Overview

Mott Community College serves just over 12,000 students at multiple campuses in Flint and the surrounding county, providing quality higher education and job training opportunities in an area struggling with tremendous economic challenges. As a hub for area partnerships that bolster student learning and job training, Mott is the true embodiment of a “community” college. Attentive to local labor markets, Mott makes sure that its training programs provide graduates with the skills needed for real job opportunities. The college’s recent graduates are employed at high rates— especially impressive given the area’s high unemployment—and earn more than the average in the region. Mott’s concerted campus-based efforts in recent years, including a revamped, efficient delivery of student services, have steadily improved graduation rates, ensuring that increasing numbers of students will gain access to the strong opportunities Mott graduates enjoy.

A welcome that works

If you walked into the building that housed student services at Mott Community College three years ago, you would have encountered line after line after line. You would have had to guess whom you needed to see, and in what order. There was a good chance you’d had left unsatisfied.

All that has changed since the Flint, Mich., college determined that the path to success for its 12,000 students—their customers—begins at their first contact with the school. “We don’t want students to be unsuccessful in the enrollment process, because then they never get to the classroom,” said Troy Boquette, dean of enrollment management and retention.

Now, at Mott’s newly remodeled Prahl College Center, it’s impossible to get lost. A knowledgeable front desk attendant tells students which office they need to visit for their specific needs and gives them a number. Televisions throughout the building post wait times for each service—the registrar, advising, financial aid, and so on—and students pass the time not in hot, cramped lines but in comfortable armchairs and at tables. A bank of computers allows students to attempt online registration with an attendant waiting to help.

Issues are addressed efficiently; a worker who can’t solve a student’s problem immediately finds the person who can. “It’s quick,” said LaShanda Jackson, 27, a criminal justice student. “You’re not going to leave with any unanswered questions.”

Visits to the building’s career resource center have increased to 24,000 from 2,000 five years ago. The overloaded financial aid office was completely revamped, so that students coming in for help are assisted by dedicated customer service specialists, not employees swamped putting together aid packages. Waits that once lasted five hours during the busy season are now down to 45 minutes at most; months-long delays for aid packages have been reduced to no more than two weeks. Phone calls that once would have been answered, sometimes inconsistently, by student workers in various offices are now handled by a call center of trained employees.

Advising, too, has been reformed, so that professors wanting to advise have to apply for the privilege and go through training. Students have to see an advisor before registering. Dante Dunn, 28, neglected all the help offered to him the first time he enrolled at Mott, nine years ago. “You could get away with that back then,” he said. He dropped out. This time around, he went through a mandatory orientation, talks to his advisor five or six times a semester, and is well on his way to earning a business management degree.

The community’s ‘gem’

By just about any measure—from the unemployment rate to the violent crime rate—Flint is a troubled city. Mott’s beautiful campus is a safe haven for students who, at home, hear gunfire throughout the night. Its importance to the community, though, goes far deeper. 

The college has positioned itself as a training hub in a city raised on the now-obsolete notion that anyone can move right from high school into a high-paying job building cars. Mott customizes programs for local businesses and nonprofits, and workers who participate are treated like any other student, advised and encouraged to complete a credential. “The workforce development projects that Mott has been involved in have really been critical in getting populations who otherwise wouldn’t have looked to further their education,” said Michael Freeman, program director at the Center for Community Progress, which redevelops vacant properties with Mott’s help.

The quality of life in Flint is core to Mott’s mission, which is why it takes on projects that other colleges might deem outside their purview. The school, which is effective at seeking out and winning grants, helps community organizations do the same. It runs several technology centers throughout the area where impoverished and disabled residents can learn to use computers and participate in online tutorials for job skills. A new digital fabrication lab on campus allows any local inventor or business to design and build prototypes for their products on state-of-the-art equipment.

“The town gets such a bad name that it’s important for Mott to be this gem in the middle of what has happened to this city,” said Benjamin Corcoran, 30, a political science student. Flint, he said, “is not all bad. We’re here. Look at us.”

Stepping stones to success

All community colleges struggle with students dropping out or stopping out—most leaving with the intention, however vague, of coming back. At Mott, where students’ needs are so great, the problem was particularly intense. Three years ago, the college took stock and asked this defining question, according to Amy Fugate, vice president for academic affairs: “How could we build successes along the way for these students so that associates degree might not seem so far away?”

Faculty in career programs were asked to work with their advisory boards to build in certificates halfway to associate degrees. The college acknowledges the fact that many of its students need jobs now. So the certificates had to have actual value in the labor market, paving the way for entry-level employment or more. The information technology department introduced credentials for working at computer help desk and maintaining network security. Accounting built in a tax preparation certificate. Electronics students can get a one-year robotics credential.

Mott has increased the number of credentials it awards 18 percent over the last five years. Certificates in hand, however, some students want to leave school short of their associate degrees to work. In some departments, innovative class schedules—including intensified eight-week courses—enable students to keep moving toward an associate degree while employed. A new system automatically notifies students nearing completion what courses, exactly, will get them their degree.

The certificates, which typically are granted at 30 of the 62 hours required for an associate degree, have motivated students previously unsure they would ever complete school. “The ones that graduate with the 30 hours are so excited that they graduate, and now we’re seeing them come back and keep going for the associate’s,” Fugate said. “The certificate convinced them they can.” In a challenged city, Mott’s ability to provide students that kind of hope—by not just meeting them where they are at, but working relentlessly to lift them higher—is no small accomplishment.