News

The holiday season is upon us, and as I reflect on another year affected by a global pandemic, I think of the extraordinary efforts of members of our college community and those in our local community.

Waubonsee students have a long history of volunteering generously in the community through the Lucile Gustafson Scholarship program, which began in 1979. Since 2015, there have been approximately 2,153 Waubonsee students who have given 6,785.25 volunteer hours in the community, and this dedication to service continues today.

In 2011, a prior Marine and member of the Waubonsee Veterans Club/SALUTE began the college’s annual involvement in the Marine Toys for Tots initiative to distribute toys to less fortunate children at Christmas. Since then, the Veterans Club/SALUTE at Waubonsee has continued this tradition each holiday season as a way for military-connected students and other student organizations at Waubonsee to share generously with our local community.

My first experience with Waubonsee was when I was a junior in high school. My parents had heard there was an event called College Night. Colleges and universities from all over the country were coming to our area to meet with students. Back then, College Night was held in the gymnasium on the Sugar Grove Campus. It was hot, crowded, and overwhelming to my 16-year-old self, especially since I had never stepped foot on a college campus. But I walked away from that event with a sheet of paper from Waubonsee Admissions that outlined the transfer process and a new understanding about the connection between community colleges and four-year universities.  

According to a 2019 report by Excelencia in Education's Latinos in Higher Education: Compilation of Fast Facts, half of all Latinos in the U.S. (44%) were the first in their family to attend college as compared to any other ethnic group. It is not that Latino culture or Latino families do not value education; the vast majority do. Often, the lack of college-going role models in working Latino families is the first challenge among several multi-layered factors preventing student success, including socio-economic disadvantages, clashes between cultural norms, and familial expectations. This leads to a lack of support for most first-generation Latino students who may enroll in college courses but lack the guidance and resources to finish a degree. 

My father took me to "trabajar la piedra" work the stone for the first time under the burning hot, Ecuadorian sun. As the eldest, I felt happy and blessed to help my dad and the other stonecutters with the challenging task of drilling and shaping stones into beautiful figures and columns that adorn the cities' parks, squares, and gardens in Ecuador and abroad. We paved stones from black, volcanic rocks called Andesites, using only a chisel and hammer.                                                               

I shared the importance of embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives on a recent podcast discussing the critical need to develop talent at community colleges. Speaking on this subject reinforced what has been at the heart of my work for so long. Community colleges provide new pathways for an amazingly diverse group of people to come together to realize their dreams and find a place to belong.

It's the first day of class, and the professor is going over the syllabus, expectations, and strategies to pass the course. He asks us to take out our course textbook. I could feel an overwhelming amount of shame set in as I sank into my chair. Even if I tried, I know I wouldn't be able to come up with enough money for it before the semester ends. The assignment is due next week. I look over my shoulder and ask someone if I can make a copy of their book. I'm already falling behind.                    

In the early 1990s, the stigma of mental illness was continual, and I was not immune to its’ influence. Like many pre-licensure nursing students, I can remember dreading the start of my mental health nursing class, and my subsequent clinical experience only exacerbated those fears. 

Waubonsee Community College’s Office of Faculty Development and Engagement began investigating one of the most flexible delivery for classrooms; something that could put students in control of where, when, and how they attend class either fully online, entirely in-person, or both. We knew we wanted something to be as flexible as possible. And that is when the class modality, Flex, was born.