At Paul D. Camp Community College (PDCC) we faced the question of how as educators and couselors we could help these students reach their education and career goals without arbitrarily insisting on their primacy in relation to family or other relationships. Although the community college STD 100 Orientation class was designed to assist students in their college transition, re-entry students did not always receive from this class what they needed to succeed. Thus, a team-based, group-oriented "Personal Development from a Woman’s Perspective" (STD 105) course was designed to better suit the re-entry women’s needs than a class designed for the more traditional community college student.

According to VCCS 1998 Master Course List, STD 105 - does the following:

addresses the psychological and educational adjustment needs of the female college student. . . covers three segments: personal development, career education, and study skills. . . emphasizes the special needs of the re-entry woman. . . provides education and support for the individual.

In March 1998, Paul D Camp Community College’s Smithfield Center offered its first STD 105 class but with a few additions to the course description. First, we team-teach the course, using a male-female instructional team. Second, we begin with a weekend-long intensive class meeting of twelve hours, interrupted only by a few hours of sleep, and followed by evening meetings scheduled for four consecutive weeks. We have also added team-building activities to the course, along with a group component that provides STD 105 students with many of the tools they need for success, not only in education, but in career and family.

Change research issues suggest that appropriate content upon which to focus group processes might include care-taking roles, careers, relationships, depression, sexuality, spirituality, and life transitions. Support seemed an effective way to maintain instruction gains after the end of the course. Effects of isolation were seen as loss of faith and loss of a sense of achievement. All of these preceding concerns prompted the choice of process groups as an instructional medium for STD 105. From an administrative perspective, issues of student recruitment, retention, public relations, and student services were met through the design and implementation of the course.

Group activities in STD 105 include group-developed graphic displays, role-plays, visualization, relaxation exercises, and group interaction regarding many of the topics explored in the large group. Members learn self-expression, communication skills, and develop a renewed perspective on their own adulthood. They experience the legitimacy of their own emotions, including pleasure and pain, and learn ways of discharging such emotions (Nadeau, 1984; Warren 1984). Role presentations, replays, role reversals, role taking, and self-preservation work well (cf., Blatner and Blatner, 1988). Closing activities used on the last night of a class seem to cement students’ sense of accomplishment during the transitional time marked by the course (Parker and Horton, 1995).

As in any change activity, some students initially experience resistance to the class. However, the group process brings about a sense of trust through group identification, a sense of reciprocity with other group members, self-disclosure, positive feedback, and group cohesion. The inevitable group conflicts provide opportunities to deal with differences of opinions, anger, and jealousy. Attitudes toward self and toward others change. Likelihood of self-expression also changes. One’s sense of a private self is less isolated and cut off from the world of others than is generally true prior to the group process (cf., Blatner and Blatner, 1988; Butler and Wintram, 1991; Nadeau, 1984; Russell, 1984 and Warren, 1984).

Enthusiasm for the course format and team-teaching among students in the course sections quickly spread throughout the Center’s student body. Consequently, a variety of other demographically targeted Student Development and academic courses--each incorporating the weekend-intensive, team-teaching format--were designed and implemented at the Center with the result that enrollments for some courses, which had never before attracted sufficient enrollment to "make" at the Center, exceeded 30 students.

Since January 1998, Paul D Camp Community College’s Smithfield Center Full-Time Equivalent enrollment has increased 140% (from 50 FTE in Fall ’97 to 120 FTE in both Fall ’98 and Spring ’99). The number of courses "making" at the Center increased 146% during the same period, and local scholarship support for new course offerings and programs, such as STD 105, has increased 2000%. New program development at the Center has emanated from shared values first clarified by STD 105; such programs include a paid internship program for young college students at risk for retention that has partnered us with local schools and the school district. Creative scheduling—such as three credits in three weekends courses, Saturday classes, and one credit "sampler" courses—have garnered enthusiastic participation from the current student body and attracted interest and enrollment even from individuals residing outside the college’s service area. Classes created and offered in partnership with local businesses and organizations have also led to expansion in enrollment.

If what the Smithfield Center is doing is "right," as is suggested by increased student enrollment and improved student retention, it is a result of what we, as a team, first learned through the development and implementation of STD 105. A student-centered educational institution with a holistic approach to learning and counseling has emerged and is fostered at the Center. And, just as the students in STD 105 come to enjoy the sense of community that develops in the process groups in the course, so the Center has come to experience itself as part of its community and to participate in the processes of the community. In these corresponding processes, social skills improve, a sense of security develops, and a sense of value of self and others increases in the Center’s faculty and staff, as well as in its students. Just as the students come to hold out for themselves the prospect of success, so the Center has come to experience as sense of success and satisfaction beyond what, 18 months ago, we would ever have expected.

by Ronald V. Kidd, Ph.D.

What follows are the voices of students who have shared the experience of STD 195.

• "The Returning Woman’s program has taught me how to actually become a real woman in today’s society. . . the Returning Woman’s group taught me how to work, go to school and, if I wanted, to open up a business of my own. I also learned how to be a good house mom and how to do different things with my kids without having to put out a lot of money out of my pocket. I learned how to budget out my life schedule without having too much time spent in one place."
• "There were times that we all had to share our feelings with one another and open up to let each other know just how our lives were. . . if I had a serious problem that I could not solve at home, I would go to some of the ladies in the class or even to the instructors and set down and get into a deep discussion about what was on my mind."
• "The women in the class were able to help me see that doing things for myself, taking time for myself, and buying things for myself, was not selfish. As a mother, I had always felt that I was being selfish by taking time away from my children with schoolwork, classes and other school-related tasks. . . but the group taught me that my own happiness was as important and in the end, maybe even more important, than everything else was. They taught that I couldn’t make anyone else happy unless I myself was happy and fulfilled. . . the women in the group were able to share with me their own experiences of how they had learned the hard way that resentment builds up inside a person when they give up their own happiness for the sake of others."
• "Because of this class, and the women in that group, I can now fully enjoy school and life in general, without all my former feelings of guilt. "
• "When I signed up for the class, 'Personal Growth from a Woman’s Perspective,' I was struggling with some health problems and as a result, found that I was very focused on the present, on my day-to-day survival . . . spending time with the women in this class, many of whom were facing challenges every bit as difficult as my own, inspired me. Their honesty about the problems that working women and those of us returning to school face, their optimism, ambition and sheer determination that they would meet their goals despite these obstacles, helped me to refocus on a dream for my own future. In practical terms, we were encouraged to set long and short term goals, to take steps toward these goals and then report on our progress to the group each week. It was very exciting to watch several of the women muster their courage to face head-on, some specific problems in work or home relationships, and report back to the group on a positive outcome. These women seemed to gain self-esteem right before our eyes. The group was made up of women from diverse backgrounds. These were people whose paths might never have crossed if it weren’t for this class. I believe that it was enlightening to all of us to see how much we had in common despite this diversity."
• "It is amazing how seven female strangers can get together over a period of six weeks, overcome jealousy, and discomfort in expressing one’s feeling and achieve more spiritual growth than ever hoped for."
• "The most memorable moment in my experience in the women’s developmental course at Paul D. Camp Community College was walking through the fear of expressing my jealousy of women, sharing aloud my feelings of inadequacy and . . . without the fear of being shamed."
• "The gift I received from this experience was the courage to go after my dreams of buying a home of my own, on my own, and not settling for what comes along, but reaching for my potential limits and beyond. "

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M. Elizabeth Creamer is the Academic Program Coordinator for the Smithfield Center of Paul D Camp Community College in Smithfield, Virginia. She also works as an adjunct instructor of English.

Molly H. Duggan is Coordinator of Education for Independence at the Franklin Campus of Paul D Camp Community College and also works as an adjunct instructor of student development and English.

Ronald V. Kidd, Ph.D., is an adjunct instructor of psychology, English, and student development and an academic advisor at the Smithfield Center of Paul D Camp Community College.