Community College of Philadelphia alumna Aminata Sy doesn't know yet where she'll go -- whether it will be Dakar, Kigali or perhaps London, Paris.

Still she's already on her way—on her way to getting a coveted job as a U.S. Foreign Service diplomat. Since 2012, this mother of three has balanced work and college studies in her West Philadelphia community, where she currently serves the African immigrant community through a nonprofit for children.

Now, as she prepares to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in May, a new life awaits her. Sy (pronounced “C”) is one of 30 people selected to receive the Rangel Graduate Fellowship; she starts immediately after graduation.

The prestigious Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship supports winners through two years of graduate studies, provides internships in Congress and at a U.S. embassy overseas, and grants entry into the Foreign Service corps. Sy calls it “an achievement that has been years in the making.” It brings Sy closer to her ultimate destination of becoming a diplomat.

"I thank my husband, Abdoul Wane, for his unshakable support. I thank everyone who has supported me thus far,” Sy, a mother of three children, now 16, 14 and 6, wrote in a Facebook post announcing the fellowship to her family and friends.

Those supporters include her mentors at Community College of Philadelphia — former English professor Jill Shashaty, assistant English professor Ravyn Davis, and tutor Vicky Schwartz, as well as numerous College administrators who inspired and encouraged her.

Sy’s story shows how education can change a life. She dropped out of high school in Senegal and came to the United States in 2001. Though she spoke French, Pulaar and Wolof, she had to learn to speak English once she arrived. She graduated from Community College of Philadelphia with highest honors and a 4.0 GPA in 2015.

CCP offered Sy the flexibility she needed to balance school and home life. In the beginning, she was taking college courses in the afternoon and home schooling her son on weekday mornings.

“The College opened my eyes to what is and what could be," Sy said. “Your financial background may not be what it needs to be; your educational skills may not be what they need to be, yet every time I made an effort, I made progress.” Now, after serving the people of Philadelphia these past years, Sy is ready to help solve the challenges facing our world.

“America has given me so much,” she said. “This is where I have lived with my husband. This is where I gave birth to my kids. This is where I got my education. I try to find ways to serve on the local level, on the national level and on the international level.”

With the Rangel Graduate Fellowship, Sy joins the growing ranks of recent CCP graduates who have earned distinctive academic honors, including Hazim Hardeman, the College’s first Rhodes Scholar. Hardeman and Sy were both members of the Class of 2015. After graduation, Hardeman volunteered for Sy’s nonprofit, African Community Learning Program. She established the program to support children of African immigrant background as they acquire language skills and adjust to life in America while remaining connected to their heritage.

The Rangel Graduate Fellowship is a collaborative effort including the State Department, Howard University, the U.S. Congress and universities nationwide, that helps ensure a Foreign Service that represents the diversity of America.

Sy first will travel to Washington D.C. for a 10-week summer internship with a member of Congress involved in international affairs. During those weeks, she will meet State Department officials and foreign diplomats.

Then, with a $37,000 annual grant from the Fellowship, Sy will begin graduate studies pursuing a major in public policy; she’s applying for programs now. Next summer she will be posted to an embassy or consulate abroad before returning to finish her degree. When she graduates, she'll transition into a career with the Foreign Service.

“There are many issues in the world to resolve,” Sy said. She said her language skills, her background living in different places in the world, her experience in journalism and nonprofit management and her training in international affairs at Penn and CCP have given her the grounding to work on issues that matter to her, including education, immigration, and African diaspora matters.

Nurse practitioner Dan Larmour thought he was worldly when he came back from an earlier stint studying abroad, but it did not prepare him for the world he encountered right at home while studying Nursing at Community College of Philadelphia.

Through his clinical practices and service-learning activities, Larmour, had a firsthand view of the ways poverty and social injustices foster health disparities.

"It's humbling. You wonder why people aren't taking their medicine," Larmour said. The answer, he discovered, sometimes is heartbreaking. "Either the lights stay on in my house, or my daughter eats, or I pay for my inhaler,” a patient once told him.

