2003 Year End Report
Executive Summary
The ACCESS Project at Hamilton College is an educational, social
service, and career program that assists profoundly low-income parents
in central New York in their efforts to move from welfare and low-wage
work to meaningful and secure career employment through the pathway of
higher education. Our program supports this increasingly "at risk"
population through an intensive and fully supported introduction to
liberal arts education coupled with comprehensive social service,
family, and career support. On a daily basis we assist our students
with academic supports and by addressing substantial obstacles such as
lack of adequate childcare and transportation, domestic violence and
battery, homelessness, hunger, and lack of self-esteem. As a result, in
the three years that our program has been in operation, our students
have survived -- indeed they have thrived -- at Hamilton College and in
their nascent career pathways.
The ACCESS Project adheres to the same rigorous academic standards for
which Hamilton College is well known. Additionally, students in our
program take a full course load while working, caring for their
children, studying, and completing extracurricular program
requirements. Despite these often competing demands, ACCESS students
compare very favorably with traditional Hamilton College students and
fare considerably better than do most "welfare student" and community
college student populations. In our fi rst year, ACCESS students had a
90% retention rate with a yearly grade point average of 82.6%; in our
second year our students had a 95% retention rate and a G.P.A. of
82.5%; and in this, our third year,students fi nished spring term with
an 80.94% G.P.A., maintaining a retention rate of 95%.
As students earned these noteworthy grades they additionally cared for
their children, whose recorded well-being, health, and school
performance were substantially enhanced; gained valuable experience,
skills, and networking connections in paid and unpaid work and
internships; increased their understanding of and commitment to the
workings of our communities and our nation; and were increasingly free
of social service supports. The students as a whole, in all three years
of our program, moved from a 98% dependence on basic social service and
fi nancial supports to less than a 10% rate of dependence on regular
state supports. Students in all three years of our program additionally
demonstrated measurably increased self-esteem, ability to plan and be
proactive, confi dence about their futures, transferable communication
and business skills, and motivation to work and succeed for their
families.
Our program is additionally charged with assessing the progress and
impediments experienced by those students who are unable or unwilling
to continue on with their studies. As our report illustrates, those few
students who were not able to continue to pursue college degrees most
often made that decision because of lack of adequate social supports in
times of dire family need (60%) and alternative career choices (40%).
In most of those cases, students articulated their desires and plans to
continue their educations at a later, more appropriate time. Yet, even
those who left school reported career benefi ts accrued as a result of
their experiences in the ACCESS program. In interviews conducted one
year after their departure from our program, 85% of our students'
employers cited enhanced communication skills, analytical ability, and
creativity as well as increased reliability, determination, and focus
that ensued as a result of even a limited post-secondary education at
Hamilton College.
The results in our third year of operations are impressive. The
students continuing on in our program are clearly headed toward and in
most cases have begun the process of pursuing careers in medicine, law,
science, education, social services, technology, and the arts. As
Sandra Dahlberg of the University of Houston has determined, "[i]n just
a couple of years, ACCESS-supported college graduates will teach
countless central New York school children; will provide medical
services to the ill and elderly; offer counseling in schools, treatment
facilities, and prisons; will serve the region as social workers,
parole officers, lawyers, and public policy analysts. As mentors,
leaders, and public servants, ACCESS graduates will positively
contribute to New York State and the lives of others for decades to
come."
The ACCESS Project at Hamilton College has changed lives, families, and
communities in central New York State, in the process demonstrating
that with hard work and adequate supports, poor parents -- in
particular lowincome, welfare eligible, student parents -- are able to
gain economic security and to become confident and productive citizens,
workers, parents, and civic leaders in our communities.
Our program has been generously supported by Hamilton College and
Hamilton College parents, faculty, and alumni; The State of New York;
The Watson Lowery Fund and the Frank W. Baker Fund of the Community
Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties; The Charles A. Frueauff
Foundation; a United States Department of Education Fund for the
Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant; and a work site
development contract administered through the New York State Department
of Labor.
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