All In: Student Pathways Forward
This podcast focuses on elevating community college student voices to shape inclusive higher education and workforce development policies, practice and partnerships that create economic mobility.
All In: Student Pathways Forward
Southwestern Oregon Community College student Candra Adolphson, Vice President of Instruction & Student Services Dr. Ali Mageehon & ECMC Foundation Program Officer Amber Angel
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, host Marc Goldberg interviews Candra Adolphson, a parenting student from Southwestern Oregon Community College, Dr. Ali Mageehon, Vice President of Instruction and Student Services, at Southwestern Oregon Community College and Amber Angel, Program Officer, at ECMC Foundation.
Candra shares more about her college journey which began taking adult education courses working towards her GED before enrolling in the nursing program. She describes how valuable the student supports, coaching and financial assistance were through the STEP and TRIO programs, and as a Ford Scholar with the The Ford Family Foundation.
Dr. Mageehon reflects on Candra’s interview and elaborates on how the college has been focusing enrollment, retention, completion and workforce strategies on adult learners in the college’s district and what that looks like in a rural setting.
Amber talks about ECMC Foundation’s investments in Parenting Student Success and shares her own personal experience as a parenting student and how that shapes the work she leads.
The All In: Student Pathways Forward podcast is a part of Oregon’s participation in the National Skills Coalition SkillSPAN network.
Welcome to the Hall in Student Pathways For podcast, focused on elevating community college student voices, along with those of college executives, policymakers, and higher education advocates to help shape student-centered policies, programs, and partnerships. This is the host, Mark Goldberg, and it's an honor to speak with students and graduates who share their community college experiences, offer practical solutions to make college more accessible, and hear from college leaders and policymakers listening in and reacting to the students' recommendations that build on their solutions and calls to action. Season four of the podcast features students who began their college journeys enrolling in adult education courses that propelled them to pursue further education and career pathways at their respective college and beyond. This episode includes interviews with Kendra Adolston, a parenting student from Southwestern Oregon Community College, Dr. Allie McGeon, Vice President of Instruction and Student Services at Southwestern Oregon Community College, and Amber Angel, program officer at ECMC Foundation. Kendra shares more about her college journey entering through the adult education door and working towards her teaching team before enrolling in the nursing program. She describes how much student supports offered through the STEP and CRIO programs made a difference for her, including great coaching and guidance by key staff from those programs. Dr. McGean reflects on Kendra's interview and elaborates on how the college has focused on enrollment, retention, completion, and workforce strategies on adult learners in the college's district and why. Amber talks about ECMC Foundation's investment and parenting student initiatives and shares more about her own personal journey and experience as a parenting student and how that shapes the work she leads. Thanks for listening in. I'd like to welcome my featured guest to the podcast today, Kandra Adolfson, who's a student at Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay. Welcome Kandra to the All-In Student Pathways Forward Podcast.
SPEAKER_03Hi, Mark. Thanks. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_04Thanks for taking the time to have this conversation. And I wanted to start by asking you if you could talk about your journey to Southwestern Oregon Community College, why you chose to enroll in courses there, and what you're studying.
SPEAKER_03So it actually all started at a Snap office. And they told me about this program called STEP. So I took the information that they gave me and I reached out to STEP and I started talking to somebody named Summer, Summer Gray. And she started giving me some information about what they offer for students. And I'll be honest, it all sounded way too good to be true. So I didn't really believe it. But I also thought, what do I have to lose? So I just started doing what Summer told me I needed to do. And that was enroll in the SWAC GED program and accomplished my GED. So I started taking those courses. And they informed me that when I was ready to take the test for the GED, if I scored high enough that they would actually pay for my first year's tuition to SWAC. So that sounded really great too. Before you know it, I was taking the GED test and I scored high enough to where I got the tuition waiver. And then within a month, Summer had me enrolled in SWAC. It was pretty quick, like bam, bam, bam. And we had discussed that I was interested in doing nursing classes. And so by the time I was done with the GED, it was really quick. I was enrolled in the nursing pre-rex. And that led to two years of pre-rex where I actually graduated with an associates in arts. Then I was accepted to the nursing program. And here in June, I'll be graduating with my associates in nursing. And I'll be going on for my bachelor's at some point, but that's how it started.
SPEAKER_04Wow, that's a remarkable journey. As you said, it started all at a SNAP office learning about the STEP program. And we'll talk about this a little bit more later, but sounds like that tuition waiver for GED completers was a way to encourage you to continue moving forward in your education beyond the GED high school equivalency at the college at SWAC.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it absolutely was. And it kind of gave me a sense of pride. And I think that it does that for a lot of students who actually earn it. Okay, if I can do this, then I can do the next step and it builds your confidence.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And I wanted to ask you what has been the biggest highlight of your experience as a student at Southwestern at SWAC.
SPEAKER_03The biggest highlight for me, I think, was actually becoming a recipient for the Ford Family Foundation scholarship. I feel like it's quite an honor because out of 1,600 students that apply in Oregon and Siskiy County, California, only 97 are accepted, and only three in Coos Bay here in the SWAT area were accepted. So I think it's a huge honor. It's a lot of work to get it, and I think that that helped build my confidence a little more too.
SPEAKER_04Congratulations. That is a huge honor. I've had the opportunity to interview at least one other Ford scholar on the podcast. And what a tremendous program.
SPEAKER_03I've heard previous scholars describe it as life-changing, and it honestly is. It is life-changing. They'll follow you into your bachelor's or even a master's if you so want that.
SPEAKER_04Kudos to you for applying and for being accepted and being able to really leverage those supports through Ford Family Foundation to support your educational goals.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_04I wanted to ask you if you could describe any challenges you faced in pursuing your education at the college.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mentioned in the beginning that this all started in the Snap office because I was actually a young mother of three. I had my first child when I was 18. So during this whole college experience, I've been juggling three children and school. And my oldest is now out of the house, but I'm still juggling two kids in school. It's been a lot about how can I balance both worlds. But I've had a lot of support from my family and a lot of support from the school. So somehow it's worked out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, a clear testament to your hard work and determination.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04So we've started to touch on this, but we know from students that funding college can be a real source of stress, in addition to juggling all that you just described as a parenting student. So I wanted to ask you what resources within SWAC or outside the college have been most helpful to you in addressing the costs of college. You've talked about the tuition waiver, you've talked about the Ford Family Foundation. So feel free to elaborate on either of those or highlight additional resources and supports that have helped you.