Larmour, now a member of the adjunct Nursing faculty at the College, was one of three panelists at the breakfast launch of the College’s Fall 2018 Pathways magazine, a workforce publication that focused on how the College’s educational offerings enrich and improve health care delivery.

Moderated by Dr. Mary Anne Celenza, dean of the College's Division of Math, Science and Health Careers, the panel also included Jennifer Myers, a Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship recipient and 2017 graduate of the College’s Diagnostic Medical Imaging program, and Laureen Tavolaro Ryley, associate professor of Nursing and Independence Foundation Chair in Nursing.

For the panelists, that close connection to the community is what makes the College’s curricula so powerful. Most students, whether they are studying Nursing, Respiratory Therapy or Dental Hygiene, come from Philadelphia, and when they graduate, they tend to find employment here.

The diversity of students in the College’s medical programs matches the diversity of Philadelphia's residents, noted Myers. "It allows health care providers to go and form relationships with the under-represented segments of the community," she said. "I like the idea that CCP students can go out and be role models."

As a winner of a prestigious Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, Myers received up to $40,000 a year in financial aid to pursue her bachelor’s degree. She is now attending Thomas Jefferson University, where she is pursuing a degree in medical sonography. She stressed how well her education at the College prepared her for her advanced studies. “Every step of the way I’ve been supported,” she said. “In a large four-year institution, you might feel lost in the shuffle. But you never feel that way in Community College of Philadelphia.”

The College doesn't just prepare health professionals to care for patients at the bedside, although area hospitals and labs provide clinical training and apprenticeships for students. Health care employment opportunities are expanding to include jobs at neighborhood clinics, home health care services, community wellness practices and more. Larmour, for example, works in hospice care and visits Medicare patients at home. Myers is employed at Mercy Philadelphia Hospital as a radiograph servicer and sonographer.

The College's health care students learn, through practical experience and hands-on experiences in the city's neighborhoods, how to communicate with a variety of patients and understand how linguistics, culture and even family traditions can enhance service delivery.

This experience is critical, according to Tavolaro-Ryley. For example, the College's 19130 ZIP Code Project health program, which she described as a clinic without walls, prepares students to work as collaborators with community partners and provide screenings, lessons and other forms of care to seniors, preschoolers, grade-school children and the homeless throughout the city, but particularly in the College's nearby neighborhoods. "Many Nursing graduates return to their own communities to work and to address disparities and other critical health care issues, said Tavolaro-Ryley, who is featured in the magazine’s cover story.

“Other than the obvious fact that the students and faculty are giving back to the community,” strong partnerships with area schools and other institutions “allow the students to hone their skills and recognize the needs of their communities, “Dr. Celenza added.

Those partnerships "are vital to providing students with the in-demand skills and broad experiences sought after by employers and four-year programs," College Foundation vice president Sulaiman Rahman said in opening remarks at the breakfast.

The College offers many degrees and certificate programs in health care, among them Nursing, Respiratory Therapy, Dental Hygiene, Diagnostic Medical Imaging, Medical Laboratory Technician, Ophthalmic Technician, Medical Assistant and Health Care Studies.

"It's rare that you can go to any health care institution in Philadelphia without seeing a graduate of Community College," Dr. Donald Guy Generals, the college’s president, said. "We are foundational to health care" in the city.

Jenavia Weaver, coordinator for the Center for Student Leadership, did not hesitate to speak up when she observed food insecure college students getting meals from a pantry stocked with packaged and processed foods.

“We can do better. We can offer healthier food options and teach our students a sustainable skill,” she said.

With this premise in mind, Weaver, along with a small group of faculty and staff, set out on a mission to establish a community greenhouse on the College’s Main Campus to provide an opportunity for students to learn how to grow and supply healthy food alternatives for themselves and the city.

“I could not continue to give a high sodium diet to students… and codify dependency. High sodium and dependency is not something I want to teach [students],” said Weaver.

On October 24, 2018, Dr. Donald Guy Generals, president of the College, Weaver and other staff gathered as Asia Mapp, vice president of the Student Government Association and president of the Horticulture Club, cut the ribbon for the campus greenhouse at the Rise and Shine Garden Party.

