1. MetLife Project: Counselor Community of Practice Call 3/30/12
Attendees:
South Seattle Community College
-Keith Marler Portland Community College
-Valorie Adler
Hennepin Technical College
-Matt Gustafson Red Rocks community College
-Sarah Goepel
Mid-South Community College -Nancy Carlson
-Robert Oselen
Community of Practice Topics and Discussion
Topic: Faculty Attitudes
-Have you talked with your faculty about the needs of the mature worker?
-How do we make modifications in the classroom for the mature worker as a student?
-Does your faculty reach out to this student population?
Discussion:
Typically the feedback from faculty on the mature worker in the classroom is that they are very engaged
and excited to be in a learning environment with so many different types of people. The mature
students generally get energized by the younger students and are viewed as an asset to the classroom
by faculty. In South Seattle Community College the average age of a student in technical programs is 38
years old with that number steadily rising each year. In most classes the adult student tries the hardest,
has the best attendance and most of the time grasps the content with the exception of the technology.
Mostly the college partners see an increased commitment from adult student and often see the mature
student seeking advising time to be more intentional, focused and very prescriptive in planning their
education. They see that the mature student wants to make the very best use of their time spent
getting educated. It was mentioned that it is increasing important when advising the mature student to
help them make wise decisions about their education pathway. The college partners have discussions
with students that move them to the more intellectual classes as opposed to the heavily technical
classes which will likely result in more labor intensive job opportunities. Robert Oselen from Mid-South
Community College said that he helps mature students think long term about their education and not
approach their time in school as a “stop gap” solution.
In most cases the faculty reaches out specifically to the mature student when there are opportunities for
internships with local employers as the faculty and employer know that the soft skills will be intact with
this population. When there are cases that the mature worker is deficient in some technical skills, like
the use of technology, some colleges have developed specific programs to mitigate this gap. In South
Seattle they have created a short term training program called In-Step which is specific to mature
workers with a curriculum of blended computer skills and adult basic education training.
Topic: Prior Learning Assessment Policy and Use on Campus
-What do your schools do for PLA?
-Is there an openness to the concept on campus or in your region?

2. Discussion:
With each college on the line (Mid-South, Hennepin Technical, Red Rocks and Portland) there was no
institution wide policy for PLA (Prior Learning Assessment). PLA is the process by which students who
have knowledge gained through work and life experiences can document that learning and receive
college credit validating that learning without having to spend time and money taking the full
coursework.
In Portland there isn’t a policy in place for PLA. The reluctance to develop this type of policy is twofold.
There is concern that the 4 year institutions might not accept the credit and therefore if students are
using Portland Community College as a stepping stone this credit would not help them in the long run
and secondly that the school would not be receiving tuitions dollars from the students who receive
credit for certain classes. ***CAEL conducted a 48 institution wide study on the effectiveness of PLA
and what we found was that students who come into an institutions with some PLA credits are almost
50% more likely to graduate as opposed to students who come in with no PLA and only complete at a
roughly 15% persistence rate. Essentially students who come in with PLA are more likely to stay in
school, thereby allowing the college to collect more tuition dollars over time.***
There is openness at South Seattle to develop a robust PLA policy; however, there is an issue of funding.
Mostly this is in regards to helping students pay for services like CAEL’s LearningCounts.org where
students get an online class on how to develop portfolios. There are also cost implications to an internal
PLA policy for paying faculty to assess each portfolio.
At Mid-South Community College the allied health program allows students to get credit for the class if
they can show they have the competencies; however they are unsure of how this policy of PLA is applied
in other disciplines.
At Hennepin Technical there is a strong policy with the testing out piece of PLA (typically this is done
through CLEP, or College Level Examination Program) but this policy is up to each individual instructor to
evoke. Some will accept this credit and some do not, this is not an institutional policy throughout the
college.
Topic: Realistic Approaches to Advising
-How do you reality check mature students through advising?
Discussion:
Each college took the approach that in order to provide a reality check for students when they come
into the college that it’s necessary to have very in-depth and rich conversations about their skills,
interests, needs and abilities. In some cases the counselors would even put the students in touch with
someone from industry so that they can have an even more realistic idea of what their education
choices would lead to in terms of employment opportunities. It’s critical to understand from the
student what their values are, how much energy they have to pursue a given education path and how
committed they are to putting in all the time and getting the work done. At Red Rocks the process of
developing a students’ resume is very helpful to reveal answers to the interest, skills and commitment
questions – especially with the older worker, their past is the best indicator of how they will approach
new opportunities.

3. There were some interesting programs and processes that some of the colleges detailed when it comes
to helping with effective advising for students. Some of these examples are listed below:
“Dreaming the Dream” - Have students come up with a “bucket list” of jobs or at least 3 things that they
want to do with their lives and then backwards map the education process to those end goals.
Encourage the older students to “dream like their 10 years old” as a way to help remove the thought
that a student might be too old to follow a specific career/education path.
“Strengths Finder” – This is a book that colleges can buy that will help students conduct their own
interest and strength assessments. The cost on this is potentially cheaper than using Myers-Briggs
assessment.