A Visit with Columbia College Chicago's Multi-Faceted English Department
Chicago, IL ' In addition to offering both a bachelor's degree and a master of fine arts degree in poetry, and a wide range of literature and writing courses, Columbia College Chicago's Department of English and its 125 full-and part-time faculty are engaged daily in serving students who, in today's educational jargon, are 'underprepared' for college-level academic work.
There are a significant number of such students at Columbia, an institution that prides itself on a mission grounded in a progressive social agenda ' a mission of 'access and opportunity' that actively recruits a 'diverse' student body with a high percentage of first-generation college students, and admission standards that are aggressively 'generous.'
Columbia holds to this historic mission despite recent demographic shifts in enrollment that suggest the school is becoming the 'college of choice' for students from across the country; students who could have gone to 'elite' and 'selective' schools, but chose Columbia because of the quality of its programs, its faculty, its urban location, and its gritty edge that celebrates difference and encourages individuality.
'The school has no higher priority than to maintain our position as the most racially, ethnically diverse arts and media college in the country,' says Murphy Monroe, executive director of admissions. 'Because there is, overall, an inseparable relationship between race, economics and opportunity in this country, a high proportion of these students require additional supports and services to succeed academically at the college level. The folks in our English department are 'on the ground' working with students to help ensure that they don't just get into college, but that they graduate.'
The Bridge Progam: Making the Transition to the Culture of College
The first step in Columbia's retention efforts begin before the seriously 'at risk' student is even admitted to their freshman year. The Bridge Program is designed for students who meet a set of baseline criteria including low high school grade point average, low family income, and being 'first generation college.' They are granted conditional admission to the college after agreeing to enroll in the intensive multi-week course. Bridge students work with English faculty on basic literacy skills in reading and writing as well as verbal communications and study skills. Students must successfully complete the program before being granted full admission and enrolling in classes.
'Remediation in reading, writing [and math through the science and math department] is only part of the program,' explains Dr. Kilian McCurrie, director of literacy. 'It is also intended to acculturate these students ' all of whom are first-generation college ' to the culture of college. That includes critical thinking, study skills and an honest understanding of expectations at this level; types of assignments, workloads, the importance of class participation.'
'They want rigor. They want the real deal, nothing sugar-coated,' agrees Dr. Amy Hawkins, a full-time faculty member and Director of Composition. Hawkins works with other faculty to help ensure that all aspects of the Columbia's Literacy Program work together to best serve students' needs.
The Literacy Program: Honing the Skills Necessary for Successful Communications
Part of the challenge in working with students at the lower end of the academic ladder is getting them to believe that they are good thinkers. Students from the Bridge program may continue on to courses offered through the college's Literacy Program: Introduction to College Reading, Introduction to College Writing, College Reading and Enhanced Composition I and II. These programs, also available to underprepared students who were not participants in the pre-admission Bridge program, are geared for students whose diagnostic assessment scores indicate that their reading and/or writing skills are not at a college level. The courses offer a smaller class size and increased teacher contact while covering the same curriculum as the regular classes required of all Columbia students.
'These students need confidence and more personal contact,' says McCurrie. 'They may have attended high schools where not much in the way of critical reading or analytical writing was required -- or they simply lack confidence. In addition to the enhanced student/teacher ratio, students in the program are required to meet with a Writing Center consultant once a week for one-on-one instruction.'
'While admissions standards may be 'generous', once you're enrolled at Columbia, we do demand a solid level of academic performance from our student,' explains Dr. Kathy Giles, a full-time faculty member who coordinates the Reading Program. 'Columbia is a degree-granting institution. Dance majors are required to study the history of dance; theater majors study dramatic literature; and of course everyone is required to take a broad range of courses in humanities, social science, math and science. Columbia graduates have a solid, well rounded liberal arts education and you can't achieve that without the basics in place.'
Giles, who holds a master's degree as a reading specialist and a doctorate in elementary education, uses a range of teaching techniques, including arts integration, to work with developmental reading students. During the course of the semester, students learn fifteen reading strategies and critical thinking skills including higher order cognitive skills such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation of both non-fiction and fiction texts. There are written assignments every week and assignments that employ Columbia students' natural creativity.
This term, one project for Introduction to College Reading involves reading The House on Mango Street and then creating a model neighborhood with a creative non-fiction narrative based on the student's own life experience. Students must also document, using photos and text, the process they employed to create the project. The documentation aspect utilizes organizational and analytical skills.
'The course is not a skate,' says Giles. 'The students' commitment to succeed must be strong, there is a lot of work, a lot of investment on their part. However, the pay-back is actually having a much better chance of successfully completing your college education.'