The new community greenhouse is called Grady’s Garden, affectionately named after a resident groundhog that has made the greenhouse area his home. Volunteers leave food for Grady so the groundhog does not sneak inside to disturb the plants.

“The garden is a living classroom for life,” Weaver explained. Even before it took root, a new, student-led Horticulture Club sprouted with volunteers ready to lead, weed and tend to the plant beds. In addition, some faculty joined in the mission by blending lessons on community gardens, food access and sustainability into presentations and classroom discussions.

The first harvests from the garden will come in December. The first bunches of fresh kale will be distributed in a food giveaway from noon to 2 p.m. on Dec. 12 and Dec. 13 at Grady’s Garden. Since the kale seedlings are still growing, the College bought mature, fresh kale bunches to use in the giveaway to students seeking a nutritional snack or side dish.

Students at many of the nation’s community colleges are dealing with a basic lack of needs, according to a groundbreaking 2017 report released by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab and the Association of Community College Trustees.

Researchers for "Hungry and Homeless in College" surveyed more than 33,000 students at 70 two-year institutions, including Community College of Philadelphia, and found that two-thirds struggle with food insecurity, half are housing-insecure, one-third are regularly hungry and 14 percent are homeless.

“These students do have financial aid and they are working and they’re still not able to make ends meet. It’s not like they’re lazy or sleeping a lot of the time… What we see is a portrait of a group of people who are trying hard and still falling short," said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University and the founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, which more recently evolved to the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, and aims to document modern academic challenges and advocate for institutional progress based on data.

The College is expanding resources and services available to students and giving employees an opportunity to donate to the food pantry or snack rack through payroll deduction. This fall, the College hosted Food Day on Main Campus, which included culinary demonstrations and exhibits, wellness tips, sustainability strategies and promotion of community resources for those students and families who are food-insecure.

“Working collaboratively with so many talented people to put Food Day together was incredibly uplifting and inspiring,” said Paula Umaña, one of the organizers. "But when you see students coming out of cooking classes, thrilled to try the easy and affordable recipes that Chef Andy put together, and you see them interview nutritionists for their class project, and volunteer for the garden, or schedule an appointment to apply for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) at Single Stop, that is when you know we accomplished our mission.”

The College is addressing hunger on campus as part of its broader effort to engage students in formulating responses to community challenges. It operates Snack Rack at 16 campus locations, a private space where students can request and receive between-meal snacks of microwavable items and other quick bites.

Preliminary research conducted by the College is promising as it shows that students who visited the Snack Rack or pantry were more likely to remain in college. The fall 2017 to spring 2018 persistence rate for all first-time students who visited the campus Food Pantry was 82 percent, higher than the 71.5 percent fall 2017 to spring 2018 persistence rate for all CCP first-time students.

The College’s Food Pantry recently received support from the William King Charitable Foundation with a donation of $10,000, the Leo and Peggy Pierce Family Foundation with a $5,000 gift and the Wawa Foundation, which donated $1,500. A portion of the King grant will support the garden.

There are mentors, and then there are MENTORS, but how many people can thank Her Majesty the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, for an encouraging word?

Jovie Last, a Community College of Philadelphia automotive technology student, did.

In September, Last wrote to the Queen from "across the Puddle," telling the Queen that her Majesty’s service as a truck and tank mechanic during World War II had inspired Last to make a mid-life career change and begin training as an automotive technician.

"While I am sure you recognize a lot has changed technologically since you served as a truck and tank mechanic in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the excellence you brought to your work set the bar high for women’s mental and mechanical abilities, and for what can be expected of women in the automotive industry (nothing short of a proper job, well done in a timely manner)—and further, you volunteered to do so!," Last wrote.

Last noted that her father had served in the U.S. Army during World War II, making her, "even more proud to enter this traditionally male dominated field... You are an inspiration to women and nations globally. As I train I will keep close in mind that I am following in the noble footsteps and nimble mechanical handiwork of Her Majesty The Queen."

Last received a reply dated Nov. 28 from Miss Jennie Vine, the Queen's deputy correspondence coordinator.

