The Crisis in Leadership - Priority Students and Learners
Creating positive community and social change is a tough and demanding job. It requires growing knowledge, analytic and strategic skills, values, hope and resilience. It also requires "people skills" and practical experience in listening, understanding and motivating vulnerable people and moving them into action designed to lead to growing success.
It is a tremendously challenging – and exciting – responsibility, at least as complex as any other profession. Like other professions, it requires extensive preparation, well beyond what most people have an opportunity to learn unless they are supervised and trained on the job by an expert organizer or linked to a serious educational program, with directly relevant courses, mentoring and guidance.
Next gen leaders and organizersTo address its most serious issues of race, poverty, divisiveness and a weakened democracy, the U.S. needs growing numbers of young people from low-income and working class backgrounds, new immigrants and families of color. They are in demand for the challenging jobs of leading and strengthening the community-based groups, other nonprofits and public agencies which are pursuing social reforms and a rejuvenation of our democracy.
Their backgrounds give them unique advantages for understanding and leading communities like their own. They have felt the same pressures and barriers, often creating a passion for changing things for the better. Their backgrounds help them build strong relationships in communities like their own and to identify issues and understandings disenfranchised people share, while also serving as role models for them. Their backgrounds make it likely they'll make long-term rather than fleeting commitments to the neighborhoods and people most needing help. Young people are stepping forward and taking leadership in many communities. We need to build systems to help them gain the knowledge and skills which will enable them to bring about the changes local people see as essential. They need ready access to directly relevant courses, on-the-job experience, adequate income, and the academic Certificates and Degrees they'll need for upward mobility. 
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Adult-Focused and Mid-career education
Equally important is the need for greatly expanded “mid-career” education for current community leaders and mid-career staff in nonprofits and public agencies. They need opportunities to further develop their knowledge, skills, and vision for change leadership and organizing on social justice issues. Many also need academic credentials to advance in their careers.
Many community colleges and universities offer experienced people a great benefit -- a process of giving academic credit for college-level knowledge and skills people have gained through work or life experience including work on community issues or projects. This process of Prior Learning Assessment, or PLA, is invaluable. Adult learners are often more interested in learning from individual courses which enable them to develop knowledge, skills and credentials directly relevant to their job or leadership responsibilities. Community colleges and some universities offer such courses for credit / Students then can, if they wish, gradually accumulate enough credits for a Certificate or Degree. From the point of view of colleges and academics trying to expand enrollment, reaching out to adult learners can be of critical importance in filling their classrooms and increasing tuition income, while also advancing the welfare of their communities.
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Educational Pathway with Stackable Credentials
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Chart on Recruiting Priority Students
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Chart on Recruiting from College and High School
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Chart on Recruiting from the community using Prior Learning Assessment
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Student Support and Success - Resources
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Importance of Peer Support
Several examples of innovations in creating systems of peer support |
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Counseling and Mentoring
Importance of increasing academic counseling; model programs |
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Student Financial Support
Expert analysis of the financial crises facing Pell eligible students and potential remedies and major reforms |
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Lumina Study: College Costs and Prices
Facts and authoritative analysis of that crisis |
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Community Work Study -- Report from US House of Representatives
Expression of official concern about serious problems in the federal Work Study program and reforms needed |
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Recruiting Youth Leaders -- An Emerging System Involving the Community
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Why Major in Community Leadership and Organizing?
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Student Recruitment: Shelia Balque
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