This twenty-second annual Student Success Conference hosted by Maricopa Community Colleges is geared towards staff, administrators, and faculty in an effort to share best practices and come up with ideas on how to better serve the population of students that attend the collection of community colleges.
As is usual there is a an opening speaker to get everyone motivated and this year I have to say that I connected with what Sarita Brown had to say in terms of breaking down the barriers that education itself places in front of students.
Sarita Brown, the morning speaker is the president of Excelencia in Education, a not-for-profit research in education company. You can read her bio and contributions by logging onto the weblink below. I found that I connected with everything she said in regards to helping students achieve more by taking ownership of their empowerment. In fact I have made it my mission with the ACE Program and in general with South Mountain Community College to help students find solutions to as much as possible. For instance, walking them to a classroom, rather than pointing to a map and saying figure your way around a campus you've never been to before. It's the little things that could help or hurt a student and in reality how much effort does it take to show a new student the ropes. Or another example is sitting with a group of students and showing them online how to apply for FAFSA, as oppose to giving them a sheet and sending them home. I still have fears of school and processes, but imagine being a returning student of 20 years, what must it feel like to be completely new to something you were once in, what hasn't changed? We can't expect these students to just know what to do.
http://mcli.maricopa.edu/success
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