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Hi, I am Harry Hellenbrand I am the provost of Cal State Northridge
and I want to speak for a little bit about Cal State Reconnect.
I think Cal State Reconnect is a wonderful solution to what’s been an ongoing problem in the CSU in the state of California.
The problem is this, in institutions like the CSU about 40% of the students don’t graduate because life intervenes
jobs change, spouses and partners move, children are born, jobs are lost, jobs are relocated
and that’s just a fact of the matter and what we have never really successfully done
is bridge the institution to these changes in people’s lives.
These days if we are faced with the prospect of doubling the number of college graduates
but we don’t deal with the fact that 40% of our people who go through our institutions
do not graduate per se and we set ourselves up for a tremendous obstacle
to accomplish this long range goal, so the only way to get this reconnection done
is to be flexible and sensible.
Here at Cal State Northridge we have developed a Liberal Studies Program that will work with Cal State Reconnect
and among the things that we are doing is providing flexible credit options
so that people who have taken, who have had various life experiences can have their credits evaluated
we can have students do testing placements to ascertain if they have the skills
that can replace particular courses and we are dealing with the issues of residency
that students who come to us through Cal State Reconnect might not have the residency requirements
in place and have attended many different institutions.
The fact of the matter is that we are in a system of interdependent campuses these days across the United States.
We are not institutions that own particular graduates and nongraduates and we have to work together to solve this problem.
I expect that we are going to have a hugely successful program through Cal State Reconnect
which should help improve the graduation rate in the state of California
and we would be returning to the public a great service.
One of the highest benefits of American Higher Education in the past
has been that it’s a system in which people have multiple opportunities to start over again
because we acknowledge that failure and incompletion is a fact of life
but that fact of life does not have to be a determination of life’s end results
it’s a chance for us to help people to adjust to change and make improvements in their lives
so we can make for a better society. I think Cal State Reconnect will do that exceptionally well.