization thru Civil War, World Religions, Principles of Psychology, and Principles of Sociology.

“These students want an education, but because of the demands in their lives, of needing to work, it wasn’t working into it,” said O’Neill. “There are not enough hours in the day, but there are more hours in the night.”