Students at the Margins - Day Three - “Build Your Own Table”

Search

Loading...

News

Latest News

Oct 14, 2014
by Louise Hallman
Students at the Margins - Day Three - “Build Your Own Table”

Access is one thing, but students also need to thrive once they're at college

Panelists Michael Sorrell, Hong Pu and Zena Richards with session chair, Marybeth Gasman

Affirmative action might help marginalized students gain access to higher education, but how can higher education institutions ensure they thrive once there? In a panel covering the US, South Africa and China, administrators shared their own colleges and universities’ success stories.

In South Africa, the University of Witwatersrand’s Student Equity and Talent Management Unit helps  high achieving but marginalized high school students make the successful transition to higher education by targeting them before they arrive at the university. The program simulates what the higher education experience will be like for them. The resilience these students come to college with is not enough, support is vital. With no prior knowledge within their family or communities of the higher education system, students do not know how or where to ask for help; the Wits project helps mitigate against this. 

Yunnan province in South West China, where Quijing Normal University is based, is taking a “top-down-meets-bottom-up” approach in helping its marginalized students. 

Top-down, the local government is implementing policies such as different kinds of financial support, boarding school for those from rural areas, affirmative action enrolment policies for disadvantaged students, locally contextualized teacher training, and bilingual education.

Bottom-up, the university has launched work programs, from farming to green energy. The purpose is to incorporate student voices and determination in how they are assisted, whilst for the students the initiative addressed  not only work prospect but also developed a sense of community and self.

Paul Quinn College in Texas, USA also has a work program which incorporates farming, to help fund students’ tuition and address the Dallas food desert problem. The college is very involved with the local community and the students’ families: “We’re all in this together!” remarked Sorrell. 

Besides community, language is vital to success at Paul Quinn. “We don’t refer to our students as marginalized – they’re just our students,” explained college president, Michael Sorrell. And rather than bringing the margins to the table, “I teach my kids to build their own table.”