[Educationforall] New Meaning for Night Class at 2-Year Colleges

[Justin Akers Chacón]

The unhinging of the community colleges continues...


New York Times
October 28, 2009
New Meaning for Night Class at 2-Year Colleges

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
BOSTON — Winston Chin hustles on Tuesdays from his eight-hour shift as a lab 
technician to his writing class at Bunker Hill Community College, a 
requirement for the associate’s degree he is seeking in hopes of a better 
job.

He is a typical part-time student, with one exception. His class runs from 
11:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., the consequence of an unprecedented enrollment 
spike that has Bunker Hill scrambling to accommodate hundreds of newcomers. 
In the dead of night, he and his classmates dissect Walt Whitman poems and 
learn the finer points of essay writing, fueled by unlimited coffee, cookies 
and an instructor who does push-ups beforehand to stay lively.

Similar booms have forced many of the nation’s 1,200 community colleges to 
add makeshift parking lots, rent extra space and keep thousands of students 
on waiting lists this fall. While Bunker Hill offers two midnight classes — 
the other is Psychology 101 — and Clackamas Community College in Oregon 
holds welding classes until 2 a.m., others have added classes as early as 6 
a.m. to make room for the jobless and others whom the recession has nudged 
back to school.

The deluge also includes an unusually large number of recent high school 
graduates, diverted from more expensive four-year colleges by the economic 
downturn.

“I liken myself to the old woman who lives in a shoe,” said Mary L. Fifield, 
the president of Bunker Hill, where enrollment is up 16 percent over last 
fall. “The seams are tearing, and people are just popping out all over.”

Virtually every state is dealing with enrollment booms at community 
colleges, the American Association of Community Colleges says, with some in 
California reporting increases of 35 percent. The demand comes amid deep 
cuts to higher-education budgets, but also at a hopeful time for community 
colleges: President Obama recently announced a $12 billion plan to increase 
the number of community college graduates by five million by 2020.

“It shines a spotlight on a sector of higher education that by and large has 
been viewed as the lowest rung on the ladder,” Dr. Fifield said. “Now we 
have the president of the United States talking about community colleges as 
an engine that will drive and sustain economic success in this country.”

Most of the students in Mr. Chin’s writing class, who range in age from 18 
to 59, are employed but hoping a degree will lead to more stable, 
higher-paying jobs. Some start work as early as 4 a.m. or finish as late as 
11 p.m., making the class time more appealing. They include a taxi 
dispatcher who dreams of going to medical school, a Dunkin’ Donuts cashier 
who wants to be a homicide detective and a landscaper who wants to be a 
state trooper.

The group cracked jokes and gently mocked one another for mispronouncing the 
word “blithe” or not reading aloud passionately enough. When the instructor 
asked around 2 a.m., “Who’s ready to answer the question?” one student 
wearily answered, “Who’s confused?”

Mr. Chin, who took the midnight class because other writing classes were 
full, wants to become a surgical nurse. At 57, he has three small children 
and has not been a student since graduating from high school.

“I probably would have taken something early in the morning if I’d had my 
pick of classes,” he said. “But this is working out. I never really need 
more than about four hours of sleep anyway.”

Mr. Chin and his classmates get plenty of parking — a rarity at community 
colleges these days. Holyoke Community College, in Holyoke, Mass., where 
enrollment is up 13 percent over last fall, turned its tennis courts into 
parking lots; it also sent postcards to all 7,500 students urging them to 
take public transportation to class.

At Northern Virginia Community College, more than 20 classes start before 7 
a.m. this fall; many other colleges have classes running as late as 11 p.m.

But with state allocations down sharply this year because of the economy, 
many community colleges have not been able to keep up with the demand. At 
Miami Dade College, whose 170,000 students make it the nation’s largest 
community college, about 30,000 could not get every class they wanted this 
fall; about 5,000 others were shut out completely.

At De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif., about 8,000 students found 
themselves on wait lists last month, as did 7,500 students at Central Oregon 
Community College. And in New York City, where the six community colleges 
that are part of the City University of New York experienced a record 9 
percent enrollment increase this fall, most closed enrollment early for the 
first time.

Because of budget cuts, Miami Dade College could not add a single new class 
this fall despite an influx of more than 33,000 new students. Instead, it 
has eliminated 1,200 class sections over the last two years, said Eduardo J. 
Padrón, the college president.

“It’s an almost desperate situation,” Dr. Padrón said. “My heart breaks for 
these students, because I know many are the ones who really need us the 
most.”

Colleen Roach, Bunker Hill’s spokeswoman, said higher student fees and an 
influx of federal stimulus money helped the college offer dozens more 
classes this fall. It is planning to add a third midnight course, Sociology 
101, next spring, along with five business and science courses that will run 
to 11:45 p.m.

Dr. Fifield said putting dynamic instructors in charge of the late-night 
classes was crucial.

“Not everyone is going to be able to keep people awake until 2:45 in the 
morning,” she said.

Wick Sloane, who teaches the midnight writing class at Bunker Hill, tried to 
transport Mr. Chin and the other students from the windowless, 
concrete-walled classroom one recent night with an essay by Edward Abbey, 
the nature writer, about encountering a mountain lion in the New Mexican 
desert. When one student answered a question with a giant yawn around 2:15, 
Mr. Sloane asked, “Can everyone make it about 15 more minutes?”

For homework, he assigned an essay analyzing Calpurnia’s rhetoric in 
Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” leading one student to ask whether 
Shakespeare used an alias. The room started buzzing with opinions.

“Do you want to stay and debate who Shakespeare was?” Mr. Sloane asked.

They did not, but not for lack of enthusiasm. “He’s got me engaged,” Mr. 
Chin said, “which is not easy at this time of night.”

Lisa W. Foderaro contributed reporting from New York.


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