Daily Lumina News 111721

For decades, more students with psychiatric and neurodiverse histories, conditions, and medications have been enrolling in college. From an access standpoint, that’s great news. From a counseling standpoint, however, it has meant a professional state of siege.
Keeping up is even harder now because of COVID-19. More students are asking for help; their suffering is more acute; and the pandemic has made it especially difficult for centers to recruit counselors.

People who’ve been to prison often face significant challenges when they’re released, hitting barriers to jobs, housing, and educational opportunities.
A justice advocate behind a new tech training program wants women with felony records to be able to thrive when they come home.

While many of today's high school career and technical education (CTE) programs have evolved since the vocational education “wood shop” classes of the 1970s, some students and their parents remain skeptical of work-oriented education.
In this interview, Eddie Fletcher of Ohio State University discusses the transformation of CTE programs and how many prepare students for both college and careers.

Getting one's big break into tech-related careers can be daunting. Traditional four-year institutions can be expensive places to learn computer science and lack of exposure to the skills needed in the industry as a whole often derail a career before it gets started.
This podcast examines an alternative: free training programs that offer a foot in the door to teens and young adults from historically underrepresented groups trying to enter the tech industry.

In Chicago, the three-year community college graduation rate is just under 23 percent. The reasons are many—from juggling debt, family responsibilities and jobs to the absence of role models and pressing social and emotional needs.
If we care about creating a more equitable society, we must provide better support for these students, writes Aneesh Sohoni of One Million Degrees in this op-ed.

Andia Augustin-Billy was recently awarded tenure at Centenary College of Louisiana. She’s the first Black faculty member at the college to receive it. While it’s a big academic achievement, Augustin-Billy says she can’t help but feel sad that it’s taken this long.
Black tenured professors are sorely underrepresented across higher education. In Fall 2019, 4.88 percent of tenured professors at degree-granting institutions that participate in Title IV funding in the United States were Black. Only 2.1 percent were Black women.