Ever wish you had a ready-made elevator speech for talking about developmental education? Something simple, straightforward, and conversational that anyone would understand? Talking about developmental ed can be challenging. So to help, we’ve assembled some general advice and messaging for discussing developmental education with any audience. It’s our goal to provide you with the basics for getting the word out whether you’re at a board meeting with trustees or in line at the grocery store. (Because we really want to spread the good word everywhere, people.)
While these documents were developed with DEI colleges in mind as the users, we think they will be useful to a broader audience. The messages draw on research from our funders, Public Agenda, and some trusty communications consultants. Here’s a brief rundown of the four pieces we’ve prepared to help you meet the challenge. Future blog posts will delve into the content and utility of each:
- Talking Points –special messages for key audiences and four main themes:
- The problem: Half the new jobs created in the next 10 years will require some college education. Yet right now, students who need a developmental course are much less likely to finish college than those who don’t need one.
- The conventional one-size-fits-all approach to developmental education doesn’t work for many students.
- Developmental education can work for students who need it.
- It’s just a matter of offering motivated Americans at all stages of life and from every background a fair chance at a good-paying career and a better future.
- Dev Ed is Good for Business & the Economy—an economic appeal for propelling under-prepared students toward rewarding careers.
- Promising Examples from DEI Colleges—a quick look at the types of innovation that are changing students’ lives.
- Institutional Innovation & State Policy Change—how coordination of these two important efforts is essential to sustainable success.
You can find all of these in the Resources section of our website under “Communications.” In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging about specific messaging problems that all of us encounter, including students’ negative perceptions of developmental education and the search for a name and definition for these courses that is both representative and accessible. This blog can be a forum to test and share new ways of talking about developmental education. Let’s get started: click on the “comments” link below and give us your most successful dev ed elevator speech.
Richard Hart is MDC's Communications Director.
I present a PowerPoint orientation for some of our developmental classes at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT. Using the PowerPoint I attempt to develop a positive student attitude toward developmental courses by leading a discussion based on the outline below. It is not really an elevator speech, but it has provided me many ideas for presenting the positive side of developmental education to students.
ReplyDelete1. “What does it mean to be in a developmental course?” Ninety percent of the time the answer that comes back is “I have to pay for this course, but I don’t get any college credit.”
2. “If you had an attack of appendicitis and ended up in the hospital getting your appendix out, would you describe what the hospital did as cutting you and making you pay, or would you describe the mission of the hospital which was to save your life?”
3. Let’s create the same kind of description of developmental courses, one based on the mission of the college and the benefit to you as a student.
4. You are enrolled in college. You have fought your way through the application, testing, and financial aid process and you are officially a college student. You made it this far. Don’t take that for granted. It takes courage and persistence to get here.
5. You need review courses before you can start your college level courses. You don’t have to find those courses somewhere else. They are provided right here on campus. You can have all the benefits of the college campus and college life while you are taking these courses.
6. Describe what you derive from being able to enroll in this particular college. Why is this where you chose to come and what do you particularly like about it.
I think that it is critical not to deny the frustrating aspects of taking developmental courses or the student perceptions of how they ended up where they are. But to carry the analogy further, the only solution to a burst appendix is surgery. We do it when we have to, try to recover as quickly as possible, and move on to happier days. The work of the hospital is to save us, not to cut us and make us pay.