GCC joins Community College Month campaign
Guam Community College joins community colleges nationwide in recognizing the month of April as Community College Month. Throughout the month, GCC will feature campaigns that highlight the many ways the college contributes to our island, the many relevant and in-demand skills that can be learned at GCC, and spotlighting Guamanians who graduated from GCC and are now contributing to our island’s successes. This national, monthlong educational campaign is coordinated by the Association of Community College Trustees or ACCT. The awareness campaign can be found online using the social media hashtag #CCMonth.
The primary goals of #CCmonth are to improve awareness of the economic, academic and equity advantages of attending community colleges, and to bust longtime stigmas wrongly associated with public two-year colleges.
“Over the last several years, we have seen a shift in the perception people have toward community colleges, from a fallback option to four-year colleges to now being an effective and efficient pathway to learn in-demand skills that lead to careers that pay very well,” said Dr. Mary A.Y. Okada, GCC president. “Community College Month is an opportunity to celebrate the importance and value of our college to our island community and to demonstrate how we are cultivating skills for the future.”
Public community colleges are a uniquely American educational model that was designed to guarantee access to affordable, high-quality higher education for all people. They are the primary educators of life-saving nursing and other healthcare professionals among many others. They also serve as an onramp to bachelor’s, master’s and higher-level degrees for many students, and particularly for the most demographically and socioeconomically diverse students. They guarantee fair admissions for all students. They offer supports for adult students who have to work to support their families. And without community colleges, many American students would not be able to access higher education at all. In short, community colleges were created to serve the needs of their communities, and we can proudly say that GCC has done it exceptionally well.
Despite some ongoing stigma about community colleges, research from New America’s annual Varying Degrees study and other sources reveals that the majority of American people hold community colleges in the highest regard among all higher education institutions with respect to being worth the cost of attendance, whether tax dollars should support them, and whether they spend their resources wisely and run efficiently. (PR)
Community College Month logo
