scholarly journals ACDC Agency: Food and Politics with Community College Students at Vassar

2017 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Robert Cowan
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Transfer Program

The food at the All-College Dining Commons (ACDC) at Vassar College stinks. Not that is literally smells foul; it just isn’t very good. The high-achieving community college students in the Exploring Transfer Program (ET) eat breakfast and dinner there for the five weeks that they are studying at Vassar. Ironically, the course I co-taught in ET for two summers, with the Chair of Environmental Studies, is entitled Feast or Famine: Food, Society, Environment. This course is a survey of issues concerning food systems, such as industrial farming, the role of agricultural lobbyists in Washington, overfishing, food sovereignty in developing countries, food stamps, food deserts, the USDA, FDA, WTO, IMF, etc. And yet, with all of the knowledge the students are gleaning from authors like Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry and myriad others, they have to eat the crappy food at ACDC.            We have had students in this course from Argentina, Bosnia, Bourkina Faso, China, El Salvador, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. They come from community colleges mostly in the New York area, but also from as far away as Boston, Maine, Los Angeles, and Diné Community College, which is on a Navajo reservation in Northern Arizona. This program—over 30 years old and with over 1,000 alumni—is a sort of academic boot camp for community college students who hope to transfer to an elite liberal arts college, a Research 1 university, or an Ivy League school. It’s a full scholarship program during which they take two courses in five weeks, each team-taught by a community college professor and a Vassar professor.            “AC/DC” seems an apt metaphor for the ET program; not for its pop-metal connotations but because of the fact that it demands that students that are accustomed to operating in one current suddenly adjust to quite another. The question that arises out of the experience of eating ACDC, though—of being low-income, immigrant, first-generation college students, studying at one of the whitest and most expensive schools in the country and yet being forced to eat poor food—is “how do they develop a sense of personal agency,” since that is what the transition through community college and onto a school like Vassar requires. 

Financially Eligible Pell Grant Community College Students’ Perceptions of Institutional Integration

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Ocean
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Academic Progress ◽  
Pell Grant ◽  
Institutional Integration ◽  
Integration Model ◽  
Unfair Treatment

There is a wealth of literature on the integration of university students increasing retention and ultimate completion, yet much less is known about the connections or disconnections that exist for community college students. Therefore, I interviewed financially eligible Pell Grant community college students ( n = 62) about their connections to their institutions, and I subsequently conducted a thematic analysis of the data. Students’ experiences of integration ranged from feeling they created a family to perceiving unfair treatment. Overwhelmingly, students felt connected to their community college. However, some students who were not meeting satisfactory academic progress described a disconnection to their community college. The results indicate a need to reevaluate the satisfactory academic progress criteria and develop an integration model specific for low-income community college students.

Love-Styles among Latino Community College Students in Los Angeles

1995 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 527-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph J. Leon ◽  
Fernando Parra ◽  
Terrisa Cheng ◽  
R. Edward Flores
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Latino Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chicano Studies ◽  
Latino Men ◽  
Love Styles ◽  
Latino Community

145 Latino community college students enrolled in Chicano Studies classes in Los Angeles, California were administered a love-attitudes scale. Analysis showed that the mean scores and endorsement patterns were similar to those in earlier research on white-Latino and white-non-Latino students in the United States. Significant gender differences were found. Latino men scored more Ludic and Agapic than women. Researchers might examine the love-styles and ethnic identity in and out of marriage among Latinos, whites, and Asians in southern California.

Do Community College Students Benefit from Federal Work-Study Participation?

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Hongwei Yu ◽  
Lyle Mckinney ◽  
Vincent D. Carales
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Selection Bias ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Work Study ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Research Questions