SPEAKER_03So first and foremost, to get any of those other scholarships, you need to apply for FAFSA. It's different for every student, obviously, but FAFSA is a big, big helper for a lot of us students. And then I was also the recipient for another scholarship, the Jeanette Rankin Foundation, for women that are over the age of 35 and mothers. They've been a huge help as well. But SWAC also has this system that every year you apply for the SWAC scholarships, and your application that you put in will narrow down scholarships that will fit you based on your information. And so that was super helpful because that's how I found the Jeanette Rankin Foundation scholarship. And my trio advisor was helpful with the Ford Family Foundation scholarship. But advisors and the systems like SWAC had to narrow down scholarships that would fit me, those types of resources are a big help for anybody. I know some people that are in the same program as me in another school here in Oregon. And she was asking me to help her find scholarships that would fit her. And I found that strange because SWAC streamlined it to where it was very simple for us to find what would work for us. So I don't know what happens at other schools, but it's something that I think other schools should look into if they're not doing it already.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that makes great sense and does sound like a dynamic model and tool. On a related note, Kendra, I wanted to ask you: is there been someone on the SWAC campus who's been most helpful to you in navigating these college systems to enroll and progress in your studies? And if so, how are they most helpful?
SPEAKER_03Well, there's actually two people. There's Summer Grace, she's with the STEP program. She's like the number one reason that I feel like I am where I am because it leads all the way back to that very first phone call where I didn't honestly believe anything that she was telling me, but I was like, what do you got to lose? And she laid out a roadmap for me. And I think that a lot of us have these dreams, but we don't know where to start. And she laid it out for me to where all I had to do was just accomplish the goal or jump through the hoop and then move on to the next one. And now I am where I am. So summer has played a vital role in it. And I never miss an opportunity to let her know that I don't think I would be where I am without her. And then there's one other person, and that's Michelle Benoit. She was my trio advisor. She was so helpful with me with my scholarships and my education plans and pretty much anything that I needed help with. She took the time, answered my questions, and helped me also lay out a plan for how I can accomplish this goal. She even set up mock interviews for me for the Ford Family Foundation scholarship prior to me doing the interview with them so that I would know what I was going into and help me be prepared. So those two women, they've definitely set me up for success in this whole situation.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much for elaborating on the ways that both Summer and Michelle have provided support to you. I wanted to stay on that chapter of when you worked on your GED. And this season's podcast is featuring students who started at their college by enrolling in adult education courses. So, Kendra, I wanted to ask if you could talk about the value of your adult education GED prep experience at the college and how it may have shaped your path forward.
SPEAKER_03So I think it was the catalyst because if I hadn't started at the SWAC GED program, I don't think that I would be where I am now because it was just intertwined. It was so easy to transition from that GED program straight into the college, especially with the tuition waiver for that first year. So it didn't feel like any type of big change happened. I just went from this class to those classes. And it was super smooth transition. And without those adult education classes, I obviously couldn't have gone to college anyways, but it made it really a smooth transition for me. And I know that I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for them. I had been out of school for well over 10 years. So I had to brush up on a lot of even like basic algebra. They definitely gave me the help that I needed to be able to go on to the college courses and be able to succeed in them.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you sharing that and staying on adult education. What programs, supports, resources, or policies do you think can assist students best after their adult education coursework or even while they're taking adult ed coursework to continue their studies at their college working towards a meaningful credential and career path with economic mobility?
SPEAKER_03Well, first and foremost, I have to advocate for the STEP program. That's number one. There is Trio, there's WorkSource Oregon, they have some scholarships available. Even just your regular student advisors and the tuition waiver is a huge resource. I don't know how they do it at other schools, but it's walk it paid for my whole first year. It's a big relief. And I didn't know at that point how I was gonna pay for college. You know, you think of college and you think expensive, even for a community college. At that point, I was on Snap. So like I didn't know how I was going to afford college at that point. So the GED waiver for the tuition was a huge motivator. I think that that should be something that is offered around the state or around the country for students that are trying to do better.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I know it's different at every institution and then across states, but from your experience and your recommendation, it sounds like having that type of tuition waiver is a really smart investment that will help students continue forward with their education and address the biggest barrier, which we know are the cost, as we've talked about.
SPEAKER_03Yep. And it kept me in their college. It was an investment for them as well, but it was a huge help for me.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for sharing that recommendation. And I wanted to ask you another one. What do you think is the most important thing that faculty, career coaches, and others working with students can do to help them in achieving their educational and career goals?
SPEAKER_03So I touched on this a little bit in a previous question. Most people have dreams about where they want to go, what they want to do, where they want to end up. But a lot of us have trouble getting there because we don't know where to start. So I think the biggest help is advisors laying out what I referred to as a roadmap. I joke with Summer about it sometimes, like she laid out my yellow brick road, and I just had to follow it. So somebody who's knowledgeable, like Summer was, about the system and what needed to be done and how to go about it. Laying out your goals and what you need to do to get from A to B to C. And then us just being able to follow that is a huge help because a lot of us are unaware of how it works, what we need to do, what we have to do to get to where we want to be. So I think that's a huge help, is what I refer to as a roadmap.
SPEAKER_04I love that metaphor and image, and even further, the uh wizard of Oz following the yellow brick road. I think that's brilliant and really illustrates what you're saying of how intimidating it can be for many different students and how to navigate through these systems of enrollment, what classes to take, how to pay for it, and having a roadmap and feel like you're clear on where you're going, how you can get there, and having those individuals like Summer and Michelle can really make a difference for folks.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, because we have to do our part, of course, but you jump through the hoops and then you move on to the next step. And before you know it, you have a couple degrees.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, Kendra. I also want to ask you what advice you would give to other students at Southwestern Oregon Community College or different community colleges from your own experience.
SPEAKER_03Well, the number one thing is to not give up. If you're struggling, reach out to your advisors for help. Ask all the questions. If you're not sure, ask the question. The only stupid question is a question you didn't ask. And if something isn't working the way that you'd like it to, pivot and come at it a different way. Another form of imagery. I don't know. I guess this is how my brain works, is like a pit bull. If you want something bad enough, sink your teeth into it and don't let go. Just keep going no matter what, don't give up. I've never had an advisor or an instructor or a teacher be mad at me for asking the questions. So always ask the questions if you have them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I appreciate that recommendation as well and advice to other students. So I wanted to ask you if you have any ideas on how colleges can listen to students better to develop policies and programs that put them in the best position to thrive in college and beyond.
SPEAKER_03So I think some good ideas for that are maybe some student surveys, maybe anonymous, or some student forums where students can leave their feedback and the school can read it and maybe something can be compromised on. I know for the nursing program, we had one student who was the representative for our entire cohort that would bring any concerns that we as students had to the dean of nursing or whoever in the meetings that they would go to and things would be discussed. And also if the professors or instructors or advisors are performing active listening to listening to the students is super important because they're the ones who go to school there. So I'm not saying that they should make all the policies, but they do have good ideas for what would help make it an easier situation for them.
SPEAKER_04100% and can help them see from students' experiences what's working and where there may need to be additional resources and supports. Thank you for sharing your thoughts there. I wanted to come back to your adult ed chapter once again and ask you how did your vision for your own future change after enrolling in adult ed courses at the college?
SPEAKER_03Well, I'll be honest, I didn't have high hopes for a successful future or career prior to my adult ed classes. I wasn't even sure where I'd be in the future. Like I said, I was a young mother of three at that point. But after starting the adult education courses and earning that tuition waiver and starting my prerex and getting accepted to the nursing program, it's all led to this bright new future where I have goals and plans and it's opened up doors that I never thought that I would be able to walk through.
SPEAKER_04Wow. That's really powerful. And I appreciate you reflecting on that starting point and what that's meant to you. I want to ask you a similar question overall. How has your experience at Southwestern Oregon Community College been impactful in your life?
SPEAKER_03I think that it's been super impactful. It's made me understand just what I'm capable of, the endurance, the drive, the ability to not give up, all of these things, even that I'm smarter than I thought I was. It's just made me realize a lot about myself and it's really built my confidence level. It makes me see myself a lot different than what I was seeing before. I don't know, going to SWAC and being where I am now, it gives you a sense of pride. Part of my whole reason for doing this too was I wanted to make sure that my kids didn't follow in my footsteps and finish school the first time. I wanted them to see that you can do this and I did it even while raising them, and that your hard work can pay off. It was really super important for me for my kids to be at my last graduation. And when I was walking down the aisle to receive my diploma, I was almost teary-eyed because I never thought I'd see myself there and that they were watching, and that's super impactful that they were able to see that. And I hope to see them in turn.
SPEAKER_04And they'll also get to see you walk again with your nursing degree.
SPEAKER_03Yep. And I think that it's really good because it may break that generational curse. Maybe by me doing this, my kids they'll follow my role model and do what I'm doing. So they have a successful career and they're not in the shoes that I was in.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and is very powerful. I appreciate you sharing that and reflecting on that. And overall on your SWAC experience, including the adult ed starting point. Looking forward, I wanted to ask if you could elaborate a little bit more on what comes next on your educational and career path in terms of further education and work.
SPEAKER_03So this summer I'll be taking the NCLEX and fingers crossed, I'll be a registered nurse. And then my plan is to apply to OHSU for the BSN Bachelors in Nursing program. And hopefully by this time next year, I'll be. Wrapping up my bachelor's in science for nursing.
SPEAKER_04That's fantastic. I just appreciate you sharing so much about your experience as a student at SWAC. And I just wanted to ask you if there's anything else you'd like to share about that experience for this podcast conversation.
SPEAKER_03The only thing that I wanted to say was that programs like Step and Trio are vital for students like myself. Without those programs, I wouldn't be where I am. And I hope that they continue to get funding and support from every area of the group community or the group government because it's so important for students like myself. If it wasn't for STEP, I wouldn't be here. And if it wasn't for Trio, I wouldn't have had the support either. And I wish that more students knew about them sooner.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for ending on that note and conveying that important message about the value and benefit of STEP and TRIO and ensuring as best as possible that those resources are sustained at the institution to support other students like yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's how I feel.
SPEAKER_04Thank you again, Kendra.
SPEAKER_03You're welcome.
SPEAKER_04I'd like to welcome my next guest to the podcast today, Allie McGeon, the Vice President of Instruction and Student Services at Southwestern Oregon Community College. Welcome, Allie, to the All in Student Pathways Forward podcast.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Mark. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_04Thanks for joining me. And I wanted to start by asking you if you could share some background information about Southwestern Oregon Community College, which some of us know as SWAC, for any listeners who aren't familiar with the institution.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So Southwestern Oregon Community College or SWAC is located on the southern Oregon coast in Coos Bay. We have two campuses, one here in Coos Bay and one in Brookings, Oregon, so close to the California border. We have a pretty large service district relative to where we are. So we serve the Coos Curry and western Douglas counties. I can't tell you square footage or square mileage of the area, but it's large and it is very remote. So Brookings is almost a two-hour drive from here. Powers, which is our most remote eastern facing part of the district, is also about two hours. So you can imagine that the geography presents some interesting challenges for who we are and where we are. We've been called super rural, we've been called frontier. We are definitely a rural community college. And the closest four-year partner that we have is over two hours away. So if a student is local and intends to transfer, then they have to make some decisions for themselves about do they leave the area, do they go online, those kinds of things. Right now, we're around 1,800 full-time students with a total service of about 6,000, if you include community ed and workforce training and non-credit. We do have student housing. We have about 400 students who live on campus throughout the year. They do come from other states, which adds some interesting culture and context to our campus. It's a little bit different than some community colleges. We also typically have between 30 and 40 international students a year. So that also lends to our culture and who we are at the campus. I think that's really important for us. We do offer a variety of transfer and CTE programs. About 60% of our students are on a transfer pathway, with about 40% then on a CTE path. We were founded in 1961. We were one of the first colleges here in Oregon. Not the first community college, but the first one where the district came in and said, indeed, this is the college that will serve our area. I won't say our mission has changed because I don't think it has, but some of our focus around enrollment has changed. So obviously with student housing, there's been a huge focus on external trying to bring students to campus. They tend to be a bit younger of that 18-year range. And I know we'll get into this a little more in the next question, but for various reasons, we've been looking a lot more to our adult population and what can we do to better serve the post-traditional population here in our community. And then the other part of it is we are very focused on student success. We have good retention rates. We have one of the lowest time to completion rates in the state at 2.3 years for our students, which we're really proud of. And we do a lot to support students through wraparound services. So like our STEP program has been around for quite a while. We continue to try to increase services there. We've done a lot of work intentionally around advising and how to better help students get on a pathway earlier so that they can figure out where they're going. And we've been doing a lot of work here of late looking at our programs from the perspective of is it really high wage and high demand? And really what will students do with this degree when they walk out our door?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's a helpful background and just knowing the district a little bit. You talked about two hours to powers to the east, two hours, Brookings to the south from Coos Bay. Those are not interstates. They are not.
SPEAKER_00No, they are not.
SPEAKER_04Two hours from Coos Bay to the Brookings campus.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's when the road is open, when there has not been a mudslide and part of the road has ended up in the ocean.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Because we have had those situations where no one can get down to Brookings or from Brookings up to here because of that problem.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because there's a coastal mountain range there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. When that kind of extreme situation happens, Brookings is cut off from any place in Oregon, basically.
SPEAKER_04So just to illustrate the, as you said, frontier or super rural, it's not just the distance and time, it's the infrastructure and the geography.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I appreciate that background on the college. And you mentioned that SWOC has really shifted your strategic enrollment management efforts over the past few years on serving adults in the community in addition to traditional age 18-year-olds coming through the different school districts. So I wanted to ask you why is this a priority for the college? And how does adult education programming, including GED, prep and English language learning, support this broader priority of serving adults?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So I think there are a couple of things that play into this. Historically, Coos Bay, this area has had one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire state. We certainly still have high poverty rates, although unemployment has changed post-COVID a little bit. We are in a community that had a long history with timber production. And so when timber production changed radically for all sorts of reasons in the 80s and 90s, when the recession happened, this community was in pretty bad straits and has been economically. And so obviously the college has paid attention to that. We have spent a lot of time in the last few years working with our industry folks to say we understand that timber has changed radically. Plants are more mechanized, they need fewer human beings. And so if that's not going to be the largest driver of the economy here, what else do we need to do as a community? And then what do we do as a college to help support and train those folks? So that's been part of it. And then the other really impactful part for us is our region has skewed quite a bit in terms of demographics. We don't have a lot of young folks here anymore. And we don't have a lot of family-aged folks either in terms of the adults who are working in our community. We're seeing more and more folks retiring here because it's a beautiful place, lots of good reasons to be here, but that has shifted. And that means that our K-12 population is seeing declines in their enrollment. And so we look, the kindergartners and the first graders and kind of predicting out 12 years later, what's that going to look like for the college? And it doesn't look good. If that is our only enrollment stream, then we would have to downsize our institution. It would have significant impact on who we are and what we do. And so as we think about how to be viable, it's how do we support our community? Because I think first and foremost that's what's most important to us. But then it also shifts our belief about what is that community that we're serving and how do we bring those students to us. So there's been a huge emphasis here on the adult population. And as you know, I have a background in GED and adult basic ed. And so have always believed that that is a population that should have access to college, should see what those pathways look like, and we should be their first go-to to work on their GED and those skills so that they can then move into the college. And so we've been focusing a lot on how do we help support those students, how do we provide the wraparound supports, how do we help them see themselves as college students? You know, in my mind, it has always made sense for colleges to look to that population as an enrollment path and to really lean in and say, what can we do to help those students be successful and get on those pathways to help support their families and get to those livable wage jobs.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I think tying that back to the way you painted the picture in the community in the historical economy there with the timber industry. I would imagine back in the day, a lot of those jobs didn't require a post-secondary degree or credential, even, or maybe in some cases a high school equivalency. So there are more adults, like in many other communities, that didn't have the need before, but now having the college there with all these robust transfer and CTE programs allows a student to come in the door through Adult Ed and then continue forward.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for answering that. And I know that Southwestern Oregon Community College has done related work improving those pathways and services overall for students, but in particular for parenting students. I wanted to ask you if you could elaborate on these efforts supporting parenting students, including the college's involvement in the data to action campaign for parenting students.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So part of the conversations that we've been having in our student success committees and other venues, when we talk about bringing back adults, we recognize that these students are supporting multiple people outside of the college in their lives, their children. And in fact, as we were gathering data through the data to action campaign, we learned that a lot of our adult students are what we're calling sandwiched basically between caregiving. So they have children who are under the age of 18 that they are taking care of. And then many of them are also taking care of older relatives, parents, grandparents. So they have a lot of things that are going on outside their life, outside of college, that we need to be aware of as we're trying to figure out what those supports are and how to best help them move through their pathways. So for the data action campaign for parenting students, our institutional researcher actually brought a parenting student in as her research assistant. And that student gathered data about the student experience here at SWAC. She did a combination of surveys and then a couple of focus groups as well. And like I said, that's where we learned the part about the caretaker component, which I don't think we really had deeply thought about before these conversations. We also learned that the majority of our parenting students, and probably no huge surprise, they're our first generation. So this is very new to them. They do not have role models in their lives who have gone to college. They are being brave to come here and try to figure things out, and they don't know the lingo, they don't know the system. That means that it's incredibly important that we figure out how to help them. One of the things that really struck me about Kandra's interview had to do with the warm handoff. And I think that is one thing we were really good at Southwestern. If a student comes in to one stop, which is our registration enrollment location, our admissions team, if they say anything, that they're a parenting student, that they have been on Snap, that they have these different needs, our staff here are very good about then physically taking them to other locations if need be, or picking up the phone and saying, here's the next person you need to talk to, here's who can support whatever it is that you're trying to do, and providing that warm handoff. So we keep focusing on that, emphasizing that. I will say we have a United for Student Success campaign for all employees to be involved in this process. Because the other thing we've learned both through this research and some of the other things that we've done here is a lot of our students connect very closely to the staff who are down in dining services. Many of our students get to know somebody who's a part of our security team or safety team. Sometimes our students connect with somebody who's on the maintenance or facilities group. And leaning into that to say everybody has an opportunity to help us keep our students here and help them be successful has been tremendous for our campus. The other thing I will say is that, of course, we have veteran services, we have TRIO, SSS, and then we have STEP. All of those things are critical to us being able to support students. And Candra also mentioned both TRIO and SSS, and there's a great example of what those services can do for somebody who is post-traditional and parenting and needs to know what resources they can access to be able to move through their college pathway. So one of the things that came out of the Data to Action campaign is we're actually going to be hiring a student ambassador for our student advising center or student success center, presumably who will be a parenting student themselves and who will be working as a peer mentor for other parenting students. So we're taking that research and trying to figure out moving forward what do we do next to help build even more support.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome. I appreciate you talking about the work the college has done in supporting parenting students. And it sounds like some of that is driven by data that really illustrated some of the gaps or needs, and that you had a student researcher driving those surveys and focus groups. Thank you for sharing that. And since you did mention Kendra, I wanted to ask you what your overall reactions were to the discussion I had with Kendra Adolfsson, who is getting ready to graduate this spring with her associate's degree in nursing, who also started her college experience enrolling in adult ed GED prep courses. So what did you hear that highlighted work that the college is doing well?
