Washington Monthly - September/October 2015 - 47

erated by students (who are paid for their work), and the resulting produce is sold to local grocers and restaurants, used at the college, or donated to local charities. Students aren't just picking vegetables-they're working on the business end, too, getting paid professional experience with a service twist. It's all part of Sorrell's vision for what he calls the "New Urban College Model"-a work school that emphasizes local businesses rather than manual labor (like at rural counterparts). Paul Quinn students work the first two years on campus, then are placed at businesses around Dallas for the next two. They get part of their paycheck, and the other part goes toward their tuition. Sorrell cut that tuition from $23,800 to $14,275, and he says that between students' work, Pell Grants, and other state and federal funds, the average student only takes on $2,300 in loans a year. While the logistics are specific to the Dallas area, he doesn't think that means other schools can't follow his lead. "When I designed this model, I designed it for replication," he said. "Schools can do this. Schools should do this. And schools should address the issues of the communities they serve." Courtesy of Valencia College; Courtesy of University of Central Florida; Courtesy of City Colleges of Chicago JOHN HITT University of Central Florida Hitt took over his post in 1992 and proceeded to grow UCF into the country's second-largest university, topping 60,000 students in 2012, while greatly increasing minority representation on campus (and doing a better job graduating those students). UCF placed eighty-seventh in our rankings this year, which is impressive when you consider that it was 193rd back in 2006, the first year our lists included it. One large part of this success is DirectConnect, a program that guarantees admission into UCF for students who earn an associate's degree from one of five partner colleges (including Valencia College, whose president, Sandy John Hitt Shugart, is also on this list). There are counseling and other programs specifically set up to ease DirectConnect students' transitions into the university, and partner schools work with UCF to make it easy for students to transfer credits and continue their studies. SANDY SHUGART Valencia College As a community college president, Shugart's challenges are very different from those of most of the others listed here. In addition to working with John Hitt to create DirectConnect in 2005, Shugart overhauled Valencia's offerings in order to concentrate heavily on students' first wave of classes, which tend to be the ones that determine wheth- er they'll stick with their degree programs-typically a big challenge for open-enrollment schools. "What we wanted to accomplish was to recapture the first two weeks of instruction, which [was used before] to hand out syllabuses and send them home-because Lord knows who will be in the class next week," Shugart told National Journal. "So we said to the faculty, 'If we do this for you, will you make the first minute of the first meeting of the first class a learning minute?' " Students at Valencia set up a graduation plan their first semester on campus, meeting Sandy Shugart with faculty and taking highenrollment "gateway courses." The results have won some high-profile accolades-Valencia received the $600,000 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence in 2011, and Shugart has been highlighted as a "champion of change" by President Obama. CHERYL HYMAN City Colleges of Chicago Hyman did not mince words when she took over the seven-community-college system in 2010, introducing a program called "Reinvention." The system had a graduation rate of 7 percent, compared to a 20.6 percent national average for community colleges, according to Crain's Chicago Business. Hyman pushed a laser focus on job training, partnering with local businesses and creating highly specialized curricula meant to get students into the workforce. She partnered with Mayor Rahm Emanuel the next year to create specialized programs in the schools' sprawling campuses- a health care focus at Malcolm X College, transportation at Olive-Harvey-putting students through remedial classes faster and getting them realworld experience. The change Cheryl Hyman hasn't come without controversy (which is to be expected from any city program Emanuel has had a hand in overhauling), and some observers worry that Hyman is abandoning a key part of the schools' mission in concentrating on getting students out of school and into companies. But the graduation rate has nearly doubled, and early returns on student retention are also promising. Surpassing that national average is the next step-Hyman's 2013 five-year plan calls for at least a 20 percent graduation rate by 2018. Matt Connolly is an editor of the Washington Monthly. Washington Monthly 47

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2015