Background Prior studies suggest that Federal Work-Study (FWS) participation is positively associated with student learning, persistence, and academic achievement at four-year institutions. Limited research, however, has evaluated whether FWS participation improves academic success among students attending community colleges. Purpose and Research Questions The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how FWS participation impacted academic performance and enrollment outcomes among a racially/ethnically diverse sample of students attending a large, urban community college (UCC) system in Texas. There were two research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of students at UCC who participated in FWS, compared with their peers who did not participate? (2) After controlling for self-selection bias, are there significant differences in academic success (i.e., cumulative GPA; credential attainment and/or four-year transfer) among UCC students who did and did not participate in the FWS program? Research Design The longitudinal data set (fall 2010 through summer 2016) analyzed in this study was built using detailed student-level transcript data records. The full sample included 8,837 students who had filed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (a necessary step to receive FWS funding), but the primary focus was on the subsample of FWS participants (n = 260). Descriptive analysis was performed to compare the demographic and academic characteristics of FWS participants with nonparticipants. To assuage self-selection bias, propensity score matching (nearest neighbor matching algorithm) was used to match similar students who did and did not participate in FWS. We employed multiple regression and logistic regression techniques on the matched data to investigate whether FWS participation was associated with students’ academic outcomes. Results Relative to their non-FWS peers, FWS participants at this community college were more likely to be female, African American, 24 years of age or older, very low income, and academically underprepared. After successfully matching FWS participants with similar non-FWS participants, results indicated that FWS participation was associated with a higher cumulative GPA and significantly higher odds of credential completion and/or vertical transfer. Conclusions There are important equity implications in our findings; the results suggest that the FWS program can improve educational outcomes for student populations that are often marginalized and underserved by the higher education system. We describe several ways that the FWS program could be redesigned and expanded to better meet the needs of community college students.

Diving into the Pool: An Analysis of Texas Community College Students’ Transfer Institution Choice Sets

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Huriya Jabbar ◽  
Eliza Epstein ◽  
Wesley Edwards ◽  
Joanna D. Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
College Attendance ◽  
Significant Heterogeneity ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Choice Sets ◽  
Four Year Institutions

Background/Context Community colleges are drawing renewed attention from policy makers and advocates seeking to increase college attendance and completion. Nearly half of all students awarded a bachelor's degree attended a community college. However, we know little about how community college students decide where and how to pursue postsecondary education, or how they select a four-year institution—choices that have significant implications for student outcomes. Focus of Study This study examines transfer-intending community college students’ choice sets, or the list of institutions they are selecting from. Specifically, we ask: What kinds of colleges and universities are in transfer-intending students’ choice sets, and how are these choice sets shaped by individual and structural barriers? Setting The research took place in two community college systems in Central Texas. Research Design Drawing on data from 95 interviews with transfer-intending community college students in Texas—the majority of whom are first-generation college-goers, low-income, or students of color—we examine their choice sets, the institutions to which they considered transferring. Conclusions/Recommendations Our findings suggest significant heterogeneity among our sample of community college students seeking transfer to four-year institutions. We find that geography, financial concerns, and quality of institution all play a role in student considerations—though these mechanisms operate differently for groups of students. Students’ choices are bounded, but in different ways. We identify five approaches to choice-set construction among our sample that have differential implications for programs and policies that help students successfully apply and transfer to high-quality four-year institutions.

scholarly journals Sexual Assault Prevalence and Community College Students: Challenges and Promising Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 7S-16S
Author(s):  
Sharyn J. Potter ◽  
Nicole Fox ◽  
Delilah Smith ◽  
Nora Draper ◽  
Elizabeth A. Moschella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Community College Students ◽  
Low Income ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Campuses

Recently, much research has been dedicated to understanding how to prevent and address the aftermath of sexual assault (SA) on traditional 4-year college and university campuses in the United States. However, less scholarly attention has been paid to 2-year institutions, commonly known as community colleges. This review illuminates the different situational contexts faced by community college students, compared with students at 4-year colleges. These differences are shaped by community college characteristics, student demographics, and geographic location of their students. Community colleges enroll a higher percentage of women, first-generation students, and low-income students than 4-year colleges. Furthermore, community colleges are academic homes to the most racially and ethnically diverse student population, with higher numbers of African Americans, Latinos, immigrants, and nonnative English speakers. These populations (e.g., women, racial minorities, first-generation, low-income) are at a greater risk for SA; yet, 2-year institutions have less funding and resources available to address SA on their campuses. Thus, this article reviews the problem of campus SA on community colleges and highlights the challenges that 2-year institutions face in comparison with those that 4-year institutions face when implementing SA prevention and response strategies. Then, a case study of a 3-year project on one nonresidential and seven community colleges is presented, which illustrates how 2-year institutions can forge relationships with community professionals to address SA on their campuses.

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