Higher education

Both helping students prepare for college and then retaining them to graduation was the focus of a meeting between area higher education institutions hosted Wednesday at Odessa College.

OC, UTPB, Midland College and Howard College all sponsored the West Texas Regional Collegiate Symposium that included a special keynote address by Belle Wheelan, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Odessa College President Gregory Williams said she was proud the institutions came together to talk about the future of higher education and that Wheelan led the way forward for minorities in the field.

"In several roles, she was the first African American and/or woman to serve in those capacities," he said.

Wheelan told those at the event that colleges and universities must do a better job of preparing students for college and the number of unprepared and first-generation college students is higher than in the past.

"We need to show them there is a place for them," she said.

She pointed to her own experience and said that college can be a difficult time because those new to the environment have to absorb a great deal of options and the fact that it’s easy to get discouraged around many students that are just as smart or even smarter, an adjustment from high school. Competing demands like family make it difficult to balance work and education, she said.

Her projections for the future include more first-time college students and a larger proportion of minority students, particularly Hispanic. She said several strategies show promise in dealing with those issues, including spending more time working directly with high schools.

"We need to have workshops in the neighborhoods where parents are, not at schools or during the work day," she said.

She said it is beneficial to bring lectures to high school students to show them what college is like, as well as offer ACT or SAT preparation classes.

Wheelan also suggested major initiatives geared toward minority students. She said Hispanic and black males have the highest percentage of dropouts at the high school level and something needs done to reclaim those students. Higher education so far is moving toward a greater use of data to locate and solve issues and allowing failure isn’t an option.

"We owe it to students to find out what’s wrong. They are there, and it’s our job to keep them," she said.

COLLEGE ISSUES

Belle Wheelan of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools told people Wednesday at Odessa College that several changes and problems face colleges and universities, including:

>> Increasingly unprepared students.

>> Differences in college and high school expectations.

>> More first-time college students.

>> Change in instruction delivery, such as online classes.

>> High dropout rate at the high school level.

>> More diverse student populations.

>> Older students, many working while attending school.

>> A greater focus on career-specific studies.