Spending the Summer at a California Community College.

Abstract

Introduction The label coined by Hagedorn and Castro (in press) designates the growing subset of non-traditional students who regularly attend four-year baccalaureate but elect to attend a community college during the summer. Typically, the summer credits are transferred back to the four-year institution and applied toward degree progress. Although many researchers include summer sessioners under the broad rubric of reverse students (Townsend, 1999), they are a unique genre characterized by distinctive goals whose first allegiance naturally belongs to their four-year institution. Like migratory birds, they are predictable seasonal visitors at virtually all community colleges. Yet, despite growing numbers, summer sessioners have remained an understudied group. Thus, our present knowledge does not allow us to answer the following important questions: * What attracts summer sessioners to the community college? * What are their course enrollment patterns? * Is the purpose of enrollment dependent on course type (for example, are the purposes for enrolling in a hard science different from those for courses in the fine arts)? * Do course-taking patterns differ by gender or ethnicity? *How can community colleges best serve summer sessioners? While providing preliminary answers to these posed questions, the present study considers how summer sessioners fit into the mission of community colleges and recommends policy to better serve them without compromising the quality or accessibility of education provided to the community college's regular student population. Review of the Literature In a recently published monograph about reverse students, Townsend and Dever (1999) describe the summer sessioner student as a subset of reverse transfer, or temporary reverse transfers who take courses that back to their four-year institutions (p.9). They cite the failure of studies to distinguish between summer sessioners and other forms of reverse students who attend community colleges during the regular academic year. A study in Oregon further dissected the reverse definition by identifying as an opportunity group those students who periodically attend the community college to supplement their coursework and credits (Bach, Banks, Blanchard, Kinnick, & Stoering, 1999). Thus, the evidence indicates that our general, and limited, knowledge base of reverse students may not apply to the summer sessioners. Townsend and Dever note that educational leaders, the general public, as well as state policy makers lack understanding about reverse students, especially summer sessioners (1999). They voiced concern over possibly serious impacts of reverse students on institutional funding and accountability. In particular they noted that two-year college leaders must address the implications of reverse students upon their original mission of serving students not served by other institutions (Townsend & Dever, 1999). Administrators and policy makers may have good reasons to practice caution and to take steps to prevent reverse enrollments from displacing regularly enrolled students who are more likely to be economically or disadvantaged. On the other hand, Townsend and Lambert (1999) relate the benefits of integrating reverse students. They cite their ability to positively affect classroom dynamics as well as provide informal tutoring and academic advising and stimulate and challenge faculty academically (p. 73). Similar to other types of reverse students, summer sessioners do not conform to the vertical design high school to community college to four-year university. Rather, they are aptly described by the picturesque phrase transfer swirl (de los Santos & Wright, 1990). …