Innovative Strategies Continue to Strengthen Student Success

Convening his third Town Hall meeting of a busy academic year, President Donald Guy Generals updated the College community on ways in which the College is continuing to develop strategies to strengthen student success, despite coping with a five-month old budget impasse that has adversely affected community colleges throughout the state.

Members of the College community gathered at the Bonnell Auditorium for the Nov. 18 hour-long session, which was also video streamed for faculty and staff in the West, Northwest and Northeast Regional Centers.

Though the College has been working with other college officials across the state to come up with temporary measures to ease the financial burden, Dr. Generals conceded that the impasse impacts the College’s cash flow. “We have to be mindful at some point that we will run out of cash,” he said. The College receives approximately 20 percent of its own budget from the state.

As a result of the budget stalemate, Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of Pennsylvania community colleges, including Community College of Philadelphia, which saw its rating slip from A1 to A2, based solely on the uncertainty of the state budget.

“We’re OK for now, but it is a serious matter,” Dr. Generals said. “If you have any influence on any of your legislators, please make sure they are informed about how serious this is.”

Budget crisis aside, Dr. Generals did share some promising news regarding academics, innovation and enhanced public safety.

The president announced the College has been selected as one of 30 institutions to participate in the American Association of Community Colleges Pathways Project, a new national initiative that is designed to meet students where they are and enable them to begin an individually-planned program at their own level that will lead down a quicker, more efficient pathway to completion.

Community College of Philadelphia will serve as a testing ground to this prescriptive approach toward community college education, Dr. Generals said. The Department of Liberal Arts is already in the process of designing a program in which students must take required courses, in addition to first-year experience courses which are “fundamental aspects of the guided pathways model,” he said.

Supporting technology, such as Starfish, an early alert system designed to track students who are struggling, has already been implemented and is yielding results, Dr. Generals said. Searches are also underway to hire academic advisors, deans and an associate vice president to create an organic, unified learning environment for students under the pathways model.

Emphasizing safety as an ongoing concern, Dr. Generals revealed the latest information regarding beefed-up security measures implemented around the Main Campus. Among the improvements: The hiring of bicycle security officers for enhanced mobility; visible security posters; appointment of building captains and floor wardens for critical incidents; enhanced fire drills and active shooter training and drills.

In other business, the president shared:

• The Middle States Commission on Higher Education report is complete and posted on the College’s website for public feedback. Dr. Generals expressed confidence the College will pass its accreditation review. A team of reviewers will visit the Main Campus on Jan 11.
• The College is exploring public-private partnerships to develop the parking lot on 15th and Hamilton Streets into a commercial-residential complex featuring affordable housing for students. “If we are to expand our enrollment we have to get international students,” Dr. Generals said.
• The College will look for ways to work with Mayor-elect Jim Kenney on workforce development and readiness as a way to create more on-ramps to student success.

Referring to the College’s social service support programs — particularly the Reentry Support Project of Community College of Philadelphia's Fox Rothschild Center for Law and Society, and Future Forward, a new diversionary program launched in partnership with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office which provides individuals charged with a non-violent felony crime an alternative to incarceration — Dr. Generals stressed the College can contribute to the overall public safety, community health, and reduction of recidivism in Philadelphia, all while deepening learning.

“I think it’s a social good to be doing those types of things,” he said. “I don’t think the city can move forward unless we can do something about it.”