The Writing Center: Two Decades of Individual Attention
Established in 1987, the Writing Center has grown to a 15,000 square foot facility that employs more than 70 consultants and last spring served nearly 1,000 students 'those who are required to use the center's services and students who voluntarily seek out assistance in order to hone their writing skills.
'To succeed in the world it is absolutely necessary to possess clear and persuasive writing skills,' explains the center's new Director, Elizabeth Kadlec. 'We're not just tutoring in a prescriptive or corrective way, not just for essay tests and term papers. The center strives to support the development of students' writing at all levels.' In today's society visual and performing artists, along with all other professionals, need strong writing skills. Whether for artistic expression, basic marketing, business correspondence or for those all-important grant applications ' this literacy is essential.
The 'community of writers' who populate the center on any given afternoon or evening are working on anything from building their basic grammar and punctuation knowledge to honing their organizational facility or fine-tuning work in a specific genre such as screenwriting, newswriting, or even poetry. They might meet with a peer tutor, a faculty member or one of a number of specialists who work with specific learning disabilities or assist students whose first language is not English.
In fact, one of the growing client segments for the Writing Center is the ESL (English as a Second Language) population at Columbia. 'These students may have extremely high literacy in their native language,' says English professor and ESL program Director Suzanne Blum Malley, 'but often need assistance in developing communications skills, both verbal and written, in English.' The ESL program at Columbia offers a range of classes to answer those needs.
English As A Second Language: Serving Two Distinct Groups of Students
The ELS Program at Columbia is designed to assist international and resident alien students with home/heritage languages other than English in honing their written and verbal English communication skills. Students are placed in ESL courses based on their TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores and COMPASS Diagnostic Tests. Credit-bearing, college-level courses include ESL-specific Introduction to College Writing, English Composition I and II, two levels of Reading courses and a Basic Public Speaking Class.
In addition to these classes, the school offers a Summer Intensive English Language Institute (SIELI). This eight-week, 176-hour non-credit program provides both English language and cultural instruction in a small group setting and is geared for individuals with both business and academic objectives. More information on the SIELI program can be found at http://english.colum.edu/esl/sieli.html.
While those who enter Columbia as international students are identified by TOEFL score and made aware of ESL support offerings, there is another demographic that the concerned faculty would like to reach out to and assist. 'These students fall into what has been termed 'generation 1.5,'' says Blum Malley. 'At Columbia we have a significant number of students who may be first or second generation immigrants and who hail from home and early school environments in which English is not the first language. Many of these students arrive in the U.S. with their families as older children, middle school or later, and they often fall through the cracks of our educational system ' not fully developing their literacy skills in any language by the time they leave high school. We are actively seeking ways to identify these students and provide the enhanced services they require for academic success.'
New Initiatives and New Faces
Columbia recently received a U.S. Department of Education Title III Award earmarked for retention efforts. Some of the $1.8 million will be used to improve the educational services the college offers to students needing assistance to succeed at college-level work. Over the five-year period of the grant, Columbia will be examining and evaluating current programs and creating new ones.
'Things are really on the move here,' says new English department chairman, Kenneth Daley, 'the vitality and the sense of mission were major factors in my decision to come to Columbia.'
Daley left his post as chair of the English department at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio to head up the efforts at Columbia. Some colleagues question why, with a Ph.D. in 19th-century British Literature, he would leave an institution like Ohio, where the programs more closely mirror his area of academic inquiry.
'I have not abandoned my interest, or pursuit of knowledge, in the literature of the Victorian era,' laughs the author of The Rescue of Romanticism: Walter Pater and John Ruskin (Ohio UP, 2001). 'However, there is a sense of adventure and a passion at Columbia that is contagious. My passion for Pre-Raphaelite poetry and painting does not preclude a dedication to diversity, civic engagement, community outreach programs and interdisciplinary learning. Columbia is an incubator of arts and culture for the twenty-first century and I am thrilled to be working with this creative community.'
One of the innovative initiatives that Daley is particularly enthused about is the new Student Advocate program. Monitoring class attendance and performance in a range of English department Literacy courses, two graduate students in the MFA poetry program identify and contact students to offer one-on-one peer triage. The at-risk students have the opportunity to talk through their concerns and needs with their Student Advocate, who reviews, and often refers the student to, the range of available student support services such as the Writing Center and Counseling Center. Student Advocates also help link students to faculty for additional tutorial assistance or academic guidance. 'Our bottom line is to do everything we can to ensure success,' says Daley. 'We approach this work with both commitment and compassion. Sometimes the student just needs a vote of confidence that will let them know they're good enough and that they can succeed.'
To visit Columbia's English Department online, go to http://english.colum.edu
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