I recently read “Part-time students receive attention” on the TCCTA site. I want to share this article with you if you haven’t seen it, and I’d like your indulgence to raise two issues, for reflection.
First, we’ve all heard the claim that full-time students tend to graduate. Reactions to this range from a broad yawn to injunctions to sign everyone up for a full-time load the next available opportunity. Of course, we are not merely interested but also committed to student progression and completion, but I see taking comfort in this dictum to be a bit one-dimensional. After all, my Inner Philosopher urges me to say, the causality might run the other way: Graduating may cause you to take 30 hours a year.
On the front lines of students’ lives, the reality is much more nuanced. Students who rack up credits toward an award at a full-time pace may well find encouragement, and there’s a lot to be said for momentum. But might it not also be the case that the motivation is the primary quality, so that those who come to us more intrinsically motivated tend, on the whole, to take more credits per semester? (And graduate.)
And then there’s the question of motivation: I’ve known — and I’m sure you have, too — many students who were not lacking in motivation. Rather, they were, let’s say, rich in prior commitments — a job so they can have shelter and feed their kids, family commitments, etc. — choose your own favorite prior commitment.
At the risk of insulting my readers, I’d like you to play along and perform a little thought experiment. You’re a student who’s returning to school, rich with prior commitments but motivated and goal-oriented. There you sit, across from me, seeking more than just a list of the things you could take this summer. You want encouragement and support. From me.
Now, imagine your inner state when I tell you, knowingly, that if you would take a full load, you’d be much more likely to graduate. As true as this correlation may be, there’s something disheartening about encouraging you to do something you’d like to do, if only you had that opportunity.
I’m not entirely convinced that this exhortation is all that motivating. Maybe it’s the delivery. But maybe it’s the fact that you’re sitting there feeling the weight of a privilege you don’t have, that I attribute to you anyway.
So, who are these 80% of our students who are part-time? This question brings me to the second issue this article raises: equity.
Let’s set aside for a moment what we might call “intentional” forms of exclusion — a privilege I know I have that the excluded do not. But if you please, grant me this privilege, for just a moment. I have made the argument that plausibly innocent (meaning, of course, “not racist, not genderist, not sexist, not “intentionally” exclusive) institutional policies and practices can have the net effect of disenfranchising particular groups of people who share some “nonmainstream” trait. Which means they aren’t innocent after all.
Now, might it not be the case that those very students who do not have the opportunity to choose full-time are disproportionally single mothers? African American? Or Q, or trans? Or Hispanic? FTIC? Poor?
My point is simply this: Let’s consider the possibility that a student’s status vis-à-vis load is an equity issue, or at least, has an equity dimension. If so — and to that extent — what can we do about it?
Obviously, we do not directly influence the social or political forces that disqualify students from the full-time choice, any more than we can influence the circumstances of our own birth. (Heaven knows I did not choose to be born into a German Lutheran family intent on recreating Dortmund in Central Texas.)
But we are holding the reins of our own institutional policies and procedures — and of our own capacity for empathy and understanding. Maybe delivery is the problem after all. Maybe the sentence should continue:
Students who go to college full-time are more likely to graduate, so what can we do to give you the additional support you need to keep on track and make progress toward your goal?
So the real question is, How can ACC stand behind the rest of that sentence?
