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success and help even more students access college by removing com-
mon barriers.
Key program features include personalized support, including small
cohorts, academic coaching, and dedicated advisors for multilingual and
exceptional learners; advising to promote college readiness; culturally
responsive teaching and staffing to reflect and support the student
population; and universal access, with 100% of Duggan students
participating regardless of prior academic performance.
“All students deserve opportunities to succeed,” Dodge said.
“Early College is about more than earning credits — it’s about
building the skills, confidence, and support networks students
need for college and life.”
Priming the Pump
Early College is just one way the state has been trying to draw
more students into the college pipeline. The most notable ones, of
course, have been MassReconnect, which made community col-
lege free for Massachusetts residents age 25 or older, and, more
recently, MassEducate, which extended that tuition- and fee-free
model to any resident, regardless of age, who has not yet earned
a bachelor’s degree.
Beyond that, many of the state’s community colleges have forged
articulation agreements with four-year institutions, under which students
who satisfactorily complete an associate degree program are guaranteed
admission into a bachelor’s degree program at the four-year school.
One of these partnerships, between Elms College and both Holyoke
Community College (HCC) and Springfield Technical Community College
(STCC), deepened recently by allowing students of those two community
colleges to reside in residence halls at Elms.
STCC and HCC are commuter colleges and do not provide on-campus
housing, so the agreement benefits STCC and HCC students who have
housing needs, while creating the kind of familiarity with the Elms cam-
pus and culture that makes it more likely they’ll pursue a baccalaureate
degree there.
“Elms College, for nearly 100 years, has prided itself on promoting
educational opportunities to those who would otherwise not have access,
and being a collaborative partner with our neighboring colleges. This
agreement accomplishes these goals and expands our strong partner-
ships with HCC and STCC,” Elms President Harry Dumay said. “Our
campus has always been a welcoming, inclusive community, where we
work hard to ensure that everyone feels like they belong in the spirit of
“Tech Foundry’s senior team has been col-
laborating with various members of
UMass leadership in a variety of ways over
the last couple of years. Our partnership
has evolved to include working with the
IT staff on workforce priorities and
employment opportunities.”
TRICIA CANAVAN
our founding mission. HCC and STCC students now get to discover that
aspect of the Elms experience.”
Other regional partnerships target an older demographic — people
who either never attended college or started but didn’t finish.
One recently announced collaboration between UMass Amherst and
the Tech Foundry — the Springfield-based workforce development non-
profit that trains local residents for IT careers — enables Tech Foundry
staff and community members to complete their undergraduate degrees
through the university’s flexible, customizable online program.
Specifically, Tech Foundry members can take classes, receive aca-
demic counseling, and map their educational pathway through UMass
Amherst’s University Without Walls Department of Interdisciplinary
Studies (UWW-IS).
Current UWW-IS admission requires 12 transferrable college credits
and a 2.0 GPA for adults who did not previously attend UMass Amherst.
As part of its program, however, UWW-IS offers credit for prior learn-
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