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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


National Public Radio recently ran an interview with Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do. Perhaps because I read the article after attending MCC’s first week of end-of-year celebrations, each of Bain’s comments struck me as capturing the very faculty qualities that our successful students — whether in transitional studies or Phi Theta Kappa — find at MCC.

Bain shared a description of outstanding college teachers that echoes the sentiments I hear our students express about the MCC faculty who have made the difference in their academic journey:

[The best teachers] create a critical learning environment in which students rethink their assumptions. .... The best teachers allow students to try, to fail and try again. They allow students to collaborate with one another in tackling the most intriguing problems. … a good teacher is there to inspire and guide the individual but ultimately to help them work on their own and take personal responsibility (for their learning).

Last week offered me many opportunities to interact with our students and alumni, to listen to their MCC stories, stories about the faculty, staff, mentors, and experiences that made the difference. I heard the hard-earned pride and joy that our students and alumni feel at their accomplishments. These stories are powerful and worthy of celebration, but let’s not stop there. Let’s take this moment to capture why some students beat the odds and achieve success despite their challenges. In other words, let’s construct a companion volume to Bain’s book, one titled
What the Best MCC Students Do.

At Thursday’s Essential Discussion on Black Male Achievement, keynote speaker Shaun Harper called on us to do just that: improve the odds for more students by listening to and learning from the successful ones. He also pushed us to examine our data to find which practices support positive outcomes and which don’t. 

In many ways, this is exactly what the new Academies project is doing: building a system that structures for all MCC students the experiences and networks of connections that the most successful students seek out already. These high performers form study groups and establish support systems, connect with faculty early and often, seek advisement and mentoring, look for recommendations on great courses and faculty, identify majors early in their academic careers, learn transfer requirements, and more. 

The talents and commitment of our faculty and staff have built MCC into an inspiring college and have sustained a culture built on innovation and excellence. We know what the best college teachers do: we see it every day. We also know what the best college students do. Our challenge now is to commit to our soon-to-be alumni that we will learn from their success and grow their number at an ever faster rate. And we will … because we are MCC. 


I invite you to share your thoughts on the blog.

Anne M. Kress
Office of the President
05/13/2015