Using Buckingham Palace stationary, Ms. Vine wrote that the "Queen was greatly touched to know that you feel that her service in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War, when she was Princess Elizabeth, has proved an inspiration to many women who now wish to consider a career in this area."

Miss Vine closed by wishing Last "every success for the future."

Last already has a job at Central City Toyota, having made the connection through a meet-and-greet event at the College. She will earn her Automotive Service proficiency certificate in May.

"This student is a real go-getter," said Dr. Pam Carter, dean of Business and Technology. "This is a great example of our proficiency certificates providing students with the skills to land new job opportunities."

Last's reaction: "Not too shabby a commendation, I'd say! Thank you for making the CCP AutoTech program relevant, potent, effective... and FUN! Cars are fun. They're hard, particularly the electrical bits and pieces, but they are FUN!"

Dr. Donald Guy Generals, president of Community College of Philadelphia (CCP), spent part of his morning on November 15 reading to kindergarten students who might just walk the bustling hallways of CCP one day.

His chosen book, titled "Oh Dear, What's a Career?" promotes career awareness to children in kindergarten through second grade. The story discusses a journey taken by a squirrel named POSS and a dog named IBLE on their way to career day. Along the way, they encounter a fox who is a professor, a bird who is a nurse and a cat who paints murals. The book's main message? When you stay in school, you'll see that anything is POSSIBLE.

The College's Marketing and Creative Services team developed the book to promote dialogues about career choices across the city, and, especially, at Spring Garden School, which CCP adopted this past January. The book is just one of the many ways the College supports student success and helps to broaden the pipeline from kindergarten to college. By adopting Spring Garden School, the College's students and staff get a chance to apply lessons from the classroom to service-learning activities.

"Community College of Philadelphia strives to make the city a better place," said Dr. David E. Thomas, dean, Division of Access and Community Engagement, and executive director, Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership. "We don't just want to work with the students who take classes here. We intend to impact the entire city."

Members of the Marketing and Creative Services team joined the activities, and each wore a nametag with the name of their career printed on it. Staff later joined the students as they each colored a sheet depicting the book's lovable characters.

Dr. Ellyn Jo Waller, first lady of Enon Tabernacle Church and president of the Community College of Philadelphia Foundation, sat in a small chair down the hall from Dr. Generals, reading the children's book to a first-grade class. She chatted with students as they pondered their future careers. One child said he wanted to be a soldier. Another yelled, "A doctor." Another decided upon being a basketball player. Then first-grader Autumn Gregg Williams volunteered his future occupation: "A community college teacher," he said.

Research in psychology shows that children create their identities in the elementary school years, including how they understand themselves, relate to others and interact with the world at large. It's at that time when aspirations may become permanently limited by challenging circumstances.

"Some kids are never asked about what they want to be when they grow up. So, they never formulate the idea," said Tammie Coleman, whose kindergarten class was visited by Dr. Generals. "I've been with high school students who have told me that no one has ever asked them what they want to be when they grow up, so they never formulated a plan to work towards," Coleman continued. "This book is good because it will get students to think about career choices early."

The College is working in a number of ways to help students at Spring Garden and elsewhere prepare for a brighter future:

• In August, members of the College's International Student Association and the Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership hosted a drive to get book bags and supplies for Spring Garden School. One hundred children received new backpacks and supplies and teachers received supply kits for their classrooms.
• Through a partnership between the College and the School District of Philadelphia, Parkway Center City Middle College offers its students the opportunity to earn an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts as they graduate from high school.
• The Junior Achievement Initiative with the School District of Philadelphia takes third graders on a tour of the campus and exposes them to career programs at the College. To date, the College has hosted four events with 300 students per event.
• The College is working with the nonprofit, Healthy NewsWorks, to empower elementary and middle school students to become researchers, writers, critical thinkers and confident communicators. Sixth graders at Spring Garden School are currently participating in this program, and will produce health publications and other types of media for fellow students, and the wider school community.

Every student at Spring Garden School will receive a copy of the book. Additionally, books will be given out at future events and activities with other elementary schools on an ongoing basis. Additional distribution opportunities will be explored as well.

