thedrifter
10-25-06, 06:53 AM
UNC eyes academic 'boot camp'
Jane Stancill, Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE - Except for their haircuts, the 23 Marines looked like typical college students.
Their teacher whizzed through an algebra lesson last week, explaining how variables in an equation can't be mixed. He suggested the students think of variable a as the Army and variable b as Marines.
"We will never, ever mix Army and Marines," said Shane Muravsky, instructor from Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville. "That's why they're at Fort Bragg and we're at Camp Lejeune."
The comparison made perfect sense to the close-cropped group taking a crash course in math and English. And this academic boot camp makes sense to UNC system President Erskine Bowles, who wants UNC schools to provide similar programs to help students prepare for college work.
Bowles believes too many high school graduates in North Carolina arrive on college campuses academically unprepared, which contributes heavily to lower graduation rates. Across the UNC system, an average of 59 percent of students graduate within six years -- ranging from 35 percent at UNC-Pembroke to 84 percent at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Marines in the community college program are among 1,800 who have attended the four-week class since 2002. They sit through eight hours of instruction a day, hoping to find a better job in the corps or attend college after they leave the service.
"When I got out of the military, I wish I had had it," Muravsky said. "I walked into college blind."
The Camp Lejeune program has achieved results, said Sharon McGinnis, a Coastal Carolina vice president. Eighty-five percent complete the course, and the average academic gain is about three grade levels, according to tests given at the end of the class.
Sgt. Leonard Sanders, 26, thought he was just bad at math, but now he's getting the hang of it. He wants to bump up his score on the military's version of the SAT so he can move from an infantry job to one in counterintelligence.
"It's good to brush up on your skills," he said. "Any time you recognize you have a deficiency, you should strive to fix it."
Cpl. Bill Auger, 27, decided to take the course after he returned from Iraq. He leaves the Marines in November and wants to go to the University of Massachusetts, close to where he was reared.
"I graduated high school in '97, so it's been awhile since I've taken any kind of class," he said during a break from geometry. "There's a lot of things I didn't learn in high school that I learned here."
The larger problem
It could be difficult to replicate the Marines' progress among a population of 18-year-old college freshmen. The Marines have a lot riding on the program because it could mean the difference between a food-service job or a position as an aircraft mechanic. They compete for slots in the class, and they're released from duty to concentrate on their studies.
Bowles got a look at the Coastal Carolina program a few months ago and told his staff to study it.
The idea is not totally new. A dozen UNC campuses already offer summer programs aimed at incoming freshmen who may struggle academically. The students take a few classes and get accustomed to college life. But the so-called bridge programs are expensive and serve a limited number of students. At about half the campuses, students must pay for the experience -- which can cost about $2,000 -- and give up summer jobs. That shuts out the population who may need it most.
Such preparatory programs are designed in part to help open doors to first-generation college students, said Bobby Kanoy, a senior associate vice president for the UNC system. "It's not that they can't do the work," he said, "it's that they haven't had someone in their support system to prepare them for what's coming."
Bowles is expected to ask the legislature for more money next year to expand the summer programs or create new ones. Such an effort could help reduce the need for remedial programs at UNC campuses, which spent $2 million on them in 2003-2004, according to the most recent data available.
It's a problem that's much larger than universities want to admit, said Dave Spence, president of the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit organization that pushes for educational improvements in 16 southern states.
"Every state has a 60 to 70 percent problem of students being unready," he said.
But a summer crash course may be too little, too late to overcome students' deficiencies and the uneven quality of North Carolina high schools, some say.
"The best predictor of success in college is a rigorous high school curriculum," said David Haney, associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at Appalachian State University. "And parent income. Those are things we don't have a whole lot of control over. I think it's a myth that our programmatic interventions are going to make huge gains."
Colleges have some obligation to help their students catch up, but Spence said the emphasis should not be on remedial courses.
More important, he said, states must do more to make sure students graduate high school prepared. That means universities and community colleges should set clear standards about what it takes to be ready for college and communicate them, in one voice, to high schools.
"If you don't do that, it's hard to go to step two," Spence said.
Staff writer Jane Stancill can be reached at 956-2464 or janes@newsobserver.com.
