Ageneration ago, community colleges were viewed as the unappealing stepchild of higher education. The perception was that students enrolled in community college as a consolation prize for failing to get into a four-year college because of lackluster grades or because they weren’t quite ready for the prime-time glare of “traditional” colleges or universities. Community colleges were codependent partners of four-year institutions. That was then, but to paraphrase an old song, “baby, look at them now.”
Like the character in “Dirty Dancing,” today’s community college is nobody’s baby and refuses to be put in a corner. Beginning with the explosion of tuition costs, the slashing of state aid to schools and the culminating in the financial crisis of 2008, community colleges have had to assume the independent role of turning out trained professionals directly into the workplace. They have turned crisis into growth opportunity. Community colleges can still be a bridge to a four-year degree, but they have reinvented themselves to be so much more.
According to Walter G. Bumphus, Ph.D., president and CEO the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), community colleges have always been focused, to some degree, on fulfilling the workforce needs of society. “A uniquely American concept, community colleges were started as a way to train women to enter the workforce as teachers. You could say that early community colleges were the first vocational schools,” Bumphus said. “The beauty of the community college is its ability to evolve in support of its community. As the country and world evolved, so did the needs of its citizens. Many vocational programs that were traditionally taught in high schools some 40 years ago, are now taught at community colleges. These programs offer sophisticated, relevant, and accredited workforce education.”
And as community colleges have expanded their mandate as the workforce training ground of today and trained the nurses, firefighters, police officers and dental hygienists, as well as chefs, fashion designers, business owners, transfer students, welders, plumbers and marine biologists etc. that society needs, they have also developed the programs and capacities to be more inclusive and diverse than their four-year counterparts. Bumphus continued, “Today’s community colleges are as diverse as the students they serve. More than 1,100 community colleges across the nation serve more than 12-million students annually. By design, community colleges are local and reflect the needs of the community in which they reside. Nearly every congressional district in the United States has a community college. The students that attend are the most diverse within the higher education sector and many are the first in their family to attend college. Community college students on average are older, are working, are attending school part-time, and are saving thousands of dollars in tuition and fees while increasing their lifetime earning potential and employability.”
There’s a good reason why community colleges have the edge in embracing inclusiveness on a grander scale than four-year schools. That’s because four-year schools have exclusively built into their DNA and have a harder time balancing their reputation for promoting the image of having a certain academic pedigree of students (ie: top of the class, near perfect SAT scores, etc.) and still promote inclusiveness and diversity as part of their mission. It clears the lane for community colleges to come up with innovative programs to service potential students once thought to have the doors of higher education closed to them.
Much has been written about the older student, working student and the financial, as well as the job training, benefits of going to community colleges. Little has been said about the way in which community college admissions is addressing the needs of nontraditional students, particularly those on the autistic spectrum. Under the radar in the admission process is the growing number of autistic students (because of improved detection and targeted education intervention) who are capable of pursuing higher education and are doing so.
As “The Journal of College Student Development” reported in its article, “College experiences for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Personal identity, public disclosure, and institutional support:” “Each year, roughly 49,000 individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) complete high school. Approximately 16,000 of those students will subsequently pursue higher education). Rates of Autism diagnoses in children have risen dramatically in recent years with rates rising fastest among individuals ages 14–17 and those who have average or better cognitive abilities, many who have expectations for access to and success in postsecondary education.” The conclusion the report stated was that “‘between 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent of college students could meet criteria’ for ASD.”
Increasingly in the Hispanic student population, this student demographic is getting larger every year. According to a Center for Disease Control release issued last year, “About 1 in 59 eight-year-old children in 11 communities across the United States were identified as having autism as of 2014, according the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summary. The latest estimate of 1.7 percent (1 in 59) is higher than the previous ADDM estimate released in 2016, which found a prevalence of 1.5 percent or 1 in 68 children. Some of the change in prevalence could be due to improved autism identification in minority populations—although autism is still more likely to be identified in white children than in black or Hispanic children.
“Autism prevalence among black and Hispanic children is approaching that of white children,” said Stuart Shapira, M.D., Ph.D., associate director for science at CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “The higher number of black and Hispanic children now being identified with autism could be due to more effective outreach in minority communities and increased efforts to have all children screened for autism so they can get the services they need.”
