New Workshop Helps Peer Leaders Keep Students On Course!

Today’s post comes from Ruth Silon, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community Colleges’ Student Success Center and former DEI director and English faculty member at Cuyahoga Community College (CCC). Ruth describes how CCC combined what they learned from two of their DEI initiatives to increase the impact of student leaders on their campuses.

As Cuyahoga Community College’s Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) grant came to an end, making good use of the remaining funds was not a challenge. The College’s grant used peer leaders in two of its major initiatives: Supplemental Instruction (SI) and Peer Mentoring. For another initiative, a redesign of Math 0850, Skip Downing’s On Course principles were a major part of the course. Most math faculty who taught the course attended On Course Level I and II workshops during the college’s involvement with Achieving the Dream and DEI. During DEI, the workshops were offered to all faculty.

Two occurrences led us to the decision to hold an On Course workshop for student peer leaders. First, during the second year of DEI, English professor Mary Ward, who used On Course in her class, asked if her SI leader, Tiffany, could be trained. Having Tiffany in the workshop with the faculty was a real benefit as her presence added a valuable perspective to the training. Instead of just talking about On Course in an abstract setting, we talked about its principles and their value for students with a student. Tiffany then went on to promote On Course as an SI Leader with students in her English class. Then, during the third year of DEI, Robin Middleton from Jamestown Community College (JCC) facilitated the Level II workshop. From her we learned about a new workshop “Creating a Culture of Success: On Course for Front Line Staff.” In order to promote culture change across the college, front-line staff who work in admissions and financial aid were trained in On Course principles and techniques. Although a workshop for front-line peer student leaders had not been tested, Skip and Robin agreed to put it together.

On September 7, 2012, over forty student leaders from multiple Cuyahoga Community College (CCC) campuses attended the one-day workshop. The students were supplemental instruction leaders, student ambassadors, peer advocates with the C2C program, student coaches with Cleveland Transfer Connection, and an AmeriCorps coach. The students dove deep into discussions about the following topics: “Eight Choices of Successful Students,” “On Course Core Beliefs,” “The Language of Responsibility,” “Victim versus Creator Language,” and “Staying On Course When at a Fork in the Road of Life.” They practiced working with each other on the wise choice process and the problem resolution process. One of the students told me that she worries about students who are very belligerent: “They don’t know how to react to anything except by getting angry and using their street behavior.”  Student leaders quickly saw that using the wise choice process would slow down students’ reaction process and get them to think more critically. Another student said, “I think On Course will help me save my marriage!” 

The group activity that impressed many attendees was “Creating a Mission Statement for Front Line Staff.”  The task was to create a statement of “purpose you would be proud to post in your work space for all to see…. a Mission Statement that will guide your important work with students.”  Below are a few statements from the student collaboration:

• To serve as a support system with students to help them get their Associate’s Degree and achieve a rewarding career
• To provide an environment where students feel that they are part of a community
• Help students to learn and achieve the tools to be successful students and citizens

Giving these leaders the opportunity to put into words what their goals are and recognize how important their position is was quite moving. They felt empowered and then would go off to empower students. Clearly, this is a workshop that other colleges should think about bringing to their institution.

It is also important to mention that staff who work with these student leaders attended the workshop and many have attended On Course Level I and II training. If this program for student leaders is to work, trained staff will have to continue the conversation with them and encourage the use of On Course principles and methods.

Often as a grant ends, you find yourself saying, “We wish we knew then what we know now; we could have done some things differently or sooner.”  Blending together two of our initiatives, using student leaders and On Course training, was a great example of the culmination of our learning. I am so pleased that we were able to make it happen.

What Do Students Really Think?

The College: El Paso Community College in El Paso, Texas

The Difficulty: EPCC is implementing several institutional policy changes that will reshape the entering student experience:

• mandatory enrollment in developmental education and EPCC’s student success course for students who test into dev ed
• a new case-management advising system, which includes a mentoring component

While the college is confident these changes will improve student success, administrators want to fully understand how the changes will affect students, so they can minimize any negative impact and keep students from becoming discouraged.

The Expert: Arleen Arnsparger is a consultant for the University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program. “We tend to make assumptions about why students behave in certain ways or what their experiences are with the college,” Arleen says. “We’re all getting better at making decisions by looking at institutional data and survey data, rather than just anecdotal information. Colleges have a lot of numbers to point them in the right direction, but student focus groups help them dig a little deeper into what they’re seeing in the data.”

The Accomplishment: Shirley Gilbert, EPCC’s program director for the Developmental Education Initiative, saw Arleen’s presentations at Achieving the Dream Strategy Institutes and was impressed by her ability to capture and convey the student voice. EPCC invited Arleen to come to campus and lead a workshop about creating student focus groups. Arleen helped participants identify what they needed to know about students’ experiences and then find the right questions to ask. The workshop also covered the logistics of creating a student focus group, including recruitment of focus group members, designing a discussion guide, and reporting findings to the college. She concluded with a model focus group session.

What Really Worked: The workshop participants left with a better understanding of how to involve students in decision-making; many faculty and staff have gone on to host their own student focus groups. “EPCC leaves no stone unturned in understanding the student experience,” Arleen says.

Lasting Effects: El Paso Community College is getting ready to roll out additional student focus groups, but is planning to bring Arleen back to give the college a boost as it moves forward, especially since the focus groups will involve a larger number of staff this time around. “We’ve scratched the surface, but now we need to get a deeper understanding,” Shirley Gilbert says. “We asked our students, ‘Tell me what you think,’ and now we need to ask, ‘Tell me what you really think.’”

Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC.