Episode 150 Creating Impactful Community Projects: The College Unbound Method Part 2

Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Yan. In this episode, you will hear part two of my conversation with Jose Rodriguez, Assistant Vice President of Community and Belonging at College Unbound. More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Now, you actually mentioned it. You know, a little while ago, you, Community is in your title. Your official title is Assistant Vice President of Community and Belonging. Can you tell me a little bit about what that means? What do you, so what do you do at College Unbound? Uh, so, Community and Belonging. Um, so, I mentioned that we're growing. And a lot of what happens with growth is that you lose those core values that matter most to the, to the school.

So you mentioned The Met and big picture as a whole, uh, big picture learning as a whole. So I'm going to take a page from them in that it does not matter what state you go to. If you walk into a big picture school. It feels the same. So whether it's The Met in Providence, The Met in Newport, or Met, uh, in San Diego. It feels the exact same. Teachers, uh, instructors are teaching in the same manner. Kids feel the same. Kids are empowered.

That's the same thing that I'm trying to mirror here at the college level, no matter where we are, um, whether virtually, on the ground, uh, Seattle, Chicago, does not matter where we are, you're going to get that same feeling, that feeling of belonging, that, oh, I can be my authentic self in this space because no one's going to judge me. If anything, people are just gonna encourage me more.

People are gonna, you know, that old takes a village mentality is gonna come into play and people are just gonna show up for me whenever I need them. That's what I'm hoping to mirror, regardless of where we're at.

Now, so. Just, I want to provide a little context for folks. The big picture learning that was started by Dennis Littky, who's also started, you know, College Unbound, um, this time with Adam Bush, um, the big picture learning started, you know, back another couple more decades, I want to say. And, but at this point they started at a humble location in Providence, downtown.

Um, and then, um, It, it was successful enough that it, the model has been, has been reproduced in all these different cities. I think there are, last I remember counting was somewhere in the 150 to 200 locations worldwide, not just in the United States, but worldwide. Correct. Um, and, and many, many thousands of students and, and, um.

Extremely successful and other, you know, one of those magical place where, you know, have extremely high graduation rate and college attendee rates, attending, you know, attendance rates, um, as is a really massive, massive, huge success. And you had already talked about. College Unbound already in number of cities and that's one of the things that you are trying to maintain, which is this culture, you know, that you have created so successfully at the Providence location.

But there's something more to me also about this, these locations in, in my, You know, in my circle of, um, higher education friends and, and colleagues, when they're thinking about a new location, we're talking new campuses, new, new, new dormitories, new cafeterias, new gym, new swimming pools, um, right? And, uh, new football stadiums.

Research labs at College Unbound, you do some, you do this very, very differently and in a way that you can, you know, I, I think that a lot of it passes, you know, is has a lot to do with how, um. Many traditional college, we think of the way to almost like budget and fund a college requires all those, all the brick and many, many, many bricks and mortar in order to build that experience. But college has done things really, really smart. You want to talk a little bit about that?

You know, the partnership that you have with various, you know, organizations and so on.

So, and that, that is also part of the community and belonging work, right? Making sure that we're aligning ourselves with organizations that, uh, mirror, or that are identical in mission and vision, right? Uh, so some of the earlier partnerships were with, um, the Nonviolence Institute in Providence, the, uh, the United Way. Um, and the reason why is, you know, they, these places had a population of folks who worked. Boots on the ground, doing tons of work and didn't have a college degree.

The second part of that is that they had the space, they have conference rooms, they have, you know, offices that aren't being used. So because CU's model lends itself to being able to teach wherever there is a need, if you have a conference room, we can come in and, you know, that then becomes college inbound, we don't have a building, uh, and I don't think that Ever intended to have buildings. I think that the motto is that we will always teach in community.

So wherever learning is happening, that's where we're going to be. And that also helps with keeping costs down to the student, right? We're not, we're not thinking about the having to cover the overhead of all these massive brick and mortars. Uh, so yeah. That the savings then does, uh, show up in what a student pays. Also, with the utilizing these community spaces, it also are places where folks are already familiar with. Um, so there's a level of comfortability that comes with that.

So, more eager and more willing to participate because it's already a place that they've determined to be a safe place for them. I remember having that conversation with Adam a number of years ago, and I remember him telling me that, Oh, yeah, we're talking to the housing authority in, um, I forget which city that he was talking to. And, and I said, Oh, well, what are you doing there? Are you going to build something in the housing authority?

And he was saying, No, no, no, no, we are going to partner because. These are going to be the, our students are going to be the ones who already live in these, you know, these, uh, these areas. So, instead of having to have the students even come to our campus, we go to them. I think that is so smart. It's so incredibly smart.

It's good for everyone because, you know, having just generally speaking, I mean, we just look at just simple numbers here, having one teacher or several teachers to go to a community instead of having a whole community of people come to your campus, it's just more efficient. It is. It is a level of efficiency, uh, to that. But again, I just have to lean on the fact that it also.

Uh, so, and people feeling safe, uh, particularly because most of our students have been harmed by education in some aspect before, right? So trying to undo that harm is making sure that the student feels safe. And if the place where they are is where they feel safe, having them go to another location so that we can say we have that location. To me, would just be silly, right? And sometimes impractical. Yep, exactly. Right.

If you can go to the United ways conference room, where they already had that, they, they, they're actually, they just finished their work over there. They can just do that. And versus having to go cross town somewhere, drive for 30 minutes. But. Find parking, you know, you know, that's, those are all things that really count. Don't you think? I think a lot of people drop out because of that. And those are things that are already proven not to work for the working adult.

Those are the things that make people quit. Uh, like, so I drove around for 35 minutes. I couldn't find parking. I'm already late. I'm just gonna miss this class. And you miss that one class. And then before you know it, it's two and three classes because the same thing keeps happening. And then again, once again, you walk away feeling defeated. But all of that could have been prevented if the school would adjust to the student as, and not expecting the student to adjust to the school.

And there are other things that you do too, like, I know that, I mean, again, we talked a little bit about the cost, you know, not having to maintain a building, the HVAC, the everything that goes with it, right? But you are able then to redirect your resources to doing things like. When you do have group meetups, you're going to provide food, you're going to provide childcare. Correct. I mean, that's an incredible.

Yeah. And the communal meal again, it's that trying to eliminate as many barriers as possible. So thinking about the learning, the working adult, I get out of work, I have to go, I got to go cook. Uh, for my kids. I gotta, if I'm gonna go to school, then I gotta bring my kids to the babysitter. So we're eliminating those two things. Bring your kids with you. We'll provide child care. Uh, don't cook, because we'll provide a meal.

So the only thing that you have to do on that day that you're supposed to be in class is just be present. Everything else is going to be taken care of for you. And I, again, community because the community, the communal meal is as important as any academics that you're going to get one, because it becomes a networking, uh, time and also. A time for people to share their, their lived experiences together. There is something incredible about that.

You know, the power of having all these people, like you said, your typical attendees have incredible lived experiences. I think that there is something. That people miss.

And I actually believe that this exists in all of community colleges as well, by the way, in that going to a four year college, a traditional age college, four years college, where everyone is the same age coming in with the same, very similar set of, you know, so the K 12 experiences straight from high school, you actually get a lot less diverse view of the world and perspectives. Just, Um, Right, because, you know, like, just by definition, they're all the same age.

They've none of them had had, you know, um, a mortgage yet. They don't have, you know, like, uh, it's, it's just a very, very similar sort of background going in. Um, versus I think that in certainly in, in College Unbound, you get an incredibly diverse, um, different backgrounds and skill sets and, and, and lived experience coming in. And, and just what you can learn from peers, I think it's already just absolutely incredible. I agree.

Do you think that College Unbound, or I don't know whether, you know, let, let's, let's do a little thought experiment. Could College Unbound be? Be possible for, you know, like, students are going to a more traditional college, like, age wise, let's say, you know, they're coming out of high school, they don't have all this life experience, they, they haven't had the, you know, like, I tried college couple times didn't work out. It's failed me. Right. Oh, I failed out of it. Whatever.

However you look at it. Um, they don't have that yet. They just coming out of high school. Do you think that College Unbound could work for or version of College Unbound could work for them? Yes. Um, we, when we existed, um, as a. as a program within other colleges. Unfortunately, we would get cut first because, you know, it was, it was a thing that was easily cut.

But yes, the same issues that some of our folks are, are dealing with as adults, our kids are dealing with, although they may not have the added responsibilities of paying a mortgage and things like that. They are experiencing, uh, for lack of better wording, sometimes imposter syndrome, where they don't feel like they belong. And nothing about, uh, at least my experience has been nothing about a traditional college is meant to make you feel like you belong unless you belong.

