Daily Lumina News 051023

Twenty-eight-year-old Blessing Henderson is about halfway through an associate degree in culinary arts and business at Cincinnati State. She takes a full-time course load and balances school with a part-time job and being a single mom.
But despite juggling all those commitments, Henderson is on track to finish her degree in two years, a feat that less than 20 percent of community college students manage in the United States. She says a big reason is because of a program called CState Accelerate.

Researchers have long known that belonging is vital to student success—in school and in life. But in the past, many college leaders viewed belonging as outside of their responsibility, or perhaps beyond their influence.
That mindset is changing. Three experts offer their thoughts on building the capacity for belonging on college campuses.

Every year, Lexi Geampa has to be verified as an unaccompanied homeless youth in order to receive federal financial aid because she doesn’t have parents to support her. The process is frustrating, she says.
The new Free Application for Federal Student Aid form aims to provide some relief. Among other changes, students will have to answer one question instead of the current three about their status, and they won’t have to recertify their status every year. Advocates are hoping the changes will open doors for students and boost retention.

As many students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities see it, recent actions by Republican politicians across the country diminish the plight of Black Americans, which directly affects HBCUs.
If it becomes illegal for colleges to promote diversity and inclusion, the students wonder, what consequences might that bring for Black institutions?

Inequity in workforce programming has been historically difficult to address for community colleges trying to meet labor market demands. Even a concentration on placing Black and Latino students into high-demand jobs is not much use when those opportunities sit at the lower end of the wage scale.
Some colleges are now launching bilingual cohort programs or intentional ecosystems of access and equity, a series of big swings meant to guide underserved populations into lucrative employment.

The Harvard College Debating Union wanted a rematch. The team had suffered a hard loss in 2015 to a group of talented debaters, drawing international attention.
It turned out their opponents—inmates from the Bard Prison Initiative—also wanted another contest after hearing stories about the legendary debate when their predecessors beat the mighty Ivy. Both teams got their wish last week.