Last fall, RespectAbility, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that fights stigmas and advances opportunities for people with disabilities, made possible by the Coca-Cola Foundation, with additional support from the New York Women’s Foundation launched a toolkit geared toward helping Latinx students with disabilities to succeed in academia and beyond.
“There is a vast talent in Latinx kids with disabilities, we just need to unleash it,” said Vincenzo Piscopo, community and stakeholder relations director of The Coca-Cola Foundation. “When we ensure that Latinx kids with disabilities have access to the same opportunities as everybody else, they not only win but society as a whole wins.”
The mere existence of this initiative directly speaks to the 128,023 Latinx students with autism, and community colleges are listening. Bucks County Community College (Bucks) is offering a transition program for students with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who are college-ready and capable. The AACHIEVE! Program (An Autism College High School Innovation for Educational and Vocational Excellence) is modeled on the PDE/BSE partnership with the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) Autism Support Initiative for Success Program.
The AACHIEVE! Program’s mission is to support the goals of the student by assisting in connecting to their strengths, turning challenges into learning opportunities and finding college resources needed to support the individual student through their academic and vocational journey. It aims to support students with transition planning upon entering the community college and the transition to a four-year institution. The ultimate goal is to complete college through degree completion and to find employment.
This all sounds positive, but like everything else in life, it’s complicated. Today’s college students are locked into their computer and handheld devices screens to complete their classwork. In the article, “Virtual Autism May Explain Explosive Rise” in ASD Diagnoses by Marilyn Wedge for the Mad in America Foundation, cites “clinical case studies that found many young children who spend too much screen time—on TVs, video games, tablets, and computers—have symptoms labeled ‘autism.’ When parents take away the screens for a few months the child’s symptoms disappear. The term for this phenomenon is ‘virtual autism’ [the term was coined by Romanian clinical psychologist Dr. Marius Zamfir] or autism induced by electronic screens.” The standard treatment for autism in Romania is screen removal.
If this theory has merit in partially explaining why in 1975, one in 5,000 children were diagnosed with autism, and in 2014, one in 68 children were diagnosed with autism, what implication does that have for an increased exposure to screen time for young adults attending college worsen symptoms or erode therapeutic improvement?
Wedge notes that the difference between 1975 and 2005 when autism diagnoses went from one in 5,000 to one in 500 can be traced to the digital revolution. Of course, improved treatment and diagnostic tools and the creation of an autism spectrum chart that measures a wide range of autistic conditions could mean the increase in numbers is merely a reflection of the fact that more children are recognized are having some form of autism and are no longer being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
Wedge cites evidence that countries that have not experienced the digital revolution “have not experienced exponential increases in autism diagnoses” despite new techniques and treatments. Dr. Anne-Lise Ducanda, a French doctor with expertise in child development, noted that “after her ‘autistic’ patients spent a month in Africa, without screens, came back with no symptoms.” She contends, “If screens are removed from some children with an autistic diagnosis, the child’s brain development can return to normal.”
It is doubtful that screen time will prevent schools from welcoming and adjusting to the autistic students looking to enter the world of higher education and contribute to societal good. It’s just another challenge that colleges, particularly community colleges, must solve as they reexamine their identity and mission.
In “The rapidly changing nature of community college” American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers by Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant vice-provost for Research in Undergraduate Education at The Ohio State University, (who along with coauthors Thomas Bailey and Davis Jenkins, have written the book “Redesigning America's Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success,” (Harvard University Press, 2015) Jaggers explained, “Historically community colleges in particular—but some four-year colleges as well—were designed in a kind of ‘cafeteria style.’ They originated with the purpose of creating access to a variety of courses and student support services. The goal wasn’t necessarily graduation with a degree per se.”
She goes on to say, “Now, though, the focus has expanded from access and enrollment to include student success and completion. That shift has required many community colleges to reinvent their philosophies, processes, staffing, infrastructure and more.”
