Beliefs Confirmed: Leaders Who Truly Care About Student Parent Success

Guest post by Dylan Tzung, 2024 Communications Intern

As editor of the investigations unit for the University of California, Los Angeles’s student newspaper, I work alongside a small team of reporters dedicated to holding the university’s many departments, programs, and initiatives accountable to the needs of the student body. Through our reporting, we uplift the experiences and grievances of students whose stories are too often disregarded or passed over.

I believe our work is instrumental in inspiring much needed institutional change. And, although our investigations do not always produce immediate policy or program changes, I have long chosen to believe that leaders in institutions of higher education are listening to their students and taking their concerns seriously.

In July, when I had the opportunity to attend Ascend’s Postsecondary Leadership Circle Activation Fund Midpoint Convening at Montgomery College – a chance to see higher education leaders in action – I hoped for my belief to be confirmed. I wanted to know for sure that positive change is in motion in institutions of higher education.

What I saw and heard far exceeded my expectations. I walked away from the convening with a sense of certainty — certainty that there are at least some leaders in higher education who are not only listening but truly care about supporting their students.

The convening brought together representatives from Ascend’s four Postsecondary Leadership Circle Activation Fund (PLCAF) partners – El Paso Community College (El Paso, Texas), Long Beach City College (Long Beach, California), Los Angeles Valley College (Valley Glen, California), and Montgomery College (Montgomery County, Maryland) – to engage with one another and guest experts on how best to advance student parent persistence and attainment.

Through this capacity-building fund, all four community college partners receive $75,000 in grant funding for student parent support initiatives, as well as regular expert technical assistance and collaboration opportunities to learn from one another and a wider community of practice.

With more than four million student parents enrolled in postsecondary programs, and almost half of all U.S. student parents enrolled in a community college, the PLCAF is a key strategy for the Ascend’s Postsecondary Success for Parents (PSP) initiative, which has, since its inception in 2018, become an instrumental force driving forward a national effort to better support student parents.

Emboldened by a rich body of research which supports postsecondary success for student parents as an avenue to uplift families for generations to come, the PLCAF recognizes that community colleges are well positioned to elevate student parent outcomes and aims to advance systemic, measurable, and sustainable strategies which will provide student parents with greater access and success in reaching their educational goals.

Throughout each one of the very intentionally and thoughtfully planned panels, presentations, discussions, and activities, vibrant ideas sparked from person to person and table to table. Not only were the attendees receptive listeners, taking in the innovative ideas and solutions presented by their peers, but also active participants, constantly asking difficult questions, sharing learnings from their own experiences, and considering how to bring the ideas back to their own campuses.

To see, in the attendees, such enthusiasm, optimism, and true passion, gave more purpose to the work that I do as both a journalist and a student at UCLA — I know that people like them are listening and will do whatever they can to support all the students they serve.

Ann Reynolds, the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools (CCAMPIS) advisor at Mount Wachusett Community College, gave voice to the true character of the people in the room when she said, “I am a bleeding heart. I never say no. I like to say yes whenever I can.”

Panelists, experts, and community college representatives touched on a wide range of topics throughout the two-day conference.

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Centering Lived Experience in Policy and Practice

To kick things off, three student parents shared an intimate view of their unique challenges and concerns in institutions of higher education with a vibrant gathering of community college representatives.

As each shared the ups and downs of their postsecondary journeys, a powerful theme emerged from their diverse experiences — student parent success in higher education brings multigenerational benefits for the whole family.

Lesli Calderon, a recent graduate of Long Beach City College, has seen her own success and courage blossom in her 13-year-old son.

“Going back to college has not only changed me, it has changed my son as well,” she said. “Everything that I have learned, I have adopted, I have changed in me, I have been able to trickle down to my son.”

Also on day one, the attendees heard from Marina Abrahamyan, a student parent alumna of Glendale Community College and graduate of the University of Southern California, and her daughter, Natali Movsesya, a high-achieving 8th grade student. Their powerful story uplifted the challenges and triumphs they experienced during Marina’s postsecondary journey.

Natali described her mother’s college years as a “difficult period” for both of them, with daily homework imposing significant limitations on Marina’s availability. However, she also expressed great pride in her mother’s accomplishments.

“It was a heartfelt moment for me to see her walk down the stage with a diploma,” Natali said.

Hearing directly from the daughter of a student parent brought full circle the words shared earlier in the day by Melissa Almaraz, a student parent at Los Angeles Valley College.

The mother of two young, energetic boys, she said that it was heartbreaking to hear her 7-year-old say, “I don’t want you to go back to school,” when she first got into LAVC’s nursing program. However, she proudly voiced that through her return to school, he “gets to see what perseverance looks like.”