Like hard to explain it in that fashion. So you don't have the privilege to already belong there. Just don't get to, if you don't have the ticket, you're just not supposed to be there and that you know, no, no one will make it. Yeah. No one's, no one's just passing out extra tickets. It's either you got it or you don't. Uh, different than a place like CU where, you know, everyone is going to get the same treatment. Everyone's going to, going to get the same sense of belonging.

Um, I, so yes, can it work? Absolutely. It's just for colleges that are dealing specifically with that demographic, then they just, it's, it's a commitment that they have to take. And, you know, And provide, and to me, it's indicative of social services that, um, colleges should also be trying to help with.

Something about, um, this, I mean, I, I, I kind of feel a lot like, you know, Jose, like, it'll be like another 10 years goes by or 20 years goes by and we got to come back and I'm glad this is recorded, right? So then we can say like, oh yeah, back in 2004, we were on the ground floor of when we were just taking off.

Right, and then, uh, you know, um, and, and I, I just kind of see how, you know, these things about, you know, servicing the different types of populations, right, could potentially, you know, really scale up. But I also am thinking about the, the, um, the, the way that you.

Currently, I think at College Unbound, the, the alumni that I meet and people that, students that I meet are talking about the projects, it's almost 100 percent always surround themselves on social justice, something to do with the community, um, and I, I could see how, and the degree is in um, What was it again? It's in, uh, it's a bachelor's degree in leadership and organizational leadership and change, right, um, which is a perfect fit for, for what you're doing right now.

But I also feel like that there is a whole sense of. It potentially going into, Hey, if you want to study social work, sociology, like some, something else could be, could, could also be sprung by the same set of principles, um, that are probably closely related to your current degree. Offering. Do you see a, do you see a, see that in, in potential in the future of College Unbound? I think that the degree offering opens itself up to what our, our population of students are actually about.

Um, so working with a lot of non profits, uh, Particularly because those are the, those are the folks doing the work in the community means just that these are folks that are already driven by change, right? Um, and the piece of paper just gives them that validation that they now can say, Oh, I have a degree, but they're already change agents in their own right. Um, it's always interesting to see folks within an organization.

Start to feel valued simply because they start to talk about what they're learning in school and immediately start to talk to their peers about it and like how that just opens them up to the possibility of not just creating change in the community but also maybe I could run this organization or maybe I should just start my own. Yeah, the level of drive, like you said, It's so strong amongst your community, right?

That it's almost like, these are people who have incredible drives, but for some reason, someone says, put, you know, they've been doing it with both hands tied behind the back and, and College Unbound helps untie that. Yep, exactly. Right. And then they're, they're like, well, now I'm often to doing, you know, I could, I could be even more productive than before. I think that is really amazing and it's really amazing.

The other thing that I, I had found that is pretty amazing is that you are also not holding on to certain one single program and just sort of be like, this is it.

And I remember talking to Adam, and you tell me how this works, but that, for example, you might partner with an organization, let's take United Way, and that at some point, you might say, well, we've helped this entire group of people, this cohort of people now, that we will pause potentially for a little while and then we will come back later. We may help another use the redirect the resource to help another organization. So again, I think United Way is a good example of that.

So our local chapter of United Way, we graduated all the folks that they had who didn't have bachelor's degree. So then it's like we canno... Not that we can't go partner with them again, but we've already got all their, all their workers, uh, a degree. Will they do a big hire in the near future and HR immediately connect them to us because they know the value of their employees having the degree? Absolutely.

So it's, we're going to get, we're going to get through all these employees and then we'll go. Uh, we'll take a pause, uh, we'll wait a year, maybe a year and a half, go back and just restart the process all over. Um, what it does also, it helps a little bit of, um, anticipation build up for those folks who came on after that happened, because now they have something to look forward to.

But there's something also so incredible about that efficiency of you using your resources and going to the community. So you, you are there when they have the needs, as opposed to them coming, you know, you have a fixed place where they have to come to, right? Exactly. Because then that's, you can serve them so much better that way, and not having to, you know, find a building and commit to that for the next 25 years, right?

What are some of the things that If you were to, you know, I think there are a lot of, I think there, I would say there, I would love to hear your view on, you know, what you would say to a couple of different groups of people, couple of different audiences. I know there are listeners to this. One are the.

