byColleen Connolly

Jun 12, 2024 | workshift.opencampusmedia.org | Colleen Connolly |byElisa Villanueva Beard |Michael Crow |byColleen Connolly

For decades, education reform focused on getting more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into college, and then on actually getting them through. More recently though, there’s been a growing recognition that even graduating may not be enough to land an upwardly-mobile job. And a key stumbling block is poor social capital—the networks of people who can expose students to a wide range of careers and help connect them to opportunities. Sheila Sarem’s career has followed this arc of understanding.

May 29, 2024 | workshift.opencampusmedia.org | Colleen Connolly |byColleen Connolly

A decade ago, only about 150 high school students in the Houston-area Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District were taking dual credit courses with the local community college. The students were typically high achievers en route to four-year institutions and looking to get ahead on college courses and perhaps save some tuition money.

May 7, 2024 | workshift.opencampusmedia.org | Colleen Connolly |byColleen Connolly

For more than 10 years, John Blackwood tried to convince his employer — Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon — to let him create an artificial intelligence program. The answer was always no. Funds were tight, and Blackwood assumed the college wasn’t yet aware of how big AI would soon become. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, everything changed rapidly.