April 8, 2017 – Northeastern Junior College, Colorado

          All travel is a journey into self.   It has taken me this long and this many college visits to gain some insight on my ignorance and lack of perspective.  I visited another rural remote junior college with residency today, Northeastern Junior College in Sterling Colorado.  Speaking with a very knowledgeable and impressive VP of Administrative Services I received clear concise explanations to many of the questions I have been addressing in this blog over the last few weeks.  Explanations that were clearly grounded in a philosophy designed to create the best college-learning environment and experience for Northeastern students.   Something internal clicked today, not about Northeaster n’s choices but about how I have been looking at colleges.  I have been looking at the issues of community input and services provided and administrative agendas as if they were two separate items.  Because quite frankly, at CCSF board meetings, and administrative planning meetings, the community input has been regularly in conflict with many of the resource decisions.  In the culture of San Francisco we socially organize to affect our ends, so when the community does not support an administrative plan, the community makes its demands known by showing up, and protesting.  This next point is a personal revelation so bear with me…  I have been showing up at other colleges trying to figure out how they deal with resource conflicts, assuming that conflicts are there I’m just not seeing them.  Yesterday’s blog post regarding the costs of residency was made from this internal perspective or bias.  I was looking for an answer to an economic conflict (competition with four year colleges) that may not exist in the rural communities that offer residency.

What lead me to understand my bias was an explanation of residency options in terms of community and being student centered.  If a student lives so far away from a Junior College that they will have to find local housing anyways then the convenience of having low commitment residency options (as opposed to long term rental leases of the private market) makes sense for the student and is accomplished by the college in service to the student.  From a mission of the college perspective, it has the additional benefit of adding “community” to the Junior College model.  Small-personalized communities do result in better student retention and successful transfers.  And this might be the driving rationale for the rural residencies I’ve witnessed.  At CCSF similar smaller community rationales are being used to support the development of Metro Academies.  SF has different housing issues than rural colleges deal with, and it has taken me some time to gain this perspective.

If this seems confusing, to some extent it is.  My trip has not produced answers to the SF conflicts I live with.  I have taken those conflicts with me in my perspective but enough time on the road has made me at least aware of them in myself.  I do not like seeing housing advocates and developers lobbying at our board and community meetings, because while the issues may be valid they are not grounded in true support of our students.  Other colleges may be supporting their communities in different ways based on different values. What has been clear from my college visits is that community is what powers success at each college.  Other communities however are quite different and focus their resources on different things.  As I return to SF I know one of the questions I will be brining back with me is the desire for a clear articulation of what we value.  Student Success as a term is not enough, and our size challenges us with the need to communicate more.  How do actions and policies reflect our values at every level of CCSF? ...