SPEAKER_00Well, I will say overall, I was tremendously impressed and proud, and I cannot wait to see Kandra at the nursing penning and at graduation. What a tremendous story. This is why I'm in education. It was just amazing to hear that what we're doing is working. To hear a success story like this was heartwarming and just actually made my day. I will say the things that really struck me, the wraparound support, the fact that the word is out in our community that we have these resources made me incredibly happy. So the fact that she got referred to us into Summer as quickly as she did was awesome. I was not surprised, but very pleased that Summer responded very, very quickly and provided support to her immediately and started that conversation about here's how it could work. I think Kendra said something about it sounding too good to be true. Like she wasn't even sure that this was legit. But I thought Summer must have done a great job of saying what resources we had and really making that persuasive case to convince her to come here. I also was really pleased here about the impact of the tuition waiver. Before I got here nine years ago, I think the college was doing this a little bit with GED, but certainly again, because of my background, when we started talking about how to better recruit from our GED student population, part of that conversation was how are they going to pay for it? And particularly as we're moving more into this direction of trying to do the integrated education training stuff and trying to co-enroll students so that they're finishing their GED while they're enrolled in college classes, they're not eligible for Pell at that moment or financial aid. And so how do you support them so that they can afford it? And so we do have for our high-performing students in the GED, they hit a certain score, they do get a significant tuition waiver so that they can start down that path. And I think that's invaluable in helping our students. And I'm really pleased that this institution has embraced that and is willing to invest in that way. The other part that I heard was how easy our scholarship system is for students to identify scholarships and be able to apply for them. That was awesome to hear that that is working and has been effective. And then the other part too, and again, kind of in my heart, I knew that this was working, but it was good to hear it confirmed that the benefit navigator piece has been so critically important to students who are on this path, who are post-traditional, who are coming back to us, and that indeed their work is to lay out a pathway and help students see the connection between you can start with a GED and you can get all the way to a nursing degree. And I really think Kendra's story in particular demonstrates it's possible. You can start from here and get there. And we have those systems in place to help the students move down that path.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thank you for reflecting on Kandra's story and interview. That scholarship system can be so overwhelming to students to know where to look and what's available and what the criteria are, and to simplify that. It sounds like that's a real best practice for SWAC, and clearly from a student's experience, that made a difference.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I also wanted to ask you if you heard anything from the conversation with Kendra that could illuminate a new opportunity for the college supporting student success.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. She emphasized how seamless this process was. I think that's wonderful. I still think there are ways that we can be better, even in light of how well we are doing. And part of that, I go back to the integrated education training component of all this. We've been having a lot of conversations about what that looks like at our small institution and how to get some of our GED students more quickly into some of the CT pathways in particular. So I think we have an opportunity there to do that better, to provide more resources and support. The other thing that came out loud and clear is the importance of advisors and the roadmap. And I will say I think for those students who end up with the benefit navigators or who end up with trio, we got it. We know how to do that really well in those areas. I am not so sure that that is the case for every student who walks in our door. We are really concentrating our efforts and advising right now to make it more of a student success coaching focus rather than just a registration focus. There's a bit of culture shift that we need to do to get there. But I think if we could do that, we could do better in making sure that students are coming in the door, immediately getting with someone and seeing what that path is so that we can then support them to stay on the path. I think the other thing, and I think that this might come up a little bit later too, is the importance of student voice. We do a bit around student voice. Like our United for Student Success campaign, we interviewed students and had them talk about their experience and who supported them and shared that with the entire campus, which I think was good. I think we need to just keep doing more of that because again, I don't think the majority of people on this campus know about Candra's story. I suspect certainly after this comes out, we'll be sharing it widely so that they do know. But I think it's important for us to do more of the checking in and talking to and finding out more about what students need from the students themselves rather than us kind of assuming what we think they need.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I appreciate your reflections there on where there is even more opportunity to build on what is in place at the college. And I wanted to go back to the geography and the region and knowing that, as you said from the beginning, SWAC serves two very large rural counties, actually, some of a third. And you touched on this a little bit earlier, but what role does the college play in advancing regional economic prosperity? And could you share an example of how SWAC has enhanced and supported economic vitality in the region?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. This is an interesting proposition for our communities because they are rural, small. We do not have super large employers. Our hospital here in Coos Bay is probably the largest employer with a school district close behind, and then probably us as a college. So there's not an easy industry partner to point to for some of the things that we are working on necessarily. And so sometimes that can make it a little bit challenging. Our demographics are shifting quite a bit in this community, and we are seeing a workforce that is rapidly retiring. And so if we didn't have programs like nursing or our recently developed diesel tech program, our agencies and businesses wouldn't have workforce to operate. So part of our role in economic vitality is training folks to go into those roles so that we can continue to have an economy, so that we can continue to have those companies working and supporting the community. The other thing is we work very closely with our small business development center. That is one of our key roles in supporting our community. And we also have the South Coast Development Council, which is our economic development council, actually housed at the college. And we do quite a bit in partnership with them. Several years ago, we actually opened up a business incubator space in the same building that houses both SCDC and our Small Business Development Center. It is run through the South Coast Development Council. That is their work. Part of that, too, is again, because we don't have major employers or major industries necessarily, there is a role in the part of the community college of helping students understand that they could be small business owners themselves, that they have an opportunity to influence the economy. And so we try to make those connections between some of our CTE programs, maybe that are a little bit more obvious, like our culinary program, to make sure that those students know that we do have SBDC here. We do have supports should they decide to take their degree and start their own company, their own work. So I think that's critically important. The other part, too, is of course we engage very closely with our workforce investment board, SOIB. And I will say in the last year or so, they've taken on the next gen sector work with a passion. They are really all in. They hired a sector strategist who's done an amazing job. And part of the beauty of that is because we do work so closely with them and collaborate, is they're helping us work with our industry partners to learn more about what our industry partners need. So even in the last six months, we've talked about welding, we've talked about commercial drivers license CDL construction. We've got a meeting coming up about Dillon Hygiene here in a few weeks. So they've been a tremendous partner to help us work with the industry, figure out what industry needs so that we in concern perhaps help with the workforce training and workforce shortage needs that we see in our community.
