Womens Centers at Community Colleges: Building Bridges for Nontraditional Students

Higher educational institutions in this country are struggling with a variety of pressures including demands for accountability, student success, and fiscal responsibilities. The open-door policies of community colleges mean these issues are sometimes more difficult to confront. As the enrollment trends shift more nontraditional student populations are growing, and community colleges are often the choice for these students. This has sparked increased research on nontraditional student population groups. Among the groups that have become a focus of research are nontraditional adult students who may have interrupted their educational paths. These reentry students may return to school for a number of reasons, but it is often to improve their employment situations. Women sometimes return to school after life altering events such as divorce or job loss, and community colleges are a draw for these students because they are more affordable, more conveniently located, and offer a variety of programs and certificates. However, the very reasons nontraditional adult women return to school create some specific barriers for their success. Built on a foundation of the best practices, programs, and resources currently offered by Illinois community colleges, this model describes the components of a comprehensive women's center that a community college could provide as a centralized support site for this growing population. The goal of this work is for community colleges to consider establishing a women's center to further the institutional mission and culture of inclusion, create a source of advocacy for equality, and address academic and social concerns facing these students. Although every college must adjust such an endeavor to their specific institutional mission, vision, and goals, this model also proposes an approach for implementing the center.