During last year's high-stakes election campaign, we were bombarded with the message that our country has fallen behind in math and science, and that our educational “pipelines” are either leaky or just plain broken. Study after study shows that our nation’s students begin with small educational gaps in math and science early in grade school; as students progress down the “pipeline” these gaps widen, and result in adults who not only lack math and science skills, but fear the subjects themselves. Educational and political pundits have attacked the problem in various ways . Sometimes, however, solutions don’t require a massive overhaul of the system or a proposition on a ballot, but instead can be achieved by simply changing the way we view the system.
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I have spent the majority of my career in higher education teaching geology at a two-year college (2YC). Like most 2YC faculty, I did not take the position with aspirations to be a community college professor. Nevertheless, my experience with our students compelled me to remain in the profession. In my experience, community college students tend to be more inquisitive since they have fewer classmates than in a four-year university lecture hall; they demand more from me, since many of them pay for school out-of-pocket, and their diverse cultural influences, social backgrounds, and age differences give the students unique strengths as well as challenges to overcome when working in groups.
Over the past decade, with the cost of in-state tuition for four-year colleges and universities on the rise, student attendance at community colleges has increased dramatically. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, 44% of all undergraduate college students are enrolled at a community college. The percentage of US students attending 2YC at the beginning of their college careers is impressive not only in scale but in its potential to shape higher education overall.
In particular, the 2YC has the opportunity to affect Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) higher education. However, this would necessitate a fairly radical change of our perception of community colleges: by the public, four year institutions, and, most importantly, community colleges themselves.
The public
Since their inception, the mainstream public view of community colleges has been that of a second-class educational system, and one that the best and the brightest students would never consider as a post-secondary option. Traditionally, community colleges were, and in many cases still are, institutions that offer technical degrees and certificates as well as a means for non-traditional students to enter, or re-enter, the work force with an Associates degree.
But with community colleges educating almost half of all college students in the US, either as full-time students or as dual-enrollment students with a 4-year institution, the public view of 2YCs needs to change. This change may happen more or less organically over time, as students begin to understand the value of community colleges, with their smaller class sizes, lower tuition, flexible schedules, and diverse student body.
Also, as four-year institutions begin to recognize and respect the volume of students that enter their universities from two-year colleges, the two kinds of institution become keener to collaobrate with each other. For instance, many four-year institutions have worked with their 2YC counterparts to create 2+2 degree plans. The plans allow students to take their first two years of a four-year degree plan at a community college, transfer all the credits to the four-year institution, and finish the last two years of a bachelor degree at the university. Students benefit by paying a fraction of the cost of a traditional degree, community colleges benefit from the increased enrollment and graduates, and faculty at four-year institutions benefit with smaller teaching loads of introductory classes and increased focus on upper-level course work and research.
Four-year institutions
Although many four-year institutions have created formative collaborations with their local 2YC, an equal number have not. Community college STEM professors are gifted with bright, often non-traditional or minority students, who need an outlet for their enthusiasm. Most 2YCs do not have the resources to conduct research, which is why these collaborations are so important. With 2YCs educating so many incoming students, it is vital to ensure that those who show passion for STEM at the 2YC do substantive research while at the 2YC. Research experience can pave the way to placement at four-year institutions. Research collaboration between four-year and two-year institutions are often difficult to form and maintain, but yield positive results.
As yet, relatively few four-year faculty would consider taking on a 2YC student as a research assistant, mentee, or summer intern because of preconceived bias against community college students. However, having facilitated several research and intern relationships between my geology students and our four-year university faculty, I have noted important changes not only in my students but in their four-year faculty supervisors.
Community colleges
As community colleges receive more positive attention, our teaching standards must continue to exceed expectations. We must continue to find ways to give what I call a “university-level education at a community college price,” without losing what makes community colleges unique. A demanding teaching schedule (teaching five or six courses per semester is not uncommon) means that community college faculty members have no choice but to innovate their pedagogies. Being able to try a new hands-on activity or a new lecture topic five or six times a semester means that within an academic year teachers have worked all the kinks out of new materials.
Transmitting our passion for science to our students should always be our main professional goal. There is no mold for a perfect STEM student; the next great scientist could be a single mother, an enthusiastic septuagenarian, a second-generation Mexican–American, or a local high school student sitting in your class. Faculty at 2YCs have opportunity for individual interaction with STEM students and must use that time to model intellectual enthusiasm and rigor, and to prepare them for the challenges of the four-year university.
All education professionals face changes both to how students learn and how they perceive higher education. For instance, the transition of classroom time from classic podium and chalkboard lectures to modern multimedia teaching events with PowerPoint, the internet, in-class assessments, and the use of Student Learning Objectives happened incrementally but inexorably—the vast majority of professors now feel compelled to use modern techniques as part of routine pedagogy.
Higher education is a complex beast, its appendages evolving to benefit the organism as a whole. The way we develop and present information, assess understanding, and bestow degrees is in a constant state of flux. So too is the relationship between types of educational institution.
If most of us in higher education agree that our system lags behind other nations in producing STEM professionals, then I, as a dedicated community college faculty member, urge us to consider 2YC solutions to repairing our nation’s leaky pipelines.
Joshua Villalobos is an associate professor and district-wide coordinator in the department of geological sciences at El Paso Community College (EPCC) in El Paso, Texas. He also directs the SOLARIS project, an NSF-funded program aimed at boosting participation, particularly for minority students, in Earth sciences at EPCC.