Spring Garden School sits in the heart of Philadelphia's Poplar neighborhood, less than a mile from the College. It serves students from the Richard Allen Homes and the Salvation Army Red Shield Family Residence, a homeless shelter for families. The School District of Philadelphia describes the school's 264 students as 100 percent economically disadvantaged.

Community College of Philadelphia students who have young children will be better able to stay on the path to success and remain in college as a result of a new $1.5 million federal grant that will help them pay for child care.

Research shows that the lack of access to affordable, quality child care contributes to the number of moms and dads who drop out of college before degree or credential completion.

"They just don't come," said Dr. Claudia Curry, director of the College's Women's Outreach and Advocacy Center who is the project administrator for the grant. "Not having the funds to pay for child care means they can't go to school.

Issued through the U.S. Department of Education's CCAMPIS (Child Care Access Means Parents In School) program, the grant will provide up to $833 a month in stipends available to parents to help pay for child care costs. To qualify, the parent must be a student in good academic standing who is taking at least six credits and is eligible for a Pell Grant. Participants will be required to take two parenting workshops per semester on topics such as nutrition, financial literacy, academic support, stress management and work/life balance.

Nationally, more than two in five female community college students with young children say the demands of caring for their children likely will cause them to drop out, according to the 2016 Community College Survey of Student Engagement conducted by the University of Texas.

However, data indicate that parents supported through the CCAMPIS program tend to graduate at the same rate as all college students. Without help, parents are half as likely to graduate as non-parents, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin.

The research reflects the College's past experience with the grant, Curry said. From 2002 to 2010, Community College of Philadelphia received CCAMPIS funding. "When our child care grant ended," Curry said, "the student-parent dropout rate impacted the bottom line. With this grant, we anticipate that more students will be able to complete their goals."

The College will hire a child care specialist to assist with program administration. Besides recruiting parents, the specialist will vet child care centers for quality and negotiate payment rates. The stipend will be paid to the child care provider, not the parent. Parents can enroll their children at the Community College of Philadelphia Child Development Center on Main Campus, or they can choose qualified day care centers close to campus or their homes.

Curry knows from personal experience how important quality affordable child care can be to a struggling single parent. After her marriage broke up and she had to support her daughter on one paycheck, she wound up losing that job. "I know what it is like not to have enough money for child care," she said.

For single parents, the lack of a college degree has lifelong consequences. Sixty percent of all single mothers without a high school diploma live in poverty, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research's 2016 analysis of U.S. Census data. With an associate degree, the percentage drops to 23.3 percent and to 13.4 percent with a bachelor's degree.

The four-year CCAMPIS grant, for $375,000 a year, runs through the spring of 2022.

Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) and Rutgers University-Camden (RUC) officials signed an historic dual admissions agreement on Oct. 17, providing scholarships and other benefits for CCP graduates entering RUC.

It is the first time either institution entered into a dual-admissions agreement  with a partner in another state. At a signing ceremony, officials from both institutions noted the two campuses are close, only about four miles apart, and that RUC might actually be the shortest and most direct commute for some Philadelphia residents.

Just as the bridge connects the region, “this transfer agreement serves as an educational bridge” affording new opportunities to CCP graduates, said Dr. Michael Palis, Rutgers Camden provost.  

Dr. Judith Gay, who, as vice president for Strategic Initiatives and Chief of Staff, signed the agreement on behalf of CCP, said the agreement offers important benefits and supports for CCP students, such as early access to academic advisers from RUC.

The two institutions worked for months to coordinate majors and line up requirements and advising so Community College of Philadelelphia graduates majoring in in Liberal Arts, Nursing, Computer Science or Business can move seamlessly into their junior year at Rutgers, bringing their college credits with them.

All transferring students will receive renewable scholarships, enabling them to pay in-state New Jersey tuition rates or less. Top academic scholars could receive about $17,000 a year. Provost Palis noted that both institutions are committed to providing quality affordable education for their students.

“I look forward to seeing what our students will accomplish because of this partnership,” Dr. Samuel Hirsch, vice president for Academic and Student Success, said at the ceremony.

CCP has 15 additional dual admission partners, including Drexel University, St. Joseph’s University and Temple University.