Career training and inclusiveness are the keys to the continued success of relevance of community colleges, and they have the flexibility to improve and grow. •
Sometimes art reflects life, and sometimes life reflects art. Ryan Knight, who has cerebral palsy, released a story last year the fellows blog series Hollywood Inclusion about how a television series taught him the value of an inclusive workplace for autistic workers and others with disabilities. Here is his story “Individuals with Autism Overcome Challenges in the Workplace,” for Hollywood Inclusion and the organization, RespectAbility:
“I watched Lauren struggle at work. She had poor social skills. She talked obsessively about roller coasters and her siblings’ engagements and subsequent weddings. She had trouble understanding other people’s emotions. She didn’t look at you when you spoke to her. She was very sensitive to loud noises; she had to be warned of fire drills and left the area ahead of everyone else. She had trouble expressing what she needed. She flapped her hands when she struggled to articulate what she was trying to say. Her sense of touch was poor; she couldn’t tell when clothes were damp or dry. Most distressing, she rarely received credit for her hard work; only her mistakes were recognized and never forgotten. She was treated unfairly. She was too smart for her own good. She had been a laundry aide for nine years. Lauren has Asperger’s syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). She overcame adversity by trying her best and being herself.”
“I thought that because I have a disability and had family members who have disabilities, that I understood all disabilities. That is not true. I did not understand why Lauren was making inappropriate comments, not listening to understand what I was trying to say and making my day harder than it needed to be sometimes. I did not know why she was behaving the way she did. I would not understand any of her behaviors until I watched ABC’s ‘The Good Doctor’ and I saw Freddie Highmore’s Dr. Shaun Murphy behave in the same manner.”
“Highmore plays Dr. Murphy, a surgical resident with Asperger’s syndrome and savant syndrome, who works at St. Bonaventure Hospital. In the beginning, Dr. Andrews, chief of surgery, and Dr. Melendez, head surgeon, especially doubt Murphy’s abilities to be a good surgeon because he is diagnosed with autism. Meanwhile, Dr. Aaron Glassman, the hospital’s president who has known Murphy since he was 14, is his only advocate fighting for Murphy’s right to work at the hospital.”
“‘We hire him because he is qualified and because he is different. We hire Shaun and we give hope to those people with limitations that those limitations are not what they think they are, that they do have a shot. We hire Shaun and we make the hospital better for it. We hire Shaun and we are better people for it,’ Glassman pleads with the board of directors.”
“Even after seeing him save a young boy’s life in the airport on TV, the staff still doubts his ability to be a good doctor because of his autism. Because of his savant syndrome, Murphy has almost perfect recall and can see things that others cannot. This enables him to navigate through surgeries he stands in on. It also enables him to save a young girl with a heart condition and almost dies because of a lucrative diagnosis that the surgeons miss. Despite the staff’s prejudices against him, Murphy stands strong and proves he will make an excellent doctor, not despite of, but because of his autism.”
“Like Lauren, Murphy does not make eye contact with anyone, has trouble communicating and is treated unfairly among the hospital staff. Where she did not pay attention, Murphy’s attention to detail is impeccable, so much so that it annoys Melendez so he gives him ‘scut work’ to do, or work that no one else wants to do. Murphy follows directions he is given but he follows his gut instincts when he needs to when it concerns a patient.”
“One in 59 children are diagnosed with autism every year, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include having difficulty in social situations, communication issues, avoiding eye contact and talking obsessively about a subject that interests them.”
“I have spastic cerebral palsy and watching ‘The Good Doctor’ helped me learn about other disabilities. Like Lauren, I sometimes have trouble communicating. I did not know how to approach Lauren in the best way. I never realized how much I did not know about my own community until I got more into it.”
“Murphy and Lauren prove that people with autism, and all disabilities, have the ability and motivation to work. Hiring people with disabilities is important because it creates a diverse workplace that not only adds to the morale of the company, but also leads to more opportunities for the employees.” •
Sources: Walter G. Bumphus, Ph.D., President and CEO the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC); “The Journal of College Student Development,” College Experiences for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Personal identity, public disclosure, and institutional support by Cox, B. E., Thompson, K., Anderson, A., Mintz, A., Locks, T. Morgan, L., Edelstein, J., & Wolz, A. (2017); Center for Disease Control 2018 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summary; “Individuals with Autism Overcome Challenges in the Workplace,” by Ryan Knight for the Fellows Blog Series for RespectAbility, a nonprofit, nonpartisan made possible by the Coca-Cola Foundation, with additional support from the New York Women’s Foundation; PR Newswire; American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers; Bucks County Community College, AACHIEVE! Program; “The rapidly changing nature of community college,” for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers; Harvard University Press, 2015, “Redesigning America's Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success”
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