Student Success model that will provide a safety net once they arrive.
Imbued with this vision in almost a messianic way, we are entering FY 2023 as a promising new era for all of us at CCBC. We intend to galvanize our efforts to build a new platform of student support. With strength in our ability to provide access to a broadly diverse student body, we have recommitted ourselves to delivering the second half of that promise by building 21st century support structures. We must not only invite these 21st century scholars in the door; we must invest resources in them to keep them here.
A recent issue of University Business contained an article that reflected on the dire straits confronting today’s community colleges. According to the author, “sharp enrollment decline combined with funding compression once stimulus funds expire is staring each of us in the face.”
While enrollment numbers translate into budget gain or deficit each fall, recruitment success in itself is a pyrrhic victory if 48% of each new cohort disappears by the end of the year.
As president of a college that intends to do better, I am pledging more than executive command or commitment to address this reality. I am pledging resources along with an insistence that all areas of the college lean into this effort to actualize an equity agenda that refocuses our efforts. We must look at how we teach, how we advise, how we devise academic and administrative policies and practices; and how we must do all of this with an eye on who is sitting in our classrooms today.