Blog Action Day: Change Means: A College Education

Today, the Community College of Vermont is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. This annual nonprofit event aims to unite people around the world on one issue on the same day. This year's topic is poverty. Messages from several members of the CCV community will be posted here throughout the day. The following post is submitted by Adam Warrington, an Academic Advisor at CCV Burlington.

Teresa Lorenco, a former CCV student, and her son, Dylan Elliott recently posted a video to the "Change Means..." series on YouTube in which they give a glimpse into the difficulties of affording a college education in today's society. I believe that their story yet again helps eximplify the catch-22 that many American's experiencing poverty face... higher education is a necessary step toward relief from poverty and a livable wage... but individuals in poverty find the costs of affording a college education more and more out of reach. I'll hope you'll watdch the video below.

Blog Action Day: The Value of Higher Education as an Antidote to Poverty

Today, the Community College of Vermont is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. This annual nonprofit event aims to unite people around the world on one issue on the same day. This year's topic is poverty. Messages from several members of the CCV community will be posted here throughout the day. The following post is submitted by Dee Steffan, CCV’s Northwest Regional Director for Academics

I remember sitting in a graduate class at UVM in 1980, listening to a professor in a higher ed administration course forecast the cost of college 20 years hence. My jaw dropped to the floor when he noted that, by the year 2000, four years at a competitive private college was likely to cost students $150,000. I thought he had taken leave of his senses! Having recently graduated from such a college, and knowing it had cost my dad just over $25,000 for my gilded sheepskin, it seemed preposterous that those costs would multiply six times over by the time then-current toddlers walked across the stage to collect their undergraduate degrees. Honestly, I dismissed his projection as poppycock.

As it turns out, he was right and I was woefully wrong. It now costs about $50,000/year to attend my alma mater, where the annual tuition increases at it and schools like it are rising four times faster than the overall inflation rate. Tack on the expense of textbooks, and the fact that federal aid to education now takes the form of loans much more than outright grants, and it’s easy to see why graduates and their families are struggling under the weight of education-driven debt. Even in our public colleges and universities, rising costs have put an undergraduate degree out of reach for poor and middle-class families struggling to pay the competing costs of mortgages, health care, food, and gas. My daughter’s sister, who attends UVM as an out-of-state Mainer, plunked down $37,500 for tuition, room and board as an entering freshman last year, and that did not include books, laundry, and the occasional slice of pizza at Mr. Mike’s.

For decades, economists, sociologists, educators, and politicians have been able to agree on at least one fact of life: the definitive, causal relationship between educational achievement and poverty abatement. This relationship exists on an individual level (the higher one goes up the education ladder, the better off one is likely to be economically), as well as on a collective level (the better educated a society, the less vulnerable it is as a whole to the ravages of poverty). And in fact, the most recent census figures reaffirm the economic value of a college degree.

(Source: Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce)

A second relationship has long been thought to exist: the more prestigious the institution and the more one pays to attend it, the greater its graduates’ earning power in the marketplace. That has certainly been the case in past decades, when college costs were generally affordable and financial aid (heavily subsidized by the Federal government in the form of grants and aid) was easily accessible. Only recently, in light of the rapidly escalating costs of an Ivy League education, have experts begun to question the ironclad validity of the ‘elitism’ factor.

So here’s the conundrum: There persists a strong and predictable relationship between education and income potential. No betting person can guarantee that a college degree will pave the road from poverty to prosperity for everyone. There are too many factors that underlie the root causes of poverty in America for higher education alone to overcome them. But the converse is a bet that most would take: without the benefit of higher education in the 21st century, there is a far greater chance that someone born or fallen into poverty will never dig out from it. The cost of education, however, is outstripping inflationary factors and appears poised on the brink of pricing itself out of reach for many low and middle-income families, who nonetheless, NEED the benefits that a college degree confers if our sons and daughters—or we, ourselves-- are to make it in an increasingly competitive workforce. This is particularly true in an era when we’re witnessing an enormous cost-shifting of high-ticket items like health care and tuition from employers and government to individuals.