Community College of Philadelphia will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its Nursing program this year by getting to the heart, literally, of what it means to be a nurse, caring for a community.

To mark this milestone, the College’s Nursing program has set the goal of teaching 1,000 people to do “hands only” CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, with the hope of saving the lives of people stricken by heart attacks.  It has created a buzz on campus with faculty requesting that entire classes learn this technique.

“For me, it’s very personal that everyone learn CPR,” President Dr. Donald Guy Generals said, crediting Dr. Lisa Johnson, associate professor with the initiative. “It’s a simple process that can save lives.”

With a 50-year tradition of excellence, innovation and community service dating back to the program’s Class of 1968, the College has graduated more than 5,000 students from all walks and stages of life to be registered nurses, serving with knowledge, professionalism and compassion.  

To commemorate this important moment in the Nursing program’s history, nursing alumni, faculty and guests will gather from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20 for a celebration at the Klein Cube in the Pavilion Building on 17th Street between Spring Garden and Callowhill Streets. Guests will able to take tours of the College’s advanced labs and training facilities from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. before the festivities begin.

The Nursing Program is one of 15 in the country to be chosen as a Center of Excellence by the National League for Nursing. The program is recognized for “Enhancing the Professional Development of Students." This is the College's fourth consecutive designation as a Center of Excellence.

 “The Centers of Excellence help raise the bar for all nursing programs by role modeling visionary leadership and environments of inclusive excellence that nurture the next generation of a strong and diverse nursing workforce to advance the health of the nation and the global community," NLN chief executive Beverly Malone, Ph.D., has noted.

Through the decades, the program has received widespread accolades for initiatives introducing nursing students to community-based service learning and geriatric care.

"Because of the diversity, our students get to meet a lot of people that look like the people they are going to be taking care of,” said Dr. Barbara McLaughlin, who heads the nursing department.  That allows the students to discuss social determinants of health -- the cultural and class norms that impact health care -- in class so they understand challenges their patients face in hospitals or in the community.

Approximately 42 percent of nursing students in a recent class were white; 33 percent African American; 9 percent Asian and 6.5 percent Hispanic. One in four students are male, compared to one in six nationally. Across the U.S., 9.9 percent of RNs are Black or African American (non-Hispanic); 8.3 percent are Asian; and 4.8 percent are Hispanic or Latino, according to Minority Nurse Magazine.

As part of their education, nursing students work in the surrounding neighborhood through the nationally known 19130 ZIP Code Project. Funded by the Independence Foundation, which is led by Chief Executive Officer and President Susan Sherman, the 19130 Project, named after the College's zip code, sends students into neighborhood schools where they conduct screenings and lead health classes. Students assist in health centers and clinics, including the Children's Crisis Treatment Center with its emphasis on trauma-informed care. The students gain valuable experience while learning how to foster relationships and communicate across language, cultural, racial, ethnic and gender barriers.

 Petrina McFarlane, an alumna who completed advanced degrees including a post-master’s degree in Nursing Education and joined the Nursing faculty, currently mentors students during their clinical rotations at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in West Philadelphia. She also works part-time at the hospital as a nurse, bringing experience to the classroom.

 "They are getting a robust education," McFarlane said of students, adding that area hospitals like having the College’s nursing students in their facilities. "They know we are very hands-on with our training," she said. Under supervision, students begin working with patients within a month of beginning their two years of training toward an associate degree in applied science.  The hard work pays off with nearly nine in ten nursing students passing their state licensure examinations on the first try, earning them the title of registered nurse and an opportunity to earn more than $50,000 a year to start. 

In 2016, the College has received a $350,000 Workforce Diversity Grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to launch a program providing second-year nursing students from disadvantaged backgrounds an accelerated pathway to graduation. The primary objective of the grant, which ended this past summer, was to increase the pipeline of diverse nurses with bachelor’s degrees to area healthcare workplaces.

Together with the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium and West Chester University, the program provides participants with mentoring, accelerated coursework, financial support and the opportunity to take as many as nine additional credits toward a bachelor’s degree.

Additional information about the Nursing Program and its 50^th Anniversary is available on the College’s website.

