Jessica Nestell 12/18/11 Capstone Professor Myles Whitney MCLA Student Guide Project At the beginning of the class

Marie and I decided to work together on our leadership capstone project, as we worked towards figuring out what type of project we wanted to do. Through the course work of the class we learned that the project needed to be something that would help the overall population of the community we were targeting. From the beginning we decided that we wanted to stay on campus because of our intense class schedule and also a project that would allow us to work on our own schedule even if that meant working late at night. It did not take us long to come up with a topic, as the beginning of the semester was plagued with confusion due to the extensive construction on campus we found that students did not know what was going on, specifically Non-Traditional students and commuter students since they did not reside on campus. Starting from there Marie and I began searching for a way to help these students, we also decided to include transfer students in to the mix as well; as Marie had been a transfer student she explained to me how difficult it was for her to transition in because of the lack of attention given to transfer students. We ultimately decided to create a guide for these students (commuters, Non-Traditional, and Transfer) because they seem to have trouble getting the information that resident traditional students get from Residential Programs and Services. After we decided we wanted to create something for that population we began the search for a collaborator as well as someone to give us some direction as to how to actually go about doing such a thing. With me having an internship at Advising Services I naturally went to discuss this with Deb Foss first. As I explained the idea for some sort of guide Deb

loved it and suggested that we seek the help of Jenn Craig who oversees commuter services which includes many non-traditional students. Deb also expressed approval and gave me some of the examples of situations people call advising services with because they have no idea where else to turn or call. The first meeting with Jenn Craig went very well as we explained to her what we wanted to do she immediately gave us her approval and agreed to be our collaborator for the project. Jenn fully agreed that there was a significant need for more comprehensive help for the commuters, nontraditional students, and transfers and liked our idea of creating a guide. The meeting established a variety of things, for one we would update the current commuter student pamphlet that Jenn gives out at open houses, we would create a survey to figure out what specific information these groups need the most, and then the ultimate project a student guide. After beginning the project we discovered through word of mouth, that there is a significant problem with the way that information gets ok to students on campus and that most students did not realize exactly where to go when they needed help. This was noticed numerous times throughout my internship in advising as students would come to advising with all their needs and advising had to send them to the appropriate office. Marie also had similar situations with her internship in career services. Not only would students come to the wrong office but when she would be discussing her internship students were always surprised at the amount of services the office provided. Following these realizations it was determined that the guide would be available for all students and would not focus on just commuters, non-traditional students, and transfers. More collaboration with Jenn Craig, Marie and I decided that we would change the name of the intended guide to MCLA Student Guide. The MCLA Student Guide would be set up similarly to the MCLA Help Directory in that it would be alphabetical with detailed descriptions of every office on campus, the director of the

departments name and phone number, as well as the hours and location of the department. The description would be a small paragraph about the department and then bullet lists if applicable of the services that the department provides. In order to come up with the most useful guide we chose to create a survey that could act as an inventory of campus knowledge. The survey would also allow us to see which offices on campus needed to be focused on by telling us what offices the students surveyed knew the least about. In collaboration with Jenn Craig we came up with a list of students to send the survey to. Since the surveys were created early on we sent them to commuters, non-traditional, and transfer students as at that point that was the intended audience of our guide. The survey had a question for every office on campus excluding academic departments. We chose not to include academic departments because it would make the survey very long and also students do not really need to know much about the academic offices outside of their department. Each question asked the student either if they knew if a service was provided on campus (they could answer yes or no; all services on the survey are provided on campus). Or asked the students if they knew where to go if they were looking for help/information about a certain service; the student then indicated if they did or not by selecting yes or no. To collect the information needed for the guide Marie and I decided to break the offices in half and then go about getting the information separately. To do this we created a list of the different offices on campus and then went taking turns picking which offices we wanted to do. We felt that this would be the best way to divide the offices because based on our different experiences at MCLA we knew some offices better than others and it is easier to do the work for an office we already know a lot about. The final project listed the offices on campus in alphabetical order with their location, hours, phone number, and directors name; followed by a description of what that office did/provided. We

