Daily Lumina News 052721

The University of Florida is not only attempting to vaccinate its own students, staff, and faculty, but it’s also a major player in the effort to vaccinate the population of the surrounding region.
But like vaccinators across the country, the Florida team is running into inequities in health-care access and vaccine hesitancy. How well the university succeeds against these barriers will determine how well-protected its community will be—and what kind of experience students will have come fall.

To survive and thrive, postsecondary institutions need to focus strategically on meeting the needs of adult learners and employers.
Earl Buford of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) discusses the importance of building more effective pathways from institutions to industries, plus how the pandemic provides an opportunity for colleges and universities to better meet adult learners—the large majority of today’s students—where they are.

After the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, recent University of Pittsburgh graduate Morgan Ottley presented university leadership with a list of demands for change. Across the country, many students like Ottley did the same. They wanted their institutions to be more inclusive and for school leaders to recognize racial inequities.
In the year following Floyd's death, professors, students, and administrators reflect on how a summer of protests and ongoing outrage, pain, and vulnerability have shaped campus life.

Like many institutions, Philadelphia-area colleges and universities were reeling from the coronavirus pandemic as they entered fall 2020. Mirroring national trends, enrollment was down, particularly among those students most at risk of basic needs insecurity; fewer students completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA); and college retention rates dropped.
A new report documents how students in the Philadelphia region fared during this challenging time—plus what it will take to ensure they truly thrive once the pandemic ends.

Over the past five years, Yoslin Amaya would return home in the early-morning hours from her night shift as a janitor to her in-laws’ house in Rockville, Maryland, where she lived in a bedroom with her husband and two sons. While her family slept, she'd crack open a laptop to finish assignments for her college classes.
Amaya graduated this month, beating tremendous odds. Despite having a higher GPA on average than their peers, 52 percent of student-parents like Amaya leave college within six years without completing their degree. That number could change if more colleges and universities could widen their vision of who their students are—and who they could be.

Access is more than entrance into a discrete academic or training endeavor, writes Achieving the Dream's Karen Stout in this essay, and community colleges must offer that access through a far broader set of supports—both academic and nonacademic.
Stout cites several examples of community colleges that are addressing key elements of a new community-based, equity-focused access agenda. Their work, she says, brings together schools, community organizations, and employers as partners to think comprehensively about the changing needs of students and communities.