Community College of Philadelphia students, faculty and staff are adopting Spring Garden School, a K-8 school in the College’s neighborhood, in an effort to expose students to the benefits of college at an earlier age.

The new partnership seeks to engage the College’s students and staff in service learning activities while passing on the benefits of education to a decidedly younger audience. The College currently has hundreds of high school students taking college-level and high school classes simultaneously. Last year, it worked with the School District of Philadelphia to co-create and launch Parkway Center City Middle College, a partnership that gives high school students an opportunity to graduate from Parkway with an associate degree and a high school diploma.

In 2018, the College is introducing life lessons and career exploration to elementary school students. “Community College of Philadelphia has committed to make the city a better place,” said Dr. David E. Thomas, associate vice president, Strategic Initiatives; dean, Division of Access and Community Engagement; and executive director, Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership. “We don't just want to work with the students who take classes here. We intend to impact the entire city.”

That’s why the College, which adopted the school, is also adopting the school’s community, including parents. On the students’ first day back at school on August 27, members of the College’s International Student Association and the Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership operated a table outside of the school starting at 7:30 a.m., handing out coffee, doughnuts — and information about the College's programs.

Altogether, College staff and students filled more than 200 backpacks, half of which will be delivered to Spring Garden School this week. Others will be donated to students in western Nigeria and to local students as needed.

Spring Garden School sits in the heart of Philadelphia's Poplar neighborhood, less than a mile from the College. It serves students from the Richard Allen homes and the Salvation Army Red Shield Family Residence, a homeless shelter for families. The School District of Philadelphia describes the school's 264 students as 100 percent economically disadvantaged

"We have a dedicated staff and a strong school culture and climate," Principal Laureal Robinson said. "But it is our high rate of student poverty that gives us some slightly different challenges to contend with.

Students from Community College of Philadelphia benefit from this collaboration as well, gaining cultural agility, Dr. Thomas said. "Through their involvement in adopt-a-school, our students will be able to put classroom theory into action and acquire cultural competencies and skills that will set them apart in the workplace.”

Faculty, staff and students at Community College of Philadelphia urge Philadelphians who want to build communitywide support for public schools to join with them by supporting Dress Down for Philly Public Schools, an initiative to raise funds and build awareness in support of Philadelphia public schools. Visit dressdownphilly.com for more information.

At a time when college credentials are increasing in importance, Community College of Philadelphia is putting students on the fast track to success by launching its new Business – Accelerated program, a focused and shorter path to an associate degree in business. 

Students will be able to combine online and in-person classes in a structured curriculum to finish their studies in 21 months with classes designed for maximum flexibility.

"This is really for students who want a more aggressive timeline," said Dr. Pam Carter, dean of Business and Technology at the College.

Classes for the first cohort begin Sept. 4. Students can  apply for the program by contacting Ms. Ruqayyah Archie at 215-751-8056 or rarchie [at] ccp.edu (rarchie[at]ccp[dot]edu). A free, evening information session is scheduled for Tuesday, August 14 at 6 p.m., at the Northwest Regional Center at 1300 West Godfrey Avenue. For more information, call 215-751-8414.

"To me the most exciting part is that we designed it, so it really supports the working adult," said Dr. Carter, who can relate to the students' experiences because she earned her undergraduate degree while working. "We've tried to think of everything that could best support the working adult."

What makes Business - Accelerated unique is its combination of seven-week and four-week classes. The seven-week classes are entirely online, allowing working students to complete assignments on their schedules, while the four-week courses meet on Saturday, with online assignments during the week.

Carter also said the structured nature of the program makes course work easier to predict, so students can schedule accordingly. Class meeting days don't vary from semester to semester. The program has been calibrated to allow seamless transfer to business programs at the College's four-year partner schools, including Peirce College and Temple and Drexel Universities.

Students will be able to meet with a support navigator during Saturday sessions who can connect them to campus services, including tutoring, financial counseling as well as counseling and advising. 

Students also enroll as a cohort and move through the 21 months together, providing support. Research shows that cohort learning is more conducive to student success, particularly for adult learners.