Accountancy In Community College By Rosemary Capps Summary

In the Reclaiming the American Dream report (AACC, 2012), seven recommendations were suggested to meet the needs of the students, as well as having a strong community college system. Hence, these recommendation address redesigning students’ educational experiences, reinventing institutional roles, and resetting the system to create incentives for students and institutional triumphs.

Community colleges do not have a single culture, but rather a myriad of cultures. The culture of an institution in higher education may not fit into a traditional model due to the complexity of academic culture. Within an institution, there is a dominate culture, as well as subcultures that exist. In addition, there are administrative cultures that may interact with the academic culture. The administration, faculty, staff, and students of an institution influence the culture, institutional goals, as well as individual success. Due to increasing demands and greater accountability in higher education, administrators are faced with greater challenges. At the community college level, there is an expectation for timely responsiveness to meet the needs of the community and workforce. Educational institutions must demonstrate sensitivity to the existing culture when addressing challenges in order to make progress.

The demands from both the general public and external stakeholders for colleges and universities to be held more accountable to the students who walk through their doors are increasing. Researchers have documented compelling issues that impact student success at institutions of higher education. College enrollees are forced to make life-changing decisions throughout their four to six year journey in hopes of ensuring a bright future by successfully attaining a degree. Unfortunately, there are colleges and universities across the country that are failing to deliver sufficient support and students are finding it difficult to manage the challenges of academia and integrating into the social and cultural fabric of the campus environment. It is because of these challenges that institutions of higher education must convincingly make student support programs the catalyst for proactively addressing the particular needs of their students.

The topic will advance the practice of the adult education specialization drawing attention to issues affecting adult students’ retention, which exist when colleges and universities seek to meet adult learners’ needs without understanding basic tenets of andragogy (Dreggs, 2011).

Opportunity for Improvement: Adult students are important to the growth of colleges; therefore, let’s examine the most promising aspects of having adult learners in colleges.

Because they have been away from a formal classroom for an extended time or it is their first collegiate experience, adult learners may experience anxiety as they pursue a certificate or degree in higher education. Since the average adult learner at Baker College is 30 years old, it is understandable. It is important to remember that the learner’s adult sophistication

Choosing to return to school can be a life-changing decision, as an adult learner, you may find the transition to a student stressful, and at times overwhelming. Adult learners face a unique set of challenges when deciding to enter or re-enter the educational setting. There are many adult learners who are pursuing their education while still working full time and some also have families. These additional responsibilities often lead to an added layer of stress and frustration. Additionally, the cost of education can be challenging for anyone, but when you throw daycare costs and mortgage payments into the mix the cost of pursuing an education for adult learners can become unaffordable. Another challenge that adult learners are often faced with

The collection and organization of literature will be based on the needs of adult learners and research conducted on assisting adult learners prior to them dropping out of their programs. Literature will be collected that addresses adult learners need to be able to connect the dots between the program they are enrolled in and past learning experiences; their need to know that they are a part of the learning community, which will give them a sense of belonging; the knowledge that their immediate needs can be met by their program choice; and knowing who to seek assistance through if those needs are not being met. The outcome of collecting and organizing literature that explains the institutional context of the capstone will be to present research that addresses the issue of retention and solutions that can be implemented, such as a retention program for adult learners that will help to ensure that their needs are being met, help to increase program completion, and ensure that adult learners will have a successful learning experience that will be transferable to other learning experiences. The article written by Howell & Buck focused on four manageable variables that are observed as influencing adult students’ satisfaction with a business course: relevancy of the subject matter, faculty subject-matter competency, faculty classroom management, and student workload that can be applied to most courses (Howell & Buck, 2012).

In addition to professors, students also lack enthusiasm while attending college. Although the overall atmosphere is friendly, quite often students are unable to fully engage while on campus. Often I hear how Cleveland State feels too much like a community college, partially because over half of the student body are commuters and are unable to stay for long periods of time. This circumstance does not always help improve relations between student’s faculty, and administration. For example, issues such as time management, communication, and stress are some of the main complaints from all three sides. As a result, student motivation to finish college at Cleveland State can drop drastically, which reflects the thirty-three percentage of alumni.

When I think about student success I immediately think of the term a “sense of belonging”. While there are many factors that positively impact students both academically and socially, I believe that having a supportive community serves as a backbone for all overarching areas of a student’s career. Historically the main focus was the extensions of the boundaries of knowledge (p.3 the student personal point of view, 1937).As a first-generation student, from a working class family in rural America, I was significantly influence by the supportive communities provided by student affairs professionals. My academic success and personal development went through a transformation that ended up leading me to the field of student affairs.

According to the data, suggestion was that the community college is the primary or only postsecondary opportunity for many students, supporting the hypothesis that first generation represent an important part of the community college population (Inman & Mayes, 1999). Also, some researchers found that the first’s generation commitment to the college they were attending was even stronger. They were likely to have plans of continuing at the college till they achieved academic goals.

The article written by Kenner et al, "Adult learning theory: applications to non-traditional college students", provides a more comprehensive and less stratified look at the phenomenon of pursuing higher education as an adult. This piece

Students who feel as though they are a part of the community and have a strong sense of belonging to the campus are more likely to graduate from their home institution (Astin, 1993). “Student success is related to the degree to which students feel that they matter, that they belong to the community, and that they are appreciated for who they are and want to become”

According to a report from the Century Foundation, with 11 million students, community colleges are home to 45 percent of the collegiate population in the United States; in that same report, 81.4 percent of students who enter community colleges for the first time planned to obtain a bachelor's degree in the future, but just 11.6 percent achieved that goal. I have attended college once and failed; I plan to succeed this time by recognizing the potential opportunities, by overcoming the challenges, by listening to advisors and by utilizing effective strategies.

According to Kuk and Banning (2009), “different types of institutions appear to share general design and structural features within their student affairs organizations (p. 108). As the needs of our society have changed over the years, so have student affairs. As the demands on higher education increase and change, it seemed reasonable to redesign the organizational structure to be more flexible and adaptable to the environmental needs of the institution. As student’s needs change, student affairs will face new challenges and new opportunities where they will need to reconsider and recreate their programs for student success.