Malcolm X College’s Model for Removing Barriers to Student Success

David Sanders is the President of Malcolm X College and recently participated in an exclusive panel interview with Kaplan’s university partners, sharing his insights on leveling the playing field for student success and enhancing career readiness. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.

Tell us about Malcolm X College and what makes your student community unique.

President David Sanders: Malcolm X College serves as the largest community college in the city of Chicago, and is also the Center of Excellence in Healthcare Education for City Colleges of Chicago. Each of our colleges have a career track that they are focused on and ours is healthcare. We have a diverse student population of approximately 15,000 and growing, and we also serve as one of the seven City Colleges of Chicago, which is recognized as one of the engines of socioeconomic uplift of the communities of Chicago. Our students come from every ward in the city, with various backgrounds and experiences.

Student success can have a lot of different definitions depending on your lens. How do you define what true student success looks like and how are you building that into your core priorities?

President David Sanders: At Malcolm X College, we focus on driving towards what specifically we can do to get student engagement and an understanding of who they are—their identity, their power, the power of their voice. Many students come and go through our academic programs and earn their credentials, but they still have some deficits in going into new venues they've never been in before. They may be thinking, “I'm going to a corporate environment. How do I operate in that environment? How does my voice count?” We’re thinking about what we need to do to ensure that students are prepared to navigate these new environments.

Out of all the programs that we have, mentoring has really been a tremendous program that has helped us to reverse trends. In fact, African American males actually led our enrollment for the last year because of mentoring. They finally felt like we saw them and that we understood where they were coming from, their perspective. They felt that people really were defining them by their actions, and behaviors, and attitudes towards African American males. We stepped in to say, “Hey, let's define who you really are.”

As part of our mentoring programs, we started a study abroad program and took them back to the continent of Africa. But we also used a service to look at their DNA and marry the activities in the continent with the tribes they came from, and it was amazing. Then they come back and they realize that, “I know who I am. I know the power that resides in me, and I can do anything.”

You recently launched Kaplan’s All Access License

Brittany Wampler, Kaplan: For context, the All Access License was created several years ago as a result of Kaplan wanting to work with their partners in new and profound ways to address student success and the barriers that they experience. Ultimately, one of the state legislators in the State of Illinois heard about the program and started learning more. This began conversations across the legislature about putting together the Prepare for Illinois’ Future Program.

The program creates the opportunity for students to take industry-leading test preparation for admissions exams, licensure, credentials, and skills-development programs to enhance a student's skills to complete their undergraduate education or be more confident once they enter the workforce. They get all of those resources and test-prep opportunities for free. And this is available across 17 campus partners, including all 12 of the Illinois public four-year institutions as well as a pilot with 5 community colleges. This means 200,000+ students now get these resources free to them. Illinois is changing the game in how we give students access to what they need to be successful when they enter the workforce.

» Related News: Illinois Student Assistance Commission and Kaplan Announce Free Test Prep Courses

President David Sanders: This program really fit in with what we were trying to do. What we found is many of our students were dropping out because their life circumstances were hitting them before they could get to the degree. So one of the things that we had started already were certificate programs. And that was explosive growth for us because it was addressing the student need prior to a life event occurring. They could get the credential, and then, if they need to leave, they could get back in the workforce, and then they could come back. This opens that door all the way. It gives us tremendous opportunities to give them a pathway to get to a credential.

But the other thing is that we found that experiential learning and test prep were absolutely essential to student success. Without that you're not preparing the student for that licensure exam, and that to us was the litmus test on success. It wasn't that they passed the course or they went through the program. It's the fact that they could go to the state licensure and pass that test. This program gives them the opportunity to do that and at no cost. It's amazing. So that's exactly what we want.

What we do is we listen to our students, and we had to really look at what it is that they need. We've been working on this in a thousand different ways, and what you're doing is removing the barriers. Every student has some barriers and some of them they're able to move themselves past the barriers and some of them they can't move. They don't have the wherewithal. They don't have the ability. We have to move those barriers so that we can get them to success. And that's what this is all about—getting them to success. It removes barriers so they can get to that success.

Response from students after launching the All Access License program in Illinois has been remarkable. What kind of feedback have you received on the impact this has on their lives?

President David Sanders: Our students are excited. Malcolm X students tend to drive towards the support that we provide because they need it. They're often first-generation; they come from diverse backgrounds; 85% of our students have financial aid. So they really need those supports and those structures. They need that help. I'm sure that you're going to see some explosive growth coming in the student enrollment numbers as they take advantage of it in the summer and in the fall sessions. I'm really excited about it.

I talk to the students all the time, we walk through and make sure that they're aware of everything that's going on. We have a number of different communication vehicles that we use to get that information out, and they're going to be running to it, because this is all about them. And as I said, it's removing those barriers. It's giving students an opportunity to showcase that they're great. You know, people say, “Yeah, you went to a community college,” (often with a negative stereotype) and students say, “Yeah, okay, I'll show you.” I love that because the students are saying that we believe in ourselves because we (as in Malcolm X College) believe in them. I think that's a component that comes out and I'm looking forward to it.

When we think about implementing new initiatives such as this, do you have advice on how to get key departments on campus on board? How do you approach building collaboration?

President David Sanders: When we launched this program, we brought Kaplan into our college and had them address all of our stakeholders. Then we began to drive it down into our separate spheres. We brought it to our academic council and to student services. You have to talk to people several times to get this acculturated, and that's what we wanted. Then we went through our student groups, such as our Student Government Association, and our Phi Theta Kappa, which is our honor students. We brought it to all of them and our student activities to make sure that at every level of the institution, they would be able to see this, touch it, know that it's there, and they can get to it.

We're also making sure that we have early adopters in each of those spheres, because people need you to explain it to them, because there needs to be somebody there to say, “Hey this is a good thing, you need to do that.” Sometimes they'll hear that from me, but if they hear it from another student, then they'll say, “Yeah, this is a great thing, go ahead and do it.” And so you need to get that going in every aspect. And that's how you make sure that it's successful and penetrates all the groups.

» Related News: Fast Company Names Kaplan’s All Access License as a Winner in Its 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards

Career readiness is a central conversation in higher education right now. Beyond offering the All Access License to your students to help make them work ready, what other innovative programs are you implementing in the student experience at Malcolm X College?

President David Sanders: We have a career planning placement center here that really has wrapped all of this into it. We have Malcolm's Closet to provide clothing for students. We have opportunities for them to do their professional photo—we have a photo booth where they can go in there and get those things done. We do resume writing and mock interviews with them. All of that is a part of a future plan where we're going to have a job center, and this program fits in with all of that. We're going to open up the college to the community, the entire city of Chicago for you to come in and get jobs.

To us, this is what it's all about. We do two things really well. We get people to jobs and we transfer them to a four year university. That's what we do and we’ve got to continue doing that. And we have to do it at scale. We have to make sure that everybody knows that they are going to get a quality credential and that they have an opportunity to get into the workforce.

Remove barriers to student success with Kaplan’s All Access License.