SPEAKER_04That's great to hear. And it sounds like those community, economic, and workforce partners, collaborating with them makes it more efficient in engaging industry and understanding the current and future needs, emerging needs. The collaboration is the strategy in itself to support a cohesive approach to economic vitality. And as you talked about, the Small Business Development Center, tying small business and entrepreneurship to CTE programs fosters an invitation to really build the economy through new emerging businesses. So this podcast is focused on elevating student voices. You've described a few of them, but what are some ways that Southwestern Oregon Community College is elevating student voices, particularly adult students, to shape more inclusive policies, programs, and partnerships?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So we've been engaging pretty actively with students to conduct research, which has been just fabulous. I don't think a lot of colleges do this. Data Action Campaign is one example. We are also working with the Ford Family Foundation. So right now, about 60% of our student population is female, about 40% male. We do not see a lot of our male students coming out of the high schools coming to us. We don't see a lot of adult males coming to us. And again, as part of this work on the enrollment piece to bring adults back, I think we got to figure that out. And so Ford allowed us to go ahead and conduct a research study. And we have two students doing the research along with our sociology instructor. So again, engaging students in that actual work to talk to other students, to find out that perspective. And then whatever we learn from that, we will change some policies and processes based on that to try to improve enrollment of our rural males. And then of course for data action, our parenting students. So making use of that, I think, is important. I think having a student ambassador, I really like that concept. We've not actually hired the person yet, but I suspect we will see some real results from that of having more pure mentorship from populations so that students perhaps feel more comfortable talking to someone who has had that lived experience. We do elevate student voices through sharing success stories. We do a quarterly mailing here in the community because again, rural house, do you get the word out? So everybody gets a quarterly campus news mailing, and in that we always feature a student. Oftentimes it's current students. We're leaning a little bit more into alums in our community and the role that they play in supporting the college campus and trying to get that voice out a bit more. But I still think it's an area where we could do more. Our student government is pretty active and they do get engaged. They serve on different committees, so they're at the table. I will say, in terms of working with adult learners, most of our student government students live in housing, which means that they're between 18 and 22. So trying to get an adult student to join ASG is a little bit more challenging because, again, they have all these other responsibilities. So I think it really is on us as a college to figure out how to find out more about their experiences and figure out how to fix policies based on that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I appreciate learning more about those examples and what more can be done in the future. It's great to hear how things have evolved at Southwestern with this work focusing on adults and parenting students to get your reflections from Kandra's interview in terms of what's going well and where there's opportunities to do more and really thinking about place in a rural part of the state with the role that the college plays in supporting economic vitality and prosperity. I appreciate you taking the time and just wanted to ask if there's anything else you'd like to share for this conversation.
SPEAKER_00I think the only thing I'll add, Mark, and like I alluded to this earlier, my background is in adult basic edge and GED. So I have a real passion for this work. I have worked at other institutions where it has felt like a hard sell to help enrollment teams understand that is a population that you want to recruit from. There's a good reason to do that, both from a social perspective of just trying to help folks get out of intergenerational poverty, but also from an enrollment perspective, if you want more students, you have them already. I mean, we are fortunate here in Oregon that these programs run through the community colleges. And it's a great opportunity for students to step on a college campus and start to see themselves as college students. So I think it is important for us all as a higher ed system to lean into that and say, how do we help these folks move past just the GED and move into a college path, whether it's CTE or transfer, and help support them because it does break those cycles that some of these rural communities have seen of the generational poverty issue for sure. And Kendra mentioned that in her interview. And like I said, I was really pleased to hear about her experience. Frankly, I cannot wait to see her graduation at the nursing pinning ceremony. So again, interview made me incredibly happy, and we really appreciate you doing this for the colleges to help us get the word out about our students' experiences and the great things we're doing.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. It's a privilege to get the chance to interview students and college executives like you and policy philanthropic leaders. And I can't think of a more important and timely topic to end on as you discuss the culture there of seeing the value of adult ed students. Thanks for ending there and for taking the time for this conversation.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Mark. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_04I'd like to introduce my next guest to the podcast today. Amber Angel is a program officer with ECMC Foundation. Welcome, Amber, to the All-in Student Pathways Forward Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me, Mark. I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate you taking the time, and I wanted to start by asking you if you could provide a brief overview of ECMC Foundation and the organization's focus on closing gaps in post-secondary education outcomes.
SPEAKER_01So ECMC Foundation is a national funder really committed to supporting student success across post-secondary education. We do that by deploying strategic grant making, program-related investments. And our North Star that we established in 2024 is specifically focused on eliminating completion gaps for underserved learners, or what we call those furthest from opportunity by 2040. So whether that's basic needs support, students living in rural areas and our rural impact initiative, students pursuing education within the prison system or workforce programming, student parents, which we're here to talk about today, and much more. We're really investing in supporting systems and states to help move the needle in big opportunity areas such as Workforce Pell, work-based learning and beyond. When we achieve, not if we achieve, but when we achieve our North Star in 2040 and that we set to accomplish back in 2024, that means that was a student entering kindergarten who will be graduating and entering college. And so this is just really important work that we all feel very passionate about at the foundation and really moving the needle on economic mobility for families.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for sharing that background. And it really is an ambitious North Star. And I appreciate you elaborating on the different elements of that. And one area ECMC Foundation has significantly invested in and supported is parenting student success. So I wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit more in detail about how the foundation has approached this important topic and why it is a priority.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So I have to give a shout out to our program director, Jennifer Zeisler, who back in 2017, pretty much at the beginning of the foundation, did a listening tour across the country to really learn and hear from experts in the field and the folks on the ground what were some of the barriers for student completion and college success. And she just kept hearing a kind of similar trend of these adult learners, returning adult learners who were parenting and had additional needs such as childcare and overall time poverty. So she came back and was like, what's the data? Like how many students are actually parents? And there was virtually no data at the time. And so our very first investment before we even established the initiative in 2017 was to the Institute for Women's Policy Research to do just that. It was to determine how many parenting students are there. And we have been investing in this work for a long time. The data today shows that one in five college students are parenting. There were gaps specifically for single mothers in particular, despite having higher GPAs than their non-parenting students. So in 2021, our board and the foundation established our initiative to invest in student parents with a goal of increasing degree attainment within six years. At the time, only 11% of single mothers who enrolled in an associate degree program or certificate program achieved their goals within six years. We knew that this had to change. So since 2021, with the development of the initiative, we've invested in over $23 million, serving over 13,000 students and student parents, single mothers. We've really focused our strategy around supporting data infrastructure, building capacity of colleges, expanding partnerships with higher ed institutions and head start child care centers, et cetera, and then building public will and partnering with other funders.