The question becomes: does the value of higher ed hold true today, in the context of spiraling costs, reduced federal and state aid, and much tighter national and family budgets? Put another way, Does earning potential conferred by a college degree outweigh the up-front costs that will force the average student in the Class of 2009 to graduate $21,500 in debt?

I would argue that it does, but that students will need to be very savvy about how they approach their college education. For students who might be reading this blog and attending CCV, I venture to say that you are already ahead of the game. Because one of the very smartest options that you and your family can consider is the value of entrusting the first two years of post-secondary education to your local community college. The mission of community colleges in general, and CCV in particular, is to focus on teaching and learning, access, and affordability. With its small classes and active learning educational philosophy, CCV provides you with many opportunities to hone your skills as college-level learners. By hiring faculty from our local communities, most of whom work in the fields in which they teach, CCV opens doors to real-world experience that keeps your education current, pragmatic, and often inspiring. The small class size gives you ample opportunity for ongoing feedback from faculty and advisors, and the liberal studies core that underlies all of our associate degree programs aims to broaden every graduate’s communication, quantitative reasoning, and critical thinking skills that are considered absolutely essential in the job market.

The two-year degree carries some significant advantages beyond the financial gains you are likely to realize over a lifetime of employment. In completing an associate degree before moving on to a bachelor’s or master’s degree, you as a community college graduate:

• Have saved an average of $10-20,000 on the annual costs of your education;
  
• Have earned a credential that will confer and retain its value regardless of some unforeseen interruption in your college tenure that forces you to postpone school before completing your bachelor’s degree;
  
• Have more likely ensured the transferability of all of your credits so that you pick up as a junior at your next chosen university or college.
  
• Have avoided the typical freshman year experience of large lecture halls and professors who will never know your name;
  
• Have benefitted from the importance that community colleges place on teaching and learning. This is nowhere more pronounced than at CCV, which has deliberately chosen to make the classroom the primary focus of our program.

All of that said, there are some things that you can do to optimize your time at CCV:

• Carefully consider all of your competing obligations in any given semester—family, job, volunteer, healthcare, and school—before enrolling in classes, and make sure that you can devote the time it takes to be successful in your classes. On average, this really IS 6-9 hours outside of class for every three-credit course. Plan accordingly!
  
• Borrow only what you need in financial aid. Remember, you will need to pay this money back, so it’s best to be as conservative as possible when taking on debt.
  
• Work with your academic advisor to map out a plan for completing your degree, semester by semester. Do your best to stick to the plan.
  
• If you find yourself overwhelmed, talk with people—financial aid, academic advisors, your teachers—before dropping a class. There are often costs associated with dropping, and the setbacks of time and money lost may not be worth it.
  
• Make it to the finish line! The longer you stay at CCV, the more money you’ll save, and the more opportunities you’ll have to reap the rewards of persistence. (See list above!) Remember, attaining a degree makes you more employable in the job market, and serves you well in terms of transfer credits at your next college if you opt to go on.

You’ve already made an excellent choice in coming to CCV. For all of you who are first-generation college goers, congratulations on your achievements to date. Earning your degree can be a life-changing accomplishment for you and generations to follow. For those of you using an associate degree or coursework as a stepping stone to a Bachelor’s Degree, smart thinking! Whatever has brought you to our doors, it’s great to have you here. It is the fervent hope and goal of all of us who work at the College—faculty, administration, and staff—that CCV will provide an important firewall against poverty for all of our students, regardless of the circumstances that brought you here to begin with. Take full advantage of the academic opportunities that await you!

Dee Steffan
Northwest Regional Director for Academics

Blog Action Day: Significance of Community Colleges in Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

Today, the Community College of Vermont is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. This annual nonprofit event aims to unite people around the world on one issue on the same day. This year's topic is poverty. Messages from several members of the CCV community will be posted here throughout the day. The following post is submitted by Pam Chisholm, CCV’s Director of Financial Aid.

