This semester students at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh began the school year on a new campus. The college moved from its former home on a bluff overlooking Lake Champlain and co-located on the SUNY Plattsburgh campus.
SUNY Chancellor John King, Jr. tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley the co-location of the two colleges is unique, but could be an example for campuses across the system.
This co-location is a very rare innovation around the country and only possible, I think, because of the scale and diversity of the SUNY system. The fact that we have both community colleges and regional publics within our system allowed us to really address challenges at Clinton. You know, they were facing a very significant deficit, over a million dollars. Their accreditor was worried about their long-term viability. Their building, while beautiful, was much older and much more space than they needed and a huge financial drain. And they were lacking leadership. And over the last two-and-a-half years, working with the local Board of Trustees, that's all been transformed. They have a dynamic, entrepreneurial leader. They are now located on the Plattsburgh campus and students can take advantage of many of the resources and amenities available to Plattsburgh students. And they not only have balanced their budget, they've actually been able to reinvest dollars into workforce development and student services.
Chancellor King, SUNY Plattsburgh and Clinton Community College, before they co-located were only a few miles apart. If this works, could it be replicated elsewhere in the SUNY system, if necessary, or was the geography of this also a factor?
Geography was a huge advantage here for co-Location. But the idea of sharing services and programs is certainly something we're thinking about across the system so that we can direct more resources to students. So, for example, sometimes you can have a very high cost workforce development program that requires very specific equipment at one community college and you want to offer a similar experience to students who are at another community college, 30 - 45 minutes away. This is an opportunity for us to explore. Could we have the students do their general education courses at community college A but then commute to community college B in order to take advantage of the equipment that is there for that workforce development program. So we're thinking creatively about how we leverage all the assets of the system to best serve our students.
One of the reasons why this co-location occurred, as you mentioned, was to really support the student and potential students coming into the colleges. Both of them participate in a program called ASAP, or Advancing Success In Associate Pathways. That's for Pell eligible students. Is this a system-wide program?
Yes. This is an initiative that Governor Hochul helped us to launch and we are now serving 34 of our campuses across the SUNY system out of our 64 with the ASAP program, which is the community college version. There's also a four-year institution version called ACE (Advancing Completion through Engagement). And what these programs are is wraparound supports for students who might otherwise get off course towards graduation. So it's a cohort model with intensive advising, often emergency financial assistance, transportation support. And the idea is with these additional supports, students are more likely to stay and finish their degree. And they've been proven in national studies to more than double the completion rate in community colleges. So we're really excited about this effort. We are already seeing improved retention and credit attainment for the students who have been enrolled in these programs. And it's a great partnership between Clinton and Plattsburgh because the student will be able to be in ASAP while they're at Clinton and then seamlessly move into the ACE program if they go on to a four year degree at Plattsburgh.
My understanding is that both Clinton Community and SUNY Plattsburgh are entering their second year of these programs. What have you learned from not only these two campuses but the other 34 campuses, about how well the program works? Do you plan any tweaks to it or anything like that?
We are serving over 7,000 students now across the SUNY system and our plan, with Governor and the legislature’s support, is to grow to over 10,000 students next fall. What we've seen is that advisor relationship is huge. Having someone whose role is to help you navigate challenges you might have with financial aid or helping you make sure that you're going to tutoring or the writing center when you're struggling in the class or helping you think through time management can be a game changer for students. And so we're really leaning into that and we're thinking about how do we make the kinds of supports that are available in ASAP and ACE available to even more students.
Are they having so many problems and where do the problems stem from?
You know, it's really, I think, two things. One, financial constraint that particularly low-income students are facing. Where you might have a student who they have to drive to work and to school. If the car breaks down, they don't have the $150 to get the car repaired. And before this program, that might have been a student who dropped out. But now they can work with their advisor to figure out how they can access the financial aid office or potentially get an emergency grant so that they can fix the car so that they can get to work and school and continue their studies. So some of it is financial. But some of it is also many of these students are the first in their families to go to college. They don't necessarily have someone at home they can ask about how to navigate struggling with a midterm or how to revise a paper that they didn't do as well as they would have liked. So now they have this advisor they can go to, and because of the cohort experience, they're with a group of students who are their fellow ASAP students who will also share advice and are having a shared experience. And we've seen that can be really powerful.
Does some of this stem from the COVID pandemic back when the schools were closed and now you have students transitioning from high school to college who may not really have a campus experience?
Some of those students, they missed some crucial parts of their educational journey. You know, you think about a college sophomore today, they in many cases, weren't in school physically for their freshman year of high school. Well, that's the point where you learn a lot of the routines of school and how to be a student and then have that experience. And so there's no question that there's some lingering effects there. But our mindset is we want to have every student who comes to SUNY be successful and we want to make sure we have the supports in place so that when they come to start their degree they're going to finish their degree and be prepared for success and careers after they leave us.
Clinton Community College is currently led by Acting President Ken Knelly. Chancellor King said an appointment of a permanent president is expected by the end of this academic year.
The acting president is eligible for the permanent position.
