Defending the Community College Equity Agenda

8. ‘‘Like, What Do I Do Now?’’: The Dilemmas of Guidance Counseling

c h a p t e r e i g h t ‘‘Like, What Do I Do Now?’’ The Dilemmas of Guidance Counseling w. n o r t o n g r u b b My whole [high] school went to this community college. . . . There is not a lot of career counseling there. So everybody is like, well, what do I do now? So they come here to figure it out. —Community college student, National Field Study In a simpler world without occupational choices, where sons succeed their fathers and daughters become mothers and homemakers, there are few decisions for young people to make about their occupations. As occupational possibilities expand, some mechanisms must facilitate the choice among them. This process has increasingly taken place in schools and colleges, as occupational preparation has moved into formal educational institutions (Grubb and Lazerson, 2004). So most education programs from the high school through postsecondary education have developed forms of guidance and counseling, initially career counseling helping students choose occupational directions, then academic counseling assisting students enroll in the right courses and make progress toward academic goals, and sometimes including personal counseling focusing on personal and psychological issues. Finally, financial counseling may be necessary, especially in postsecondary education, where students have to juggle schooling and work and tuition and grants and loans—though financial counseling usually takes place in financial aid o≈ces, separate from other forms of guidance and counseling. The issues of guidance and counseling are especially di≈cult in community colleges . The variety of students is challenge enough, because di√erent kinds of students usually need di√erent help (Healy and Reilly, 1989). First-generation college students with little information from their families about progress through college, immi- 196 W. Norton Grubb grants unfamiliar with the education and employment options in this country, and ‘‘experimenters’’ or ‘‘undecided’’ students unsure of their educational and occupational goals (Manski, 1989; Grubb 1996, chap. 2) all present special problems. Furthermore , the ‘‘equity agenda’’ of the ‘‘people’s college,’’ serving nontraditional students , requires programs that target at-risk or low-income or minority students. So there is widespread acceptance in community colleges of the enormous need for guidance and counseling, ‘‘essential to the success of students,’’ as one counselor said. Counseling, however, has long been criticized. It has sometimes been attacked for directing women to traditionally female occupations, working-class and minority students to working-class jobs and occupational education, and immigrants to menial positions. Within their own institutions, counselors often have checkered reputations . Many instructors in the National Field Study complained about misinformation from counselors, and many griped that ‘‘they’re not aware of our programs,’’ a particularly common criticism from occupational instructors. Many charged that counseling is not especially innovative, or is ‘‘fifteen years behind,’’ and that counseling is isolated and insular: ‘‘it’s this little vested-interest place,’’ asserted one dean. There is not much consensus about what guidance and counseling should do (as documented later in this chapter, in ‘‘What Guidance and Counseling Mean: What Do Counselors Do All Day?’’), and very few e√orts in most colleges to develop a coherent plan or vision. Noninstructional programs such as student services remain peripheral in most colleges, and the resources are almost always inadequate. The great dilemma of counseling and guidance is that it seems particularly important , especially for nontraditional students, even though it is underfunded, underused , and sometimes embattled. Furthermore, despite its presumptive importance, there has been relatively little investigation into the nature of counseling in community colleges (Grubb, 2001b). In light of limited information, the National Field Study included guidance and counseling among the issues to examine in fifteen colleges. We interviewed the directors of guidance and counseling, as well as the directors of student services in general; we spoke with several counselors in each college, either individually or in focus groups; and we visited counseling centers. Instructors also provided valuable insights, both positive and negative. We could not observe counseling sessions because of privacy issues, and—although we talked to a number of students in focus groups—we did not systematically interview them about their use of guidance and counseling. In the first section, we examine the special needs of community colleges students. The second section describes the basic structure of guidance and counseling, and the third analyzes what counselors do in their interactions with students. The fourth ‘‘Like, What Do I Do Now?’’ 197 section describes...