What role do community colleges have in helping break the cycle of poverty? A huge one. Always has been, always will be, and it is perhaps even more important now with our economic issues and the disparity between income levels.

Community colleges are access institutions. We welcome students for whom other colleges’ doors won’t open. The majority of our students are first generation college students (first in their family to go to college) and who come from low income backgrounds. Many do not come to us right out of high school, but start later when the economic realities of working two or three minimum wage jobs hit home. They come to us hesitantly, not sure they know all the hidden rules of higher education, not sure how to pay for it, but somehow knowing they need that piece of paper to break the cycle of poverty.

I work at a community college where we enroll approximately 8000 students a year at twelve sites across our small, primarily rural state. They stop in, they stop out, but many ultimately graduate. We hold our commencement ceremonies in the spring at a central location in the state, with about 500 graduates...and 4000 people attend, because our students bring every family member and friend who supported them for however long it took to earn their associate degrees. It is a true celebration of hard work, sacrifice, accomplishment and new beginnings.

And it is why we do what we do. And we can’t forget that, even as more middle income and college ready students start enrolling at our institutions because of our lower costs. There’s room for everyone at the community college table; we just need to make sure we save the head of the table for those from poverty.

Blog Action Day: Bridges and Pathways in and out of Poverty

Today, the Community College of Vermont is participating in Blog Action Day 2008. This annual nonprofit event aims to unite people around the world on one issue on the same day. This year's topic is poverty. Messages from several members of the CCV community will be posted here throughout the day.

The following post was submitted by Richard Maxwell Jr. , a 2008 CCV graduate and current Johnson State College student. The text below is the abstract for his final research project for Seminar in Educational Inquiry (HUM-2010, CCV's graduation seminar course). A link to the full text of the paper is available via the link below.

Title: Bridges and Pathways in and out of Poverty

Abstract: In creating positive strategies to bridge the gap between poverty and upward mobility in American society one must first identify and understand the causes of poverty. My research led me to two programs designed to develop better understanding of issues surrounding poverty. My direct service work with impoverished populations in Burlington and Portland Maine, and growing up and living in the Old North End of Burlington have given me hands on experience and insight not gained from a book, class, or training. I will relay my interpretation of poverty and how to give a hand up and out of it by interweaving what I have learned, observed, and experienced.

To read all of Bridges and Pathways in and out of Poverty by Richard Maxwell, Jr., click here.

Tomorrow is Blog Action Day 2008

Tomorrow, the Community College of Vermont will participate in Blog Action Day 2008. "Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion."

This year's topic is poverty. Messages from several members of the CCV community will be posted here throughout the day on this theme. We hope that our contributions to this world-wide event will help raise awareness about poverty both globally and locally.

We hope that you will check back early and often tomorrow. And if you are so inclined, consider contributing to the discussion by submitting comments.

Live Online Library Sessions

The Hartness Library is offering free Live Library Sessions online for all CCV students! These instruction sessions presented by CCV librarians will be through Adobe Connect and will enable students to log in for research help and advice. Through December, three different sessions will be offered on a regular basis including...

1. Research Project Clinic: This is an open-ended workshop where students can get help identifying search terms, databases and other library and Internet resources. Students are encouraged to bring whatever they are working on and ask specific questions regarding their current assignments.

2. How To: Series – These interactive sessions teach how to search more effectively, get ideas, and other stuff. Two will be offered until the end of the semester (more to be added in the spring) including:

• How To: Start Searching Smartly: Research basics—how find and narrow a topic, the best places to search, how to search successfully, etc.
  
  
• How To: Select Super Sources: This workshop is designed to help identify and evaluate sources, develop critical evaluation skills for online resources, and become a better researching detective.

You can get more information about these sessions on the library’s portal page. Just log into Blackboard Portal (https://blackboard.vsc.edu), click on the “CCV Hartness Library” tab then click on the “Live Library Sessions” button. For a full schedule of offerings, check out the interactive calendar below.