SPEAKER_04It's really helpful. I find it fascinating that parenting students have higher GPAs than non-parenting students, although they may be facing more complex realities and 23 million. It's quite an investment during that time and appreciate the background as to the why. So thank you for sharing that. And on a personal level, Amber, I've had the privilege of hearing you speak about the topic of parenting student success before and learned about your own personal journey as a parenting student. So I wanted to ask if you'd be open to sharing more about this experience and how it may have shaped your related work and overall career.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a topic I love to talk about. And sometimes I also feel like because I'm no longer a student parent, do I still lean into that identity? But it really is the honor and privilege of my lifetime to be able to work in this space given the fact that I have the lived experience. I think it makes me better at my job. I think it is validating to know that there's organizations and who are interested in this topic and we're uplifting this population. So as a first generation college student, I'm the youngest of eight. My dad was the middle of 13. I'm the first in my family to ever step foot on a college campus. And I did it because I became a mom and I recognize this desire to provide a better life for her at the time I was working, you know, just minimum wage jobs. I say this and how it influences how I think in the career that we think about in higher ed is I actually was almost enrolled in a for-profit predatory college that has since been shut down. I was up one night breastfeeding with my daughter Lennon, and there was an infomercial for this like career college where I could get my medical billing license in six months. And I went and thankfully my parents raised me with a good head on my shoulders, and I recognized that it wasn't really great and there was no financial aid. And so luckily I stumbled upon a community college, Los Angeles Valet College in my community and enrolled with my daughter. We started on the same day. I had to get her potty trained in one weekend because they needed to be potty trained. So that was fun. And then I didn't even know what I wanted to do either. I enrolled in child development classes because I just kind of wanted to learn how to be a good mom. I got pregnant with my second daughter in college and my water broke actually in my ADM math class. And I remember having to go to my professors and saying, like, hey, yeah, my due date's over spring break. So I'm gonna have her and then I'll be right back. And I think all my professors kind of like wrote it off like it wasn't gonna happen. But I missed one class. I was back when she was 13 days old. And so that experience really taught me a lot about and now being here where I'm at now, what helped me along the way for during the last year of my university experience, I lost my father and my daughters and I became homeless for three months. I really struggled once I got to the university, but the community college system really supported me. I had faculty shout out to Dr. John Kawhi, who gave me his keys to his office so I could pump between classes. But it was really finding the Family Resource Center, which was the only family resource center on a community college campus that supported parenting students. They offered free diapers. I got to bring my children to campus and do play groups. I had clothing. I met with a social worker. They had a licensed marriage and family therapist that I could talk to. They had a refrigerator for my breast milk. So I didn't have to keep going to Dr. Kawhi's office. And so basically, I just hung around there long enough for them to hire me. And when I started working at the Family Resource Center, it became my passion and career goals to now help other parents not have as a difficult path as I did. So when I started working there, I realized there was really no data. Like I didn't even know, I felt so alone. And I wanted to know who other student parents were, what was the data. IWPR, the Institute for Women's Policy Research funded by ECMC Foundation, became my biggest resource because I wasn't able to write grants to get funding to support the work we wanted to do without data. And then eventually became a grantee. I received funding from ECMC Foundation for us in conjunction with IWPR to look at our data and full circle. I actually received the offer to be a program officer with a foundation 10 years to the day that I got my offer to work at Valley College Family Resource Center.
SPEAKER_04It's really a fascinating and remarkable and inspiring story.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate you sharing it. It sounds like really does shape the approach of your work at ECMC Foundation and also having had the chance to work with a Family Resource Center on a college campus. Thank you, Amber, for sharing that. So I wanted to talk about my home state, Oregon, and Oregon Community Colleges have been part of this parenting student success work in collaboration with ECMC Foundation. I wanted to ask you if you could share any observations or insights on what Oregon Community Colleges have done well to improve policy systems, programs, and or supports to better meet the needs of parenting students.
SPEAKER_01Well, not necessarily related to the actual institutions, but Oregon was the first state to pass legislation that required institutions to collect parenting student data. When we even established this initiative in 2021, there were zero states that required institutions to collect data in the country on parenting students. And Oregon was the first. So you guys are a leader in this space. And in some previous work that I have done as a parent advisor with Ascend at the Aspen Institute, I was a part of a cohort where they were really engaging student parents on what our needs were. And I got to be a parent advisor alongside a superstar named Michaela Martin, who advocated for this legislation to pass. She is now a lawyer and at the time was also experiencing housing insecurity. And so just a testament and a shout out to just parenting students everywhere. And Urban Institute, highly known in the field of higher ed, has been a longtime grantee and supporter of parenting students, established the Spark Collaborative alongside other amazing organizations such as Child Trends to collect important data on parenting students and actually do some deep technical assistance work. So really looking at supporting those institutions in Oregon. But we've been partnering with the Ford Family Foundation on peer funding on our kids on campus grant, which is to partner the Association for Community College Trustees with National Head Start to co-locate child care Head Start centers on college campuses and set to establish 50 new centers on colleges across the country in the next five years.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01I also actually have a really fun little anecdote about Oregon too. The Ohio State Student Parent Support Symposium, which was the first national conference that was dedicated to student parents, decided one year to take it out of Ohio State and they went on tour. And the first college they chose to take the conference to was Portland State University. And they did a call for proposals, as most conferences do, but they specifically did a call for proposals for a panel of children of student parents. And I was a student parent at the time, and my daughter submitted an application, a video, and was selected. And so it was the first time I got to really integrate my children in my work because I think that's oftentimes something overlooked with parenting students is, you know, we're doing this for our kids, but there's like a disconnect because you're spending dinners away, you're missing bedtimes, you're staying up late writing papers, and you know you're doing it for them, but you're missing out on a lot of that kind of early childhood. And so I got to bring both of my daughters with me to Portland State. And my daughter got to be on a panel and speak about her experience. And she said, when I see my mom study so hard, it makes me want to study really hard. And it just made me feel like, okay, I'm doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_04Wow, that's amazing. And what a cool opportunity for your whole family. And I'm glad you mentioned and talked about the Urban Institute and all the technical assistance that they provide through the Spark Collaborative and beyond. And I've had the chance to have Teresa Anderson on the podcast as well, talking about some of that work. But I think all the way back to Oregon's involvement, having that legislation has really been instrumental in helping colleges have the data to be able to tell the story and understand the needs more deeply and have more clarity of the populations that they're serving as parenting students.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's hard to get this work done if you don't know who your students are, right?
SPEAKER_04But actually, staying on the topic of parenting students in Oregon, I wanted to ask you what your reactions were to my conversation with Southwestern Oregon Community College parenting student Kandra Adolfson.
SPEAKER_01Well, I loved her episode. What a resilient and just incredible human. And I got chills when she had said this might be a generic saying, but it was something my late father used to say to me all the time is Amber Marie, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask. And when she said that, I got chills, and I just really appreciated her tenacity and dedication while raising three children. And it reminded me a lot of if you don't ever see somebody do something like you, it's hard to see it for yourself. And so, like the visibility and asking the questions and being able to see others, like she had so much support behind her so she could see it for herself. I thought this is why we do the work that we do and we invest in these programs. It's just a testament, also, to the ROI of why investing in parenting students early on is super important. How I think about it with our ECMC Foundation. You know, she went from enrolling and earning her GED to getting her BSN. A study conducted in Virginia showed that for every dollar invested in student parent programming, it resulted in an estimated $1.9 billion in public benefit net cost by 2035. So this ROI, in no doubt, has she shifted her family's economic mobilities, but not just for her, but for her three children. And super impressed by her.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thanks for listening in and sharing those reflections. And I think as she talked about walking at graduation and having her kids get to see that and really modeling that is extremely powerful.
