Chris Gray, Ph.D.
Founding President, Erie County Community College of Pennsylvania
A recurrent theme in my blogs is that proximity to education is an access issue, making it an equity issue. What I mean here is that the distance that potential students have to travel to attend EC3 is a critical factor in determining if they will attend EC3. Distance is, for many students, an insurmountable barrier, and I argue that it shouldn’t be this way. Early on, I committed myself to what I call the “30-Minute Rule”: No student in Erie County should be more than thirty minutes from access to higher education.
One of the most amazing features of community colleges is that they are often located within or near the communities they serve, making them easily accessible to all residents. Because ours is an open-access institution – meaning that we admit and serve everyone – students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, including low-income families and non-traditional students, can more readily secure educational access through the opportunities that we offer. We work specifically to serve their unique needs rather than expecting them to rearrange their lives.
We worked with EMTA to install a bus stop here on campus, and our students can use the bus system at no cost. As gas prices remain high, the price of fuel could be prohibitive for students already struggling to earn a living. Faced with the option of using limited resources to feed their families or put gas into their car to come to EC3, we know what they would choose. It’s not even a close choice. But, I argue, students shouldn’t have to make that choice. We want to break down this barrier both through transportation access and strategic decision-making when choosing locations for EC3 campuses.
To that end, our four campuses are located strategically to reach as many of our county residents as possible, and our expansion philosophy is likewise guided by this goal:
- EC3 Erie East serves the lower-east side of Erie. This accessible site houses student services, classrooms, E-Library, Student Support Center, and tutoring.
- EC3 Erie West is an education facility in Millcreek. EC3 Erie West provides an important presence in the outlying Western Erie County area.
- EC3 Summit provides access to EC3 courses for students from the southern portion of the city of Erie as well as a familiar setting for most high school students in the Erie County area.
- EC3 Corry hosts classes at the Corry-Higher Education Council Building (Corry Hi-Ed) and provides an important presence in the outlying Eastern Erie County area.
In the past three years, EC3 has grown and changed, each time working intentionally to meet our students where they are and to help get them to where they want to be. Generally, when I say this, I am using the phrase “meet our students where they are” figuratively; I’m talking here about offering the kinds of programs, courses, and schedules that our students tell us they want. Occasionally, like today, I’m being quite literal, however. Choosing campus locations to ensure that we are close to everyone in Erie County is another way that we are seeking out our students where they live and working to assimilate ourselves into their geographic orbit.
A friend of mine drove over an hour to attend his college classes five days a week for years; times were different then, but still, that was a lot to ask. Losing over ten hours a week to drive time is, to me, just unacceptable. I’m thinking of myself as a community college student; if I had had to drive an hour to attend my classes, I don’t know that I would have done it. I likely would not have been able to do it with my work schedule. And I firmly believe that we shouldn’t ask our students to choose between their current busy lives and their potential futures.
For this reason, I continue to believe in and advocate for my 30-Minute Rule. Educational access begins with proximity. It’s essential!
Our community: your college.