Berkshire Community College Awarded Grant to Aid Student Success
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Students enter Berkshire Community College with dreams of furthering their opportunities, but too often they find the challenges overwhelming.
The college is hoping its selection for a $2 million federal grant, one of 40 granted nationwide, will help forge stronger pathways to success for students from low-income families or who are minorities or first-generation college students.
"We are ecstatic that our efforts, which were driven by a diverse group from the BCC community as well as outside constituents, were recognized by the Department of Higher Education," said BCC President Ellen Kennedy in a statement. "Our students are at the heart of everything we do and we will be working diligently on this project over the five years to help our students achieve academic success."
The competitive five-year Title III Strengthening Institutions grant will allow the college to restructure services to provide a "one-stop" system for academic and financial advising and orientation. It will also create more coordinated academic pathways to degrees and certificates by developing three major academic divisions.
Students will be offered more "holistic" support with advising coaches, and staff and faculty will have access to professional development to better engage students and more advanced software to track their progress and intervene if they are struggling.
The goal of the "Completion Framework" is to integrate the components into the college's student support system beyond the grant's lifetime.
"The advisers that we are hiring will be absorbed into the college so it will give us some running room to embed them into the college budget to make sure they continue," Kennedy said.
The grant was announced by U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, as a way to get the diverse student body off to the right start.
"We want to get everybody to the starting line," Neal said. "Where you finish the race is not necessarily going to be determined just by circumstances that you can always manage. ... That's what the community college provides – an opportunity for people to make up their minds in a pretty — through the good wishes and will of the Legislature and despite what people say — a pretty good price."
State Sen. Benjamin B. Downing said it was a good short-term investment in setting up a system that can work.
"They will make sure every kid who enrolls is moving forward," he said. "All of us coming together under the community in community college."
The 55-year-old college has been seeing a troubling trend, with its graduation rates dropping to 19 percent over the past five years. Enrollment has also declined by 22 percent and retention rates are 56 percent.
More than 60 percent its 2,230 students are women and more than half are the first in their families to attend college. At least 86 percent of the student body requires some developmental education and more than 80 percent are both low-income and first-time, full-time students.
The grant of $1,980,144 will be disbursed at about $400,000 in each of the next five years. Among the goals are increasing student satisfaction, graduations by 8 percent, student engagement by 26 percent and course completion by 10 percent.
Mayor Daniel Bianchi recalled how "daunting" it was navigating college for him and his brother many years ago. "This is going to be phenomenal help for others," he said.
State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier said it's not enough to have help available — some students have to be "tapped on the shoulder" because they may be struggling but afraid to ask for help. It's not enough just to get them to starting line if some of them aren't wearing the right shoes, she said.
"When students are supported they are more likely to do well," said Student Trustee Gladys Garcia-Rijos. Though she will graduate in May, "I'm excited for future Berkshire Community College students and how they will benefit from this."
Tags: BCC, federal grants, Neal,