Currently, someone who's working, teaching at, let's say a college at a community college at a four year college, they might want to do changes to make things different for themselves, not necessarily to the level of starting their own school and creating a college unbound. They might want to, you know, do something in their own classes to, to take a, take a page out of what you've done. Something incredibly interesting and successful. What are some of your, uh, what would you say to them?

Listen to the student. I think that regardless of what age the student is, they usually have the answer. Uh, and sometimes we have to get out of our own way and allow the students to lead. Um, what is school about? Uh, because I also teach at CU, so part of the reason that it's cool to teach here is because I can adapt my curriculum, my syllabus to the student need. Um, so not being so rigid in that this is the only way it's going to work.

And if I don't do it this way, then I'm not going to provide you a good enough education. So I think that educators across the board could learn from that. In that it's not, it's not one size fits all, unfortunately. And there are some students that are, um, Not because they don't know how to do something or because they don't get the content, but may not be able to learn in the way in your particular teaching style. So have a little bit of movement in that, like allow yourself some flexibility.

Uh, so that when you do come across those students, don't discourage them by, uh, basically not teaching them the way that they need to be taught. Or I'll tell, I'll tell them that they're, they should not consider public speaking. Exactly. Right. And I think that there's a lot to be said about that. By the way, I, I love what you said, just listen to the students. And I also think that there is something about.

Something that I have constantly felt at College Unbound when I visited is that you do not ever for a moment underestimate your students. Absolutely not. Right. You believe that they can not only can they do it, they can do it as well as anyone in the world can. And if not better. Right. So it's, it's not a, You come here to work for me because I'm the, the head of this class. I get to say what you have to do and you just have to do it. It doesn't feel like that at all at College Unbound.

Like that doesn't exist. Um, second, I want to say that, um, so then let me ask you, and this is, um, I guess a part of. You know, probably something that you do all the time. What do you say to students, on the other hand, who are, um, you know, either could be looking for something like College Unbound, or are attending a school right now, and there's not College Unbound, and they're feeling a little bit stuck?

My one advice would be what I, what I wish that someone would have told me and that you are not the problem. The institution is, um, really, I would just start to learn how to advocate for, for, for self and look for, although that their College Unbound may not exist in that institution, there has to be someone within the institution with similar values. And it's a matter of identifying that person, you know, who.

Collaborating with that person on some advocating, uh, in order to move whatever it is that you're trying to get done forward. And do you... And for those who might be interested in learning more about College Unbound, what should they do? They should just come to your website or come visit? What should they do? I would always encourage folks to come visit, but our website is the best way to just learn a little bit more. Um, but also, uh, again, Community and Belonging is in my title.

So if you're looking to learn anything, all my information is on the website, including my cell phone number. Um, so I'm always willing and able to take calls, emails, whatever needs to happen in order to spread the word of what we do here at CU. It's amazing.

Well, um, Jose, thank you so, so much for sharing all of your insights. You are incredible. You're an inspiration. And I think that, um, it's also really, I think it's so smart of College Unbound to also hire their own alum because they are such an amazing, they are all people with amazing drives. And they, they are living examples of what could, what success could look like. Um, and, and it's, uh, it's a, it's a, it's truly a, um, uh, you know, a breath of fresh air in higher education.

Well, thank you for having this space. It's definitely a, a breath of fresh air just to be able to have a conversation about a place that I love and hold dear to my heart. Okay. All right. Well, um, I hope to, um, hear more of your success story and maybe in another 10 years, we'll see where, where, where, where things are. Um, and, uh, I, I have no doubt that it's going to be a massive success.

And it's one of those things that it's going to be successful in ways that people don't, don't realize, right. It's not going to be in some kind of weird ranking thing, right. It's not going to be in that, but it's going to be measured in metrics that are unusual to people. And, but once we see it and then we'll be like, wow. That's meaningful.

I think that's what College Unbound always just kind of strikes me as, you know, you're always looking for that metric that people have missed, looking for that value that people have missed. I agree. Uh, this is the kind of thing that they'll write stories about, they'll write movies about in the future. That's right. All right. Well, we'll see, we'll see who gets to play you, Jose. All right. We've got a lot to think about there. Thanks again.

And, um, I, uh, uh, I hope that we can touch base again soon, okay? Absolutely. All right. Thanks, Jose. Take care.