The Social Class Lens: How Amarillo College in Texas created a Culture of Care with Russell Lowrey-Hart, President Amarillo College, Texas. April 16, 2021

The Shoestring Initiative, founded by Elaine J Laberge (PhD) who is from generational poverty , is a grassroots solidarity movement creating communities of mentorship, belonging, support, intercultural connectedness, and advocacy for Canadian university students from a poverty-class heritage. This webinar is part of the String it Together: Finding Togetherness on the Education Digi-scape series. Webinar recordings of past webinars are posted on the site. For more information, contact Elaine @ elaberge@uvic.ca.

Webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG-qBnXTgfw

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The Social Class Lens: How Amarillo College in Texas created a Culture of Care by Russell Lowery-Hart  

In his book Triumph of the City (2011), Edward Glaser linked economic progress to education attainment. He could predict which communities would succeed or fail based on the educational levels of those communities. Yet, the low education attainment rates that are drowning so many of our communities are directly linked to high rates of poverty. If we want to improve our collective economic future, we must address the links between education attainment and poverty. 

Education and poverty are tied together in a nightmare of policy failures, bureaucratic culture, stereotypes of those trapped by poverty, and professional inaction. Amarillo College rebuilt itself to intentionally and structurally address these issues. The results have been transformative for our students. The Amarillo community’s future was linked to Amarillo College’s ability to love our students to success. Education attainment was the imperative.

To defeat the crisis of income inequality and economic destruction, Amarillo College had to 1) know our students, 2) empower our in their college redesign, 3) build structures to remove barriers, and 4) wrap our student experiences in a culture of caring. When we love our students from enrollment to graduation – they thrive in school, achieve their educational dreams, and support the economic future of our community. The results of this work are magical (completion rates tripled in five years); yet, the work does not require magic – just intentional structures of support and a culture centered on students rather than self.

Who is Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart?

This article was sent to me three years ago and launched a whole lot of hope with my work. This so profoundly captures how amazing Russell is as an educator and educational leader and how excited Shoestring is that he is coming to share and teach at this webinar: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190403-amarillo

About Amarillo College

Dr. Donna Beegle (provides the poverty training at Amarillo College): https://www.combarriers.com/