“The most important thing for me is that he sees that he does have the right to take up space,” Melissa added. “He does belong. He is welcome in any setting.”

Implementing Family-Friendly Policy and Practice

Also on day one, Ja’Bette Lozupone, PhD, the director of student affairs at Montgomery College, detailed the college’s successful transition from a family neutral to a family friendly institution.

Pinpointing technical assistance from both Ascend and Generation Hope as an instrumental factor advancing the transition, Ja’Bette said many of the strategies the college used were derived directly from the Family Friendly Campus Toolkit, which was highlighted in Ascend’s 2023 publication, “Tapping the Talent of Student Parents: A Playbook for Postsecondary Leaders.”

This Playbook synthesizes learnings from Ascend’s Postsecondary Leadership Circle, an initiative that preceded the PLCAF. A group of 20 college and university leaders who are spearheading innovative, family-friendly strategies on their campuses participated in the Leadership Circle. To help illuminate a path forward for other institutions, participants shared the successes and lessons learned in implementing their promising strategies and approaches for supporting student parents.

Initially, Ja’Bette said their goals were relatively straightforward — to identify, collect, and track student parent data, to create a student parent resource center, and to center and amplify student parent voices. But, bolstered by funding from both Generation Hope’s FamilyU program and Ascend’s PLCAF, leaders at Montgomery College rapidly accelerated their efforts, bringing in many new resources such as high chairs in the cafeteria and holding diaper and formula drives. They are now working toward a data collection system which will have students identify their parenting status on a semesterly basis, she added.

On the second day, Michelle Brennan and Ann Reynolds, a dynamic duo who lead student parent efforts at their respective colleges, Quinsigamond Community College and Mount Wachusett Community College, similarly charted the successful implementation of their own innovative, family-friendly program — Child Watch.

Housed within each campus’ Family Resource Center, this unique approach for providing free and flexible on-campus child care offers student parents a supervised space to leave their child or children for a few hours while they are in class or otherwise academically preoccupied. However, Child Watch differs from more traditional child care centers, in that they are not licensed for diaper changing, feeding, potty training, or other similar child care services.

As an alternative, the work study staff at Child Watch simply call the parent back to the center when their child needs something that falls outside the scope of the program’s offerings. Although they may not address every need that can come up throughout the day, Ann and Michelle said Child Watch provides the children with quality time, engaging them in a wide variety of activities and educational games. Both Ann and Michelle say Child Watch is continuing to grow and evolve, and they are proud to know that every Child Watch center that has opened in the last few years has needed to expand because student parents truly love the service.

Engaging Faculty to Empower Parenting Students

The conclusion of the first day demonstrated the inclusive nature of the conversation, spotlighting the experiences and perspectives of faculty — whose voices are often missing from discussions about student parent achievement.

During a panel discussion moderated by Jennifer Pocai, the senior program manager for Ascend’s Postsecondary Success for Parents initiative, faculty spoke about the need for greater awareness of Title IX protections for pregnant and parenting students, exchanging ideas for how to increase faculty understanding and engagement in supporting parenting students.

James Hodge, an adjunct professor at Montgomery College, spoke to why some faculty may be hesitant to allow for the greater flexibility that student parents often need, citing concerns about the potential academic impact and an increased workload for professors as the primary barriers.

However, he wants other faculty to understand that “when you open the classroom to be more inclusive, it doesn’t just benefit student parents, it benefits all students.”

With the goal of greater inclusivity in mind, Montgomery College is developing a training curriculum to increase faculty and staff’s knowledge of Title IX protections and to expand their understanding of how best to support student parents.

But, the discussion revealed that a central challenge remains unsolved — how can institutions build a culture that prioritizes training related to pregnant and parenting students?

According to Jessica Leveto, an associate professor at Kent State University, the change must come from the top.

“Until leadership says, ‘Hey, you better pay attention’ nothing is going to change.”

Leveraging Learnings

The second half of the day was all about brainstorming, goal setting, and implementation. Ascend asked the community college representatives to not only reflect on the core themes and ideas from the many panels and discussions, but to also take those ideas and think about how to apply them in the context of their own schools.

As part of their partnership with the PLCAF, each of the four colleges were required to identify, plan and implement two strategies to support student parent persistence and attainment. To close out a successful two days of robust idea-sharing, Ascend separated the four schools into breakout groups and paired them with guest experts who have successfully implemented supports that align closely with their plans.

In these more intimate settings, each team’s brainpower and innovation truly flourished as they continued to revise their logic models – maps of the inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes for each of their two strategies – and all four teams walked away with specific guidance for how to implement their strategies.

Throughout the two-day conference, each of the four colleges demonstrated their unwavering dedication to the needs of parenting students, truly embodying the words of Suzette Spencer, the director of library and information services at Montgomery College.

She said, “We are the community’s school.”