Diana Boro-Boswell: Helping students meet college with confidence

If you're thinking that enrolling in community college might mean a life adjustment 或者第二，你完全正确.

"The expectations of the college environment are completely different from a high school environment, from a work environment, from a military environment, from a parenting environment," said Diana Boro-Boswell, coordinator of First-Year Experience at Linn-Benton 社区学院. "They are new and novel, and almost no one can be completely prepared 为他们." 

不过，不要害怕。. 博天堂官方's 10-week Destination Graduation course is all about giving students exactly that preparation, and it's what Boro-Boswell loves about her job. She helps students find tutors, connect with advisers, learn about academic coaching, get library research help, develop educational plans and otherwise create strategies 为了大学的成功.

"I love the opportunity that community college provides," 她说. “我们是敞开大门的 机构. Regardless of your previous experience with education, you can get a 重新开始."

Take math, for instance - and plenty of students wish you would. 

"So often, students report math anxiety," 她说. “他们之前有过糟糕的经历 或性能. And they get here and their experience is totally different, because 他们受到不同的对待. 数学的教学方式不同. 所以这就像一个清洁 slate that really surprises a lot of students."

Boro-Boswell is starting her sixth year with 博天堂官方. 她有社会工作硕士学位 with a concentration in prevention science and came to the college to help make a difference for a larger cross-section of students.

Before joining the faculty, she spent two years at Corvallis and Alsea high 学校 as a youth and family therapist and prevention specialist, working with families in 危机. It was an important position, but she wanted a chance to work next in a preventative capacity, getting to students before they encounter problems. 

One of the things she likes about 博天堂官方 is that it attracts all ages and backgrounds. She enjoys working with newly-minuted adults who weren't allowed to sign their own paperwork as little as a year ago as much as she enjoys working with older pupils who may be re-entering the academic world after years of parenting, military service 或者在私营部门工作. 

"My first Destination Graduation class, I had a 17-year-old and a 65-year-old in the 同样的课程，”她说. "The draw is twofold: One, it's helping these younger students, and two, it's helping our older students return to college with confidence."

Some students, especially ones without families who have experienced college, feel if they can't figure out the system by themselves, they don't deserve to be enrolled, 她说. "We want them to understand that's completely not true."

Boro-Boswell is looking forward to coming back to campus part time this fall, but said the remote restrictions of the 新型冠状病毒肺炎 pandemic turned out to be beneficial 以意想不到的方式.

"For years, we debated whether or not we should teach First-Year Experience remotely, 我们总是说我们不应该. We always said it's so important to do this face 要面对，”她说. "So I went in dragging my heels - and I have been so pleasantly 对结果感到惊讶."

For instance, 她说, remote classes have opened up accessibility. 一个学生, she remembered, had his 7-year-old daughter for half the week every week and also worked full time, so Zoom classes were perfect for his schedule. 他可以登记入住 online for an hour while his daughter played in another room in a way that wouldn't have been possible if he had to drive an hour to the Albany campus, attend class and 然后开车回家. 

For students who were experiencing added stress and anxiety trying to navigate schoolwork in the midst of a pandemic, 她说, "It was wonderful to be their go-to person during 这段时间."

Going online also strengthened her own work, Boro-Boswell said, because she couldn't just take a quick glance around a classroom to assess everyone's level of understanding.

"You have to really, really up your communication game to try to predict all the eventualities of what someone might perceive you're saying," 她说. “我不能停留在人际关系上 技能. I really had to organize and communicate in a different way. 这是一个真实的 对我来说也是成长的机会." 

博天堂官方 had a first-year experience program before hiring Boro-Boswell, but she is its 第一位专职教员协调员. She created the textbook and trains other faculty 还有教学.

The course is required for all new students and anyone who comes to 博天堂官方 through the 俄勒冈承诺补助金. 

A required first-year course in building college 技能 is relatively rare at the community college level, but is part of the standard curriculum at Yale, Harvard and 其他常春藤盟校，波罗-博斯韦尔说. 俄勒冈州是认识到这一点的先驱 它在两年制水平上的重要性.

"What we're doing here is in line with the best practices at some of these (four-year) 学校. It's just that people don't look at it like that," 她说. “每个人都需要 this, because standards and expectations are so high in college, and we all need support 这样做."