Achieving the Dream (ATD)

Focus on Equity

ATD

Focus on Equity

Equality Equity graphic
(Credit for the graphic above: AAC&U)

Achieving the Dream (ATD) Equity Statement
Community colleges are an indispensable asset in our nation's efforts to ensure and preserve access to higher education and success for all students, particularly students of color, low-income students, and other historically underrepresented student populations. However, student access and success in higher education continues to be impacted by the effects of structural racism and systemic poverty. Achievement gaps among student groups reflect structural inequities that are often the result of historic and systemic social injustices. These inequities typically manifest themselves as the unintended or indirect consequences of unexamined institutional or social policies.

Treassure Project (Single Mothers)

Single mothers make up an increasing part of the postsecondary student population in the United States. Their educational success has the potential to reap intergenerational benefits, forging a path for economic mobility and success for their families. Achieving the Dream’s work with adult women students began in February 2019, with the launch of Community College Women Succeed, an initiative to identify and promote effective strategies that increase success for adult women students in community college. That work continues with a newly announced national project.

ATD, along with the Program Evaluation and Research Group at Endicott College, is a partner to National College Transition Network’s College Success for Single Mothers, a project funded by ECMC Foundation. Eight community colleges will be participating in the national three-year project to identify the needs of single mother students on campus and to develop a plan to expand key practices and services to enhance their college and career success. The colleges were selected through a competitive application process and demonstrated alignment between the goals of the project and the broader mission of the college as well as an institutional capacity to create and sustain positive change. They represent a variety of geographic locations, student demographics, and enrollment sizes. Seven of the eight colleges selected are part of the Achieving the Dream Network.

Selected colleges

  • Broward College, FL (ATD Leader College)

  • Columbus State Community College, OH (ATD Leader College of Distinction)

  • Delaware County Community College, PA (ATD Leader College)

  • Frederick Community College, MD

  • Kingsborough Community College, NY (ATD Leader College of Distinction)

  • Lee College, TX (ATD Leader College of Distinction)

  • Western Technical College, WI (ATD Leader College)

  • University of Hawai’i, Windward Community College, HI (ATD Leader College)

The colleges will convene a cross-functional task force of decision makers, practitioners, and stakeholders to identify the needs of single mother students on campus and develop a plan to expand key practices and services to enhance their college success. NCTN and partners will develop case studies documenting the colleges’ action plans, outcomes, and lessons learned through the project to share with policymakers, funders and investors, and other colleges interested in better addressing the needs of single mother students and parents on campus.

ATD Colleges Selected to Participate in National College Success for Single Mothers Project | Achieving the Dream

www.achievingthedream.org

Single mothers make up an increasing part of the postsecondary student population in the United States. Their educational success has the potential to reap intergenerational benefits, forging a path for economic mobility and success for their families. Achieving the Dream’s work with adult women students began in February 2019, with the launch of Community College Women Succeed, an initiative to identify and promote effective strategies that increase success for adult women students in community college. That work continues with a newly announced national project.

(Credit for the graphic above: AAC&U)

Achieving the Dream (ATD) Equity Statement
Community colleges are an indispensable asset in our nation's efforts to ensure and preserve access to higher education and success for all students, particularly students of color, low-income students, and other historically underrepresented student populations. However, student access and success in higher education continues to be impacted by the effects of structural racism and systemic poverty. Achievement gaps among student groups reflect structural inequities that are often the result of historic and systemic social injustices. These inequities typically manifest themselves as the unintended or indirect consequences of unexamined institutional or social policies.

Success Summit

Kingsborough Community College is justly proud of our student success metrics; our graduation and retention rates are among the highest in CUNY.  The Student Success Summit is the beginning of an open, collaborative and campus wide conversation about those metrics with the faculty and staff whose hard work and commitment contribute so fundamentally to them.

During the summit, we will share specific institutional data related to student success, particularly related to equitable success outcomes across demographic student groups, and we will engage in a dialogue about that data.   We envision the summit as a first step in building a community driven culture of inquiry around data: around the data we are collecting, around the conclusions we are drawing, around the actions we are taking as a result, and around how assumptions embedded in these processes foster or inhibit student success.

Kingsborough's ATD Activity

Fall 2017- Candidate for the Leah Myer Austin Award

2015-2016 - Accepted as Leader College Based on Proposal to Move from Equality to Equity

Create meaningful cultural change based on equity of outcomes rather than equality of services (see transition statement for more details)

2014-2015 - Equity

            Integration of ALP and Learning Communities
            Expansion of My Brother's Keeper Learning Communities
            Leader College Application Submitted

2013-2014 - Learning Communities

            Opening Doors Learning Communities          
            Quantitative Reasoning

2012-2013 - Math Institutionalized Initiatives

            Supplemental Instruction M1 & M2 Continuing Students
            Math Workshop Intensive Study Program M2 Continuing Students

Events

Eco-Festival: Eco-Fest is a three-day event focusing on environmental issues held every April at Kingsborough Community College. The mission of Eco-Festival is to raise environmental awareness, to foster civic and global citizenship, to promote meaningful dialogue about environmental issues and sustainable development, and to inspire grassroots environmental action and stewardship.