Thinking about Completion Plus

[Catherine.Leaker@kbcc.cuny.edu]

In her article, “What’s wrong with the Completion Agenda and What We Can Do About It, ”   Debra Humphreys asks “Is it really possible to improve college completion rates and student achievement of essential learning outcomes?”(p.15).  Humphreys then goes on to argue that what she calls “completion plus” is possible.  From your perspective, what would a meaningful “completion plus” agenda look like at KCC?

[Jane Weiss]

I’d be happy to see Kingsborough facilitate completion for those students who are eager to complete their degrees and move on, by addressing obstacles like homelessness and housing insecurity, lack of public transportation, hunger, child care, textbook and fee costs, and, especially, the difficulty of completing courses in a sequence because the needed classes have been cancelled or there are too few sections to accommodate students’ work or care-giving schedules. (It would be interesting to test whether a return to lower class caps, so that we could run more and smaller sections, has an impact on student outcomes.) But I’d like to see more examination of the way that “completion” as the main goal is a drastic change from the original community college mission, which traditionally regarded part time and even occasional students as valuable, and as a main constituency. It seems to me that the “completion” agenda arises out of fear of “college debt” and “delayed earnings” — neither of which is relevant to those students at Kingsborough  who are already full-time workforce members.  Labor union culture and education funds used to support many part-time students at CUNY community colleges; in fact, the Centers for Worker Education were founded, not for what is now called “workforce development,” but so that labor union members could pursue liberal arts with majors such as “Urban and Community Studies,” at a pace that recognized that they were already working full time. The mantras of “progress toward degree” and “completion” don’t only disregard the needs of these students; they steamroller over the fact that students in, say, developmental mathematics courses or seminars in music history or Russian language might learn something in the courses that is of value even if the students do not complete degrees. The authenticity of the content of courses, and scholarship in academic disciplines, should be the most important goals throughout all the levels of a major research university such as CUNY. Expecting students who work or who have other responsibilities to zoom through five courses per semester is all but certain to produce “minimal or no gains in their critical thinking and writing skills,” as Humpreys puts it. Faster is not necessarily better for CUNY students, and we could be doing much more for CUNY students who are not inclined to race through their studies. For the student who delays entry into the workforce (or works reduced hours) and goes into debt to enroll full-time at a residential college, yes, it is urgent to earn a degree on time and the driver of the urgency is the debtor — but how many CUNY students actually fall into that category? It seems as though fears that apply mainly to residential state colleges and private colleges are being projected on to CUNY and setting CUNY’s agenda.  It would be healthier for CUNY to embrace part-time students, even if they don’t “finish” on Complete College America’s schedule.

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