Page 36 - May JSF Report
P. 36

 FCAN SUMMIT REPORT
2023 Florida College Access Network Summit Tampa, Florida – April 27th & 28th
By: Lady Hereford and Sharon Wood
FCANentitledtheirsummitTalentStrongFloridaandwelcomedover320participants. Thisannualconferencecelebrates “the partnerships that make education beyond high school accessible to all”. Everyone at this summit was focused on education. As one of the summit sponsors, Johnson Scholarship Foundation’s name was front and center on many screens, posters, and digital platforms. It was a pleasure to be quickly recognized and approached by many participants we knew, primarily through our connections with the Florida Philanthropic Network.
This was an exceptionally well organized summit including quite a few sessions to choose to attend. We made a point of attending different sessions to get the full benefit of the offerings. Below are a few highlights of some of the sessions we attended:
AFFORDABILITY MATTERS - This was an interesting discussion about the various kinds of financial aid available to students – Gift Aid in the form of scholarships and grants, and Self-Help Aid in the form of loans, work-study, or other employment. All, of course, is deeply impacted by the Cost of Attendance at any given school. The Financial Need is the result of the Cost of Attendance minus the Expected Family Contribution. A student cannot receive scholarship dollars that exceed the Financial Need. One continuing concern is that amount of Pell Grant funding that goes unused in the state of Florida because of students and parents not completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). The completed FAFSA is mandatory for receiving any Financial Aid. In another session, they noted that while Florida is 6th in the nation for Pell Grant eligible students, it ranks 47th in accessing Pell Grant money!
CHALLENGES TO STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH IN TRANSITION TO COLLEGE -
A mental health clinician from the University of South Florida and a local psychologist led this session focused on how to help students who are struggling. At USF, more students are seeking services, and stress is the number one cause. Loneliness and isolation are also issues, especially post-COVID. Students have lost momentum. Even the students who were highly engaged in high school have trouble transitioning to college, seemingly because no one is there to tell them what to do. Several of the school representatives attending the session commented on the need for more college prep services in high school. Some students want to keep isolating in residence halls as they did during COVID. Others threaten to harm themselves. One high school representative said that several times a week, her school has had to use the state statute known as the Baker Act to involuntarily commit students.
FIRST TO DREAM: FACILITATING STUDENT SUCCESS FOR FIRST GEN STUDENTS – This was a well-organized discussion about the needs of First Generation students and ways those needs can be addressed. The three presenters from Florida Atlantic University pointed out that college is more than passing classes. It is about figuring out who you are as a person. What was special to me was that they highlighted three important programs FAU offers their First Generation students: a Helios-funded program for education majors; the Kelly-Strul program (modeled after the University of Florida’s Machen Florida Opportunity Scholars program); and the Johnson Scholarship Foundation transition program. (If you go to the school’s website and search for First Generation scholarships, JSF is prominently featured.)
EQUAL IS STILL NOT ENOUGH: LEVERAGING INSTITUTIONAL DATA TO EXPAND ACCESS AND DIFFERENTIATE STUDENT PROGRAM OFFERINGS – The Director of the Equity Institute at Palm Beach State College led this session on how PBSC is using data to redesign its college bridge program. She collaborated with another researcher at the college to do the qualitative part of the research. She also worked with the school’s TRiO office to develop PBSC’s NextGen summer bridge program, which launched in 2022 and is already showing positive results.
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