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The ACCESS Project
Exhibit and Invited Lectures
Contact Information
Vivyan Adair
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2003 Year End ReportExecutive SummaryThe 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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