Owens Community College: Collaborating with area high schools to help students succeed

11/12/2013

Collaboration isn’t just a word in Owens Community College’s vision and core values. It’s embedded into the culture of the college. Throughout departments, schools, clubs and organizations, even in classrooms, it’s easy to spot collaboration in work.

Some of the college’s most active and longest-standing collaborations may be those among area high schools and high school students. Throughout the year, Owens builds and maintains relationships with area high schools via partnerships such as dual enrollment, which includes post-secondary enrollment options program; Upward Bound, counselor updates, visits, fairs and career days.

“Our goal is to help students succeed,” said Meghan Schmidbauer, Owens Director of Admissions. “The collaborations we have with area high schools allow us to assist a variety of students, from those who want a jump start on their college education to those who need a little more preparation for college.”

Dual Enrollment/Post-Secondary Enrollment Options Program

As part of the Complete College Ohio initiative, Owens is working to increase the number of students graduating from high school with college credit. Dual enrollment partnerships, like the one Owens has with Penta Career Center, enable high school students to earn transcripted college credit from Owens.

“Transcripted credits are beneficial to students because they reduce the students’ time to degree completion, which can save them money,” Schmidbauer said.

Upward Bound

The Owens TRiO/Upward Bound program is an academic pre-college program that helps prepare and motivate low-income and/or potential first-generation high school students for post-secondary education.

Over its five-year period, Upward Bound will enable Owens to provide educational outreach to 60 students from Rogers High School and Woodward High School. Once admitted into the program, these students will engage in a variety of activities and services during the academic school year and during a six-week summer component. Students will participate in college visits, educational field trips and career exploration opportunities. Weekly tutoring, advising and scholarship assistance will also be offered. In addition, students can attend monthly workshops that cover a variety of topics such as financial aid, admissions and the registration process for admission into college, test-taking strategies and other topics pertaining to academic and personal success.

Counselor Updates

Another collaboration between Owens and area high schools is Counselor Update, a once-a-year event held in the fall in Toledo and Findlay that provides an opportunity for local guidance counselors to learn of important updates, learn about new programs and interact with Owens staff.

Ongoing Outreach

Ongoing communication helps Owens staff members and high school counselors and administrators build and maintain relationships and partnerships that help high school students succeed in higher education. High school visits, fairs and career days are year-round events that let area high school students know Owens is here and working to help their transition to college be a smooth one.

“Building relationships with high school counselors and administrators is very important to us,” Schmidbauer said. “By working together, collaborating, we can create amazing higher education opportunities for the area’s high school students.”

For more information about dual enrollment, Upward Bound or anything else covered in this article, please call 1-800-GO-OWENS.