then had an alphabetical list of the academic departments where we provided the location, directors name, and phone number. We chose to separate the academic offices because we did not think it made sense to treat the academic offices in the same way. For example the office hours for the director would change every semester so we felt it best to omit that information because we would not want outdated information to go out to the students. For my research I chose to focus on Non-Traditional students needs and the colleges and universities failure to address these needs. I chose Non-Traditional students as my focus when we still assumed that our project would be focused on commuters, non-traditional students, and transfers. In order to sufficiently research the topic of Non-Traditional students needs I need to first understand what exactly it meant to be a non-traditional student. According to a study by Judith K. Litterat (1990) the definition of non-traditional students are those over age 25 who enter college later in life after work, military, or family obligations. This basic definition seems to be universal despite other studies wanting a more inclusive definition. An article from Change describes a non-traditional student as a student where higher education is not the central feature of their lives, but just one of a multiplicity of activities in which they are engaged every day. Having a definition that does not include an age minimum includes non-traditional students that could have been over looked The main difference between traditional and non-traditional students comes from the motivations of these students as traditional students often enter college as a way of growing up and finding themselves and what they want to do; non-traditional students enter college as a means of bettering their lives. Most non-traditional students are seeking better employment opportunities to better provide for their families Taylor, J., & House, B. (2010). Understanding the differences between traditional and non-traditional students is central to understanding the differences in responsibilities and societal expectations of the different types of

college students. This is specifically true when you consider Mothers who choose to go back to college this is noted by Elyse Ashburn in an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education a 22-yearold single parent who works and attends college full time is just as much an adult and at risk of dropping out, as is a 40-yearold professional attending college part time. With the responsibilities of children the risk of dropping out of college goes up as children are unpredictable specifically when it comes to injury and sickness as children cannot be left alone to take care of themselves. An article titled the Exploration of Good Mother Stereotypes in the College Environment describes the societal view of women going back to college after having children. The stereotype is typical given the double standard of women being involved in society while raising children. It is unfortunate that despite all the achievements women as a whole have made towards equality in all sectors that there is still such a double standard when in comes towards women juggling careers and family. For example the mothers who return to school at 6 months were rated as more cold hearted and more arrogant-calculating. It is found that non-traditional students who are on the outside of campus life are more likely to drop out. As found in a study by Gilardi S., & Guglielmetti C. (2011) those who appear to be more at risk are those who remain on the outskirts of university life in terms of social relationships, that is those who have never engaged in interaction with the members of the community, despite having sassumed formally appropriate behavior (such as attending lectures). There are many reasons as why some nontraditional students may find themselves on the outside of the campus community. College and Universities can do a lot to help alleviate the difficulties of being a non-traditional student. Some support could be given to financial aid one study found that Most financial-aid programs are designed with full-time students who are recent high-school graduates in mind. (Ashburn, Elyse 2007). Colleges and Universities also need to pay more attention to what exactly non-traditional

students seek from their institutions. Arthur Levine stated in his 1993 article that the relationship these students want with their collee is like the one they already have with their banks, supermarkets, and the other organizations they patronize. They want education to be nearby and to operate during convenient hours preferably around the clock. Levine also goes about describing exactly how institutions could work to fix this easy accessible parking, short lines, and polite and efficient personnel and services. If the institutions could provide their services outside of the 9-5 standard work day non-traditional students with fulltime jobs would be much more likely to stay in their degree program because they would be able to get the support they needed. The project created by Marie and I created will help all the students at MCLA as it created a concise document that offered students summaries of all the offices. Instead of having to try and figure out a way to search on the website they can go to our guide and find the office they need to contact for whatever service they may need. This guide will also be extremely helpful to non-traditional students as they are often left out of the loop when information is spread around campus. The guide will give them the support of showing them what office to go to.