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Debra Nakama / January 18, 2020

College Completion: The Waiting for Godot

Hourglass on the beach with footsteps near the tide line
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Estragon: Let’s go!
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot.
Estragon: (despairingly) Ah!

Estragon: Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!

— Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Every year across the United States, a significant number of students fail to complete their college degrees.1 Do colleges exist in a never-ending loop, engaged in passing the time until Godot arrives—if, indeed, he ever will arrive?

Student-Centered Design: The Fire of Dialogue creates a place where we responsibly practice community college’s dual focus on open-access mission and completion. A flow perspective will be used to connect the experiences for student success and detect the bottlenecks within the design. Additionally, the student-center design facilitates an evolving creative and iterative improvement process that identifies desirable solutions to complex challenges of flow. The overall intent is degree completion by meeting students where they are, addressing their individual needs, leveraging their strengths, and focusing on student development and learning.

Igniting the Fire of Dialogue

My path to this space began in fall 2015, when I was appointed Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs for an island-based rural comprehensive community college that offers three bachelor of applied science degrees. Because there are financial and capability constraints due to enrollment management strategies, ongoing professional learning to redesign old patterns of institutional behavior with new ways of doing things are essential. Equally important, is the ability to conduct successful dialogue (Isaacs, W. 1999). As we cross the threshold to a new millennium, we must learn to think or talk together in a way that summons up our own deeply held common sense, wisdom, and potential—igniting the fire of our diverse thoughts (Ibid.). “Dialogue is a living experience of inquiry within and between people (p. 9).” The invitation is to join a community of professional practitioners and/or researchers to sharpen the art of dialogue to enhance the success for ALL students—degree completion.

References

Achieving the Dream (2018). “Holistic Student Supports Redesign: A Toolkit for Redesigning Advising and Student Services to Effectively Support Every Student.” Retrieved September 1, 2019 from https://www.achievingthedream.org/resource/17502/holistic-student-supports-redesign-a-toolkit

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. NY: Harper & Row.

Isaacs, W. (1999). A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and In Life: Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. NY: Doubleday.

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  1. Fishman, Tiffany Dovey, Ludgate, Allan, and Tutak, Jen (2017). “Success by Design: Improving Outcomes in American Higher Education.” Retrieved September 1, 2019 from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/improving-student-success-in-higher-education.html

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Filed Under: Tips for College Success
Tagged With: enrollment management

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