Partnering Programs to Eliminate Obstacles to Success

Abstract

Keep it simple. Focus on the students. Those may be the most important takeaways from the experience of partnering our two educational institutions for the past eight years to ensure that students consistently and happily graduate with bachelor’s degrees. Adult students over the age of 25 juggle many priorities and have responsibilities that can push degree completion to a back burner. The approach that grounds this partnership and supports bachelor’s completion has been to simplify the process for these students through an accessible schedule, a minimization of bureaucratic hurdles, and a focus on academics. Knowing that we share a commitment to each individual student has led to trusting one another through our partnership. The result has been increasing numbers of satisfied graduates each year who go on to impressive success in their select fields. Our partnership began just over eight years ago when an instructor at Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU) noticed the distance that many students were traveling to take evening courses and decided to take steps to bring these classes closer to the students. She visited several community colleges with her vision of accessibility and found interest in such a partnership through the Transfer Center at Mission College. Mission and NDNU are located but 21 miles apart, but that distance can feel much longer when too-frequent traffic problems challenge transportation; the partnership thus created access that did not exist before. Partners