From tears to triumph: Pathways to college success
It’s not unusual for someone to get teary in Berkis Cruz-Eusebio’s office. Students come in upset over problems they think will keep them from earning the college credits they need, finding a good job and keeping their families afloat. Later, when they have made it through graduation and beyond, they come with stories of triumph.
For Cruz-Eusebio, a career specialist at the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs — ASAP — at Hostos Community College, City University of New York, the work is both heartbreaking and heartwarming not just for the students but for advisers and counselors like her, members of the AFT-affiliated Professional Staff Congress faculty-staff union at CUNY. These counselors and advisers listen to students’ struggles, find solutions and help them build confidence on their way to success.
ASAP — which provides free tuition, textbook stipends and free Metro cards as well as mentoring and moral support for community college students — has proven to be such a success that other colleges are eagerly copying its approach. Yet the city of New York is threatening its funding. As PSC fights to keep the program afloat, we offer 100,000 reasons to keep it growing–one for every student who has enrolled in the program since 2007 — and we illustrate its value with personal stories from AFT members who work with them.
Start to finish
Cruz-Eusebio’s work with any given student may start with a call from a professor who complains about absences, or sleeping in class. She approaches the student gently, trying not to accuse, and asks if there is something preventing the student from engaging. Often, the story comes pouring out.
In one case, Cruz-Eusebio learned a student had been evicted and had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch the bus to get to school from the shelter. In such cases, she can talk to the professor about transferring the student to a later class. In another instance, a student was worried about their immigration status. Cruz-Eusebio was able to direct them to CUNY’s immigration center. If students are not getting enough food or need housing, she can direct them to the campus food pantry or housing assistance.
Reassuring her of her worth as a human being really helped her blossom.
Cruz-Eusebio is careful to hold her students accountable, using “tough love” when she needs to. But as an immigrant who was the first in her own family to attend college, she can also relate to their experiences. In fact, in many cases she becomes a parent figure to her students: “Some of them call me Ma,” she says. And she is proud that she can inspire them with her own success.
Cruz-Eusebio likes to tell the success stories among her students. One had gotten caught up in “the drug world” until she had “her ‘aha’ moment,” as Cruz-Eusebio describes it, and wanted to make different choices. Because she had had a lot of trauma, Cruz-Eusebio referred her to counseling and supported her as she found her footing. “Reassuring her of her worth as a human being really helped her blossom,” says Cruz-Eusebio. Since that beginning, the student completed her criminal justice degree, enrolled in a bachelor’s program and is working as a legal assistant at a law firm.
Another of Cruz-Eusebio’s students came to the United States from a country in Africa and overstayed his visa. He had limited work options and drove a taxi at night, coming to school tired and hungry. “I don’t want to just highlight the negative, but we have to remember people’s basic needs,” says Cruz-Eusebio. This particular student was bright and driven. Cruz-Eusebio helped him find a part-time job — with benefits — as a tutor in the math center. He adjusted his immigration status, finished at Hostos, got into the honors program at City College, earned a master’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and is now a civil engineer in a major firm.
“I have so many stories,” says Cruz-Eusebio, who has worked with ASAP for 17 years. Helping students with personal statements and applications for scholarships and senior college admissions inspires her. “That’s what really drives me.”
A helping hand
Some students simply need someone who will hold them accountable, says Vickie O’Shea, who has been an ASAP counselor at Queensborough Community College since the program started. But, she adds, “we deal with everything.”
As more accessible, affordable institutions, community colleges have larger numbers of low-income students who may be without reliable housing, who sleep in their cars or squat in abandoned buildings. O’Shea has counseled sexual assault survivors too, connecting them to counseling and, in at least one case, arranging tests for sexually transmitted disease. In another case, O’Shea convinced a student’s father to postpone his daughter’s arranged marriage until she graduated, buying time to help the student get out of an abusive situation.
If this program wasn’t here, they wouldn’t be able to navigate college.
But it’s not always so traumatic. ASAP staff monitor students’ grades, especially if they are on academic probation, and intervene before low grades jeopardize their financial aid. They offer students assessments that help them determine the fields that best suit their interests and strengths, and then help students enroll in corresponding programs. They conduct workshops on test anxiety, study skills, networking, and writing/communication skills. “We’re like their parents at school,” says O’Shea, advising and smoothing the way when students stumble or are unsure how to move forward.
These services are crucial, because many ASAP students are the first in their families to go to college. Not only do they need guidance in registering for classes, choosing a major, finding financial aid and figuring out how to order textbooks and other supplies, they may not always understand the repercussions of missing class, forgetting assignments, or failing to follow through on group projects or other classwork.
“If this program wasn’t here, they wouldn’t be able to navigate college,” says O’Shea. “They would end up dropping out.”
But staying in school is crucial. “For a lot of them, it’s their way out of poor socioeconomic conditions.”
“Individuals in low-income communities tend to just model what they see,” says Cruz-Eusebio. “It’s the only world they know.” When she encounters a student who sees additional possibilities, she wants to do everything she can to support them. “Once education infiltrates a low-income family, it sets a different pattern,” she says, opening doors for the entire family and for future generations.
“We need to be able to offer people the same level of opportunity regardless of who they are, where they come from, what language they speak, who they love or who they pray to,” she says. “I believe education is a right. It should not be a privilege.”
This story was written by Virginia Myers, AFT communications specialist. If you want to read more stories about the inspiring lives of AFT members, sign up to receive our e-newsletters.
