TRANSITION-TO-COLLEGE PROGRAM TRANSFORMS LIVES
by Philippa Mulford

Behind Mill Mall in Ellsworth, near the Down East coast of Maine, an adult education program is quietly transforming lives. The Sumner Adult Education Transition-to-College program in University Center, a University of Maine satellite site, has evolved from a successful collaboration between the university's experiment with distance education and an adult basic education program into an exemplary transition program model in New England.

On a recent weekday morning, 11 students ranging in age from 28 to 45 pay rapt attention to Marty Duncan, the SAE Transition-to-College instructor, who is teaching a lesson on adding and subtracting integers. Ms. Duncan announces during a break that the study skills teacher is out sick, so the afternoon class will be cancelled, meaning no homework.

A gleeful cry of Woo-hoo! goes up, making these adults sound like high school students, which is what most of them were the last time they sat in a classroom and why they're in the Transition-to-College course today. "My biggest fear is being in a classroom of 18 year-olds and not being able to keep up," a 28 year-old father of two confides.

It's a common fear and one the transition course is designed to overcome by helping older students brush up their academic skills, boosting their confidence in their ability to do college level work in the process. The curriculum includes Math for College, Reading and Writing for College, computer literacy, and study skills.

The students' stories vary. Oasoeg (pronounced wosweg), who introduces herself as a Native American, says, "I wasn't ready to learn in high school and barely skinned by." After a stint in the military, she went to work. "But the jobs I could get were not high paying. I realized how important education is." She applied to Southern Maine Technical College but wasn't accepted. Then a friend told her about the Sumner Adult Education Transition-to-College program. "This time around," she says, "I am more willing to learn."

Jeff, a single father, graduated from high school at 16 and went to work, hauling logs out of the Maine woods to Canada. On one trip, the logging truck didn't make the turn "and I took a ride." He suffered a serious shoulder injury that will require additional surgery to repair. "I started thinking about what I could do without using my arm," he says.

He called University Center, which connected him with Sally Daniels who splits her time between teaching and counseling for the SAE transition program and working as a financial aid counselor for the Maine Educational Opportunity Center. Daniels helped Jeff enroll in the transition program and three other adult education courses including physics and algebra, prerequisites from college admission. He goes to school four nights a week.

A few of the students attended college briefly. Kendall attended for one semester before dropping out to enlist in the military. "When you get out of the service you know there is more than one thing to do in life," he says. "I have worked manual labor all my life and I don't want to do it any longer. I work fulltime and then some. My wife works at night while I take care of the kids."

Patricia, a single mother of a 7 year-old, enrolled in college four years ago. "I'd been out of school for 10 years at the time. I must have done well on the assessment test because they put me in an algebra class and I was overwhelmed. I finished the semester and never went back. Then I started a business that failed and went through bankruptcy. When you've been through something like that…" her voice trails off. "I felt I had to do something for myself."

Patricia is lucky in one respect - her boss knows how important education is and allows her to take time off from her job working with mentally challenged adults to study and attend class during the week. She makes the time up by working weekends.

"I didn't go to college after graduating from high school because I'm an alcoholic," Tempest says. "I started drinking at 14 and got pregnant in high school. I graduated on my daughter's first birthday. Three years ago, I was looking at jail time for doing something stupid. I realized my life was nothing but trouble because of alcohol and I had to face the fact that I needed help." She got into a treatment program. Eventually, with a counselor's help, she found her way to SAE's Transition-to-College program. She has applied to the University of Maine for January admission. "I am going," she says, firmly. "I want to be a substance abuse counselor and help others the way I was helped."

All of these students juggle jobs, family responsibilities and school. All are determined to get a college education no matter how long it takes. What helps them persist?

"The teachers are very motivating," one student answers. "They keep encouraging you. It makes you want to ask more questions, learn more."

"They treat us like people here," another says quietly. "Society treats you with more respect," she adds as her classmates nod.

The Sumner Adult Education Transition-to-College program, one of 25 funded throughout New England by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, is considered exemplary for a number of reasons. One is consistent leadership at the administrative and instructional level. Roger Woodworth has directed Sumner Adult Education since 1987, two years before the University of Maine started Interactive Television (ITV), a distance education program. The university located ITV in Sumner High School, the site of Sumner Adult Education, and asked SAE to manage it.

"It allowed us to develop a relationship with the university at the beginning of the distance education experiment," Woodworth says. "We saw the need for a program for students who were not quite ready to do college level work." Woodworth sat down with Bonnie Sparks, the director of University Center then and now, and began developing a transition course without any financial backing.

In 2000, when Silja Kallenbach, director of the New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC), the Nellie Mae Education Foundation's intermediary for ABE Transition-to-College programs, approached SAE about Foundation funding to create a cluster of programs, Woodworth says, "We were ready. We had an early model of a comprehensive approach to transition in place."

Today, the SAE model has been replicated by many of the programs in the Foundation's ABE Transition-to-College cluster. Woodworth credits NMEF's support with strengthening the program, allowing it to hire Marty Duncan, who had been teaching part-time for Sumner Adult Education since 1994, fulltime; and Sally Daniels as a part-time teacher/counselor.

Daniels credits the strong mentoring component of the program, which pairs transition students with University of Maine students, and a student assessment and program orientation process for the steady increase in the percentage of transition students who finish the course and enroll in college. Eight of ten students who enrolled in the 2002 summer course finished it. Seven are currently in college and one has financial aid in place and is enrolled to begin in January '03. "We let students know we expect them to commit to attending the transition program for a full day once a week for 12 weeks," Duncan explains. "We insist on perfect attendance, because we have learned that students who commit to it tend to enter and persist in college."

NELRC's Kallenbach cites the staff's focus on constant program improvement, saying, "SAE goes beyond other programs. There are equally dedicated programs with skilled staff, but I know of no other that has developed an assessment rubric as SAE has. It's exceptional."

Marty Duncan brings a unique understanding of her students and the difficulty of what they're trying to accomplish to her work as a teacher. At 18, she took a few college courses, but didn't have a clue about what she wanted to do. So she dropped out and got married. A few years later, she divorced. At 30, she went back to school while supporting herself at a job she hated, eventually earning a BA and a Masters in education.

The SAE transition program has no problem getting qualified referrals. The University of Maine sends students who don't do well enough on assessment tests to enter college immediately, but who, with some academic development work, have the ability and desire to get a college degree. Daniels also refers students she meets through her work with the Maine Educational Opportunity Council.

Word of mouth may be the best source of all, however. Oasoeg learned about the transition program from a friend. Another student says her husband keeps telling her how proud he is of her. "My husband had the highest IQ in his high school class," she adds. "As soon as I finish, he says he's going back to school."

"I'm trying to talk my brother into going back to college," Kendall says.

Tempest beams. "My 52 year-old mother just signed up for this program."

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