Subscribe to the NetworkMidnight Classes at Community Colleges
While we’re on the topic of community colleges (see previous post) I thought I’d write briefly about some of the things happening on community college campuses, showing the growth they are experiencing. If you are in college ministry and live remotely close to a community college you must begin to be intentional with these schools.
In a recent post on Higher Ed, one professor from Bunker Hill Community College in Boston wrote about the experience of having to teach a midnight class. That’s right, the class begins at 11:45 pm and goes until 2:45 am. And believe it or not, the class is completely full, having 47 people taking the course. In addition it might surprise you that the age range of students in this class is 18 to 59 year olds.
Why class at midnight? Well, professors claim that all other classes are full and there are literally no more scheduling slots in the 24 hour time period to place class times. This particular community college (and others are pretty much the same) has seen a 25% increase in enrollment in the last year. Of course the economy has something to do with this and I don’t think it will change anytime soon. I think the coming 5 years will show community colleges as a real “force” in higher education. And churches better catch onto this! College ministry on community college campuses must be a major focus for us. If not, we’ll be missing a massive part of the college-age population as well as much of the movement of this age-stage from a sociological perspective.
Midnight classes are not all great, there are some concerns. One would be that the typical community college student is not as financially well-off as those say at major universities. And, as this particular post points out, we’re forcing our countries poorest people to take midnight classes. Professors are not paid more to teach these classes than those teaching during daytime areas, which of course will cause some union issues at some point. It will be interesting to see if these schools begin charging less for these less than ideal time slots (believe me, college is a business and I’m sure administrators will figure out how to make the most “bang for their buck”). For some these later time slots works great, but for others it’s simply the only option if they want to obtain a degree.
I’d recommend you not limiting college ministry to 4 year campuses. I know these commuter campuses can be difficult in ways to reach out to (for an article on this, click here). I’ve issued ideas in an Appendix in College Ministry 101, but will write MUCH more on this…
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