Want to join a session?
1. Choose a session from the calendar above
2. Call 1-800-910-2586 PIN: 225456
3. Click here: http://vsc.mymeeting.acrobat.com/hartnessstudent

Can't Make a Live Session?
View one of the Library Instruction Video Tutorials.

Smith College & Mt. Holyoke College Visit CCV Burlington

Don't forget! Representatives from Smith College and Mount Holyoke College will be visiting CCV Burlington on Friday of this week (10/10/08) at noon. The meeting will be held in room 100 of CCV's 119 Pearl Street building. Join us for lunch and learn about two exciting transfer options for women 24 or older.

For more information, click here to view our previous post.

Combat Paper Project

Drew Cameron, a US Army veteran and former student at the Community College of Vermont has launched a cooperative called the Combat Paper Project which is now receiving national acclaim and being presented throughout the country. Uniforms are boiled into paper and used for written and visual expressions of war experience - as a transformative process for soldiers, as well as being an awareness campaign for everyone.

The story of the soldier, the Marine, the men and the women and the journeys within the military service in a time a war is the basis for this project. The goal is to utilize art as a means to help veterans reconcile their personal experiences as well as challenge the traditional narrative surrounding service, honor and the military culture.

Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beat and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences as a soldier in war.

Cameron works from The Green Door Studio in Burlington with founder & paper artist, Drew Mattot, a former CCV staff member. Want to learn more about the Combat Paper Project? If so visit their homepage at http://www.combatpaper.org/ and check out the video below.

Sharon Webster - Art Hop Poetry

Sharon Webster, a member of CCV’s art faculty, was recently interviewed by the Burlington Free Press for her involvement in last month’s South End Art Hop. Webster has exhibited her work through the art hop on many occasions, but this time she worked in an unusual medium for the art hop… poetry. Professor Webster says that...

I thought it would be fun to subvert the dominant paradigm this year and acknowledge the writing side of myself. I’ve always written poems and used my studio as a writing place as much as a visual art place. Also, spoken word is a kind of performance thing that lends itself to the Art Hop. It feels important to emphasize how the arts so often overlap. I think of myself half-writer, half-visual artist. There’s always been pull toward both. Sometimes it works in cycles; after an intense period in one genre, I’ll move toward the other. I’m also interested in how word and image can coexist in art forms. I am currently working on a show for 2009 at Flynndog Gallery with a small group of artists around the theme of word and image.

To read the entire interview, click here. Want to learn more about Sharon’s artwork (including information on how to buy some of her poetry books)? Visit http://www.sharonwebster.com/

Meet Donavon Davidson - Learning Center Tutor

In the coming weeks, we will be posting short autobiographies of the fabulous tutors who are working in Burlington’s Learning Center (110 Cherry Street, Room 204). The first installment of this series comes from Donavon Davidson who works on Mondays from 10am – 4pm and Tuesdays from 10am – 2pm during the fall semester (no appointment necessary).

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I was born and raised in Indiana. While living there I received a Bachelors of Music in Music Theory/Composition from Ball State University. Before Graduating I was honored with an award of “Best Original Score” for the theatre’s production of Othello. After graduating I toured the Midwest and New England performing in various ensembles. I am classically trained in the alto saxophone and classical guitar. I have also spent many years studying Shakuhachi and Japanese notation.

Although I have a life long love of music, I have also been an admirer and student of poetry for over twenty years. Since moving to Vermont over thirteen years ago I decided to attend graduate school. In 2007 I graduated from Goddard College with an MFA in Creative Writing (my primary interest being poetry as well as creative and critical writing pedagogy). I have been published in many journals, and I am currently working on a manuscript.

I enjoy tutoring and teaching because I firmly believe that a strong command and creative use of language is an integral part of an individual’s self-confidence and success in life. It is also a great pleasure to watch students get excited about their creative sides and express their unique voices. Another reason in which I enjoy writing, and this may be surprising, is that I continue to learn. Aside from writing and teaching, I am also a published photographer.

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Want to know more about the Learning Center, including a full schedule of services? If so, click here.