SPEAKER_01And the two-generational impact it has her talking about her children, seeing her walk across that stage. I recall having a conversation with my youngest daughter, the one who's water broke on campus about what she was going to study when she went to college. And I think she was around seven at the time. And she said, What do you mean? I already went to college. I was like, No, Evelyn, you went to preschool at college, you went to on-campus childcare. But she like saw herself as a college student because of that experience. And like that to me is breaking the cycle.
SPEAKER_04Totally. That's adorable and extremely touching and powerful. Yeah. She already walked. She's she's neat.
SPEAKER_01They actually did walk. I let them skip school. I bought them cap and gowns.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_01Because they earned that degree just as much as I did. I mean, they were up just as late.
SPEAKER_04That's really cool. I do appreciate you reflecting on Kendra's interview. And I'm curious as ECMC has invested in the parenting student success initiative for almost 10 years. Where do you see this work going in the future as ECMC continues to evolve its approach and sharpen its focus on post-secondary completion and scaling successful strategies?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's something I'm thinking a lot about. I'm in the development of creating a new theory of action with new strategies. And it's really exciting to be at the beginning of a new launch, hopefully for this year. But really just taking a step back to think we mentioned about Oregon being the first state, when we started the initiative in 2021, there were zero states that were collecting data. We now have five states that have legislation that require institutions to collect data: Illinois, Oregon, California, Texas, and Minnesota. And we have many more state engagements that are happening. And just in 2025, there were 55 bills that were introduced that were focused on parenting students, ranging from protections like Title IX to childcare, data infrastructure, academic supports, and basic needs. And so, you know, the momentum is here and we're here for it and we're committed to it still. We've learned a lot in some of our evaluation and some of our data, our previous grantees. We now know that there is a higher percentage of single mother students in particular, but student parents in general that are attending four-year public institutions than in previous years. It was really they were at community college and weren't progressing. We know that there's a higher percentage from when we first started investing in parenting students that are at rural institutions, and we now have a rural initiative. And so we're thinking a lot about that cross-sector, across our own initiatives, and how we're thinking about this work. And latest data from the Urban Institute showed that student fathers have the highest GPA than any other student body, with 44% of fathers having a 3.5 or higher GPA. So that 44% of fathers compared to 38% of non-parenting students. So really just thinking about the expansion of our work beyond single mothers and really seeing the importance of also cross-sector collaboration when we think about this population, whether that's higher education aligning with early childhood education, as an example I gave earlier around our kids on campus investment, or if it's basic needs alignment. We funded the Women's Foundation of Arizona to educate their constituents around parenting students and kind of gather their data. And in doing so, Arizona has passed legislation that now allows education hours to count for work requirement hours so that parents can receive SNAP benefits. Prior, they would have to work the 20 hours in addition to their education hours. And so just feeling like the ball is rolling and we're here for it.
SPEAKER_04I appreciate your description of where this work leads and also glad to hear that ECMC Foundation is continuing to focus in this area and also to incorporate and utilize data to drive where the emphasis is and the focus moving forward. Thank you for sharing that. And one question I always ask since this podcast is really about centering learner voices. So, how has ECMC Foundation helped? To center and amplify post-secondary education student voices to shape more inclusive policies, practice, and partnerships.
SPEAKER_01I love talking about this. I'm so proud to work at ECMC Foundation because of this. I think we're a learning organization first and foremost. I think it's super important for us as grantmakers to understand what doesn't work is just as important as what does work. And we've always elevated student voices by embedding them directly into program design, policy conversations, institutional change efforts. But it's not just embedded across our portfolios and grant making and investments, but I think about the fact that I was a student parent, I'm leading our student parent work. Shout out to my colleague Dr. Sol. She now is leading our work with research, but she established our rural initiative and she was a rural college student. And so putting our money where our mouth is and representation, I think is super important in any field, but especially in philanthropy. And so there's been this kind of slogan about student parents, but I think with any student or with any person is just don't have a conversation about us without us. In my particular portfolio, when I'm working with grantees and I'm developing proposals, I always ensure that that student voice is involved, important, and they're also paid for their time. You know, we often in work, we hire consultants or we pay experts, but student parents are students are experts of their lived experience, and so they should be paid as such. And ECMC Foundation supports that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it makes total sense. Individuals with lived experience have the most insights because they've navigated whatever these systems are, programs, policies, supports, and they should be compensated like anyone else for sharing their expertise. Thank you for elaborating on that and highlighting the multitude of ways that ECMC Foundation really does center learner voices and lived experience. So I just wanted to wrap up and thank you, Amber, for taking the time to share your insights and your expertise and your own experience as a parenting student, the work that you lead at ECMC Foundation, the impact across the country, across systems, across states, across policies, and at the institutional level. I've learned a lot from this conversation. It's always inspiring to get the chance to hear what's front and center and where ECMC Foundation is taking this work and really building on this nine ten year journey. And so I just wanted to thank you for all of that and ask if there's anything else you'd like to share about ECMC Foundation's efforts for this conversation.
SPEAKER_01I'm going back to the beginning, talking to overall ECMC Foundation, and then I'll close it in with my thoughts about this conversation around parenting students. But back to our North Star, we can't do this work alone. And we support those on the ground who are doing this work. And so I guess I would say go to ecmcfoundation.org, learn about what we do and engage with us because we can't reach that goal without those in the field. And when I'm thinking about some of the things that we talked about in this conversation today, I threw out some of the ROI, the return on investments for parenting students. I think a lot of times we talk about the ROI and we use numbers. You know, a degree means this much more in your bank account, or it means this much more savings for public assistance on your off of SNAP or for the government, et cetera. And those are quantitative and they're great. But like the qualitative is I'm one of four million students who is a walking ROI. When we invest in student parents, it's not just me, it's the multi-generational effect. And that leads us to our North Star. So by 2040, again, my daughter's in college. And so I'm no longer homeless. I'm no longer on welfare because I had ECMC foundations and organizations and colleges like Candra's and like the Family Resource Center that supported me as a student. And so I guess what I would leave this conversation is let's be more asset focused and not deficit focused when we talk about this population because student parents have superpowers and they're incredible. And I'm super grateful to do this work and thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_04I love that. What a perfect way to end. Student parents have superpowers. Thank you, Amber.
SPEAKER_01It was great to chat with you, Mark.
SPEAKER_04Well, that will do it for this episode of the All-In Student Pathways Forward Podcast. We'll be back soon with the next episode featuring a past adult education student from Quincygaman Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts, along with interviews with College President Dr. Luis G. Pedraha, a strong college employer partner, and some state leaders who helped pass legislation to invest additional state funding into vocational ESOL programming. This is Mark Goldberg, the host. Thanks for listening in and being all in on student success.