Leaders at Monroe Community College say their next generation of students will be different than the last. The college brought in speakers from around the country to its Brighton campus on Wednesday. The focus for the day-long forum was how community colleges must adapt to their changing student base.
MCC’s Chief Diversity Officer Calvin Gantt is one of the event organizers. Gantt says community college students are increasingly diverse.
“We need to be prepared to change our pedagogical mindsets in terms of how we were trained as individuals in terms of education and our professional life so that we’re more inclusive of the populations that this college is designed to serve,” said Gantt.
Gantt says the MCC students of today and tomorrow are older, more of them are parents and are Black and Hispanic. He says the college should welcome the change. Gantt says a more inclusive environment will make more students more comfortable, and that environment pays off.
“We don’t want students to just come here to just take courses,” said Gantt. “We want the students to actually gain not only knowledge but to gain the degree that they started out wanting to seek.”
Gantt says that everyone involved in a campus has a role to play when it comes to making students equity and inclusion. He says that’s why the day’s slogan is what educators do and say matters.
“In order for us to be able to serve the community we need to understand how every single discipline works and interfaces with the overall community in Rochester,” said Gantt.