Ellie
Jane Stancill, Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE - Except for their haircuts, the 23 Marines looked like typical college students.
Their teacher whizzed through an algebra lesson last week, explaining how variables in an equation can't be mixed. He suggested the students think of variable a as the Army and variable b as Marines.
"We will never, ever mix Army and Marines," said Shane Muravsky, instructor from Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville. "That's why they're at Fort Bragg and we're at Camp Lejeune."
The comparison made perfect sense to the close-cropped group taking a crash course in math and English. And this academic boot camp makes sense to UNC system President Erskine Bowles, who wants UNC schools to provide similar programs to help students prepare for college work.
Bowles believes too many high school graduates in North Carolina arrive on college campuses academically unprepared, which contributes heavily to lower graduation rates. Across the UNC system, an average of 59 percent of students graduate within six years -- ranging from 35 percent at UNC-Pembroke to 84 percent at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Marines in the community college program are among 1,800 who have attended the four-week class since 2002. They sit through eight hours of instruction a day, hoping to find a better job in the corps or attend college after they leave the service.
"When I got out of the military, I wish I had had it," Muravsky said. "I walked into college blind."
The Camp Lejeune program has achieved results, said Sharon McGinnis, a Coastal Carolina vice president. Eighty-five percent complete the course, and the average academic gain is about three grade levels, according to tests given at the end of the class.
Sgt. Leonard Sanders, 26, thought he was just bad at math, but now he's getting the hang of it. He wants to bump up his score on the military's version of the SAT so he can move from an infantry job to one in counterintelligence.
"It's good to brush up on your skills," he said. "Any time you recognize you have a deficiency, you should strive to fix it."
Cpl. Bill Auger, 27, decided to take the course after he returned from Iraq. He leaves the Marines in November and wants to go to the University of Massachusetts, close to where he was reared.
"I graduated high school in '97, so it's been awhile since I've taken any kind of class," he said during a break from geometry. "There's a lot of things I didn't learn in high school that I learned here."
The larger problem
It could be difficult to replicate the Marines' progress among a population of 18-year-old college freshmen. The Marines have a lot riding on the program because it could mean the difference between a food-service job or a position as an aircraft mechanic. They compete for slots in the class, and they're released from duty to concentrate on their studies.
Bowles got a look at the Coastal Carolina program a few months ago and told his staff to study it.
The idea is not totally new. A dozen UNC campuses already offer summer programs aimed at incoming freshmen who may struggle academically. The students take a few classes and get accustomed to college life. But the so-called bridge programs are expensive and serve a limited number of students. At about half the campuses, students must pay for the experience -- which can cost about $2,000 -- and give up summer jobs. That shuts out the population who may need it most.
Such preparatory programs are designed in part to help open doors to first-generation college students, said Bobby Kanoy, a senior associate vice president for the UNC system. "It's not that they can't do the work," he said, "it's that they haven't had someone in their support system to prepare them for what's coming."
Bowles is expected to ask the legislature for more money next year to expand the summer programs or create new ones. Such an effort could help reduce the need for remedial programs at UNC campuses, which spent $2 million on them in 2003-2004, according to the most recent data available.
It's a problem that's much larger than universities want to admit, said Dave Spence, president of the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit organization that pushes for educational improvements in 16 southern states.
"Every state has a 60 to 70 percent problem of students being unready," he said.
But a summer crash course may be too little, too late to overcome students' deficiencies and the uneven quality of North Carolina high schools, some say.
"The best predictor of success in college is a rigorous high school curriculum," said David Haney, associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at Appalachian State University. "And parent income. Those are things we don't have a whole lot of control over. I think it's a myth that our programmatic interventions are going to make huge gains."
Colleges have some obligation to help their students catch up, but Spence said the emphasis should not be on remedial courses.
More important, he said, states must do more to make sure students graduate high school prepared. That means universities and community colleges should set clear standards about what it takes to be ready for college and communicate them, in one voice, to high schools.
"If you don't do that, it's hard to go to step two," Spence said.
Staff writer Jane Stancill can be reached at 956-2464 or janes@newsobserver.com.
Ellie