Maine Maritime Academy: Focusing on Goals From Day 1

Maine Maritime Academy: Focusing on Goals From Day 1
31 Dec 2019 https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20191231-barriers-case-studies

Ask Susan Loomis, the dean of faculty at Maine Maritime Academy, about why this small college on the New England coast outpaces Ivy League and other elite private colleges in the long-term economic gains of graduates, and she doesn’t mention career advising or alumni networks.

Instead, Loomis immediately points to students’ very first semester on campus. That’s when they all take a mandatory course to help them make the transition to college and put them on a path toward a career. (Technically, there are two courses, with one tailored for the two-thirds of Maine Maritime students who will earn U.S. Coast Guard certifications in addition to their bachelor’s degrees.) During the course, students learn about time management, practice public speaking, and are introduced to campus services. Some class sessions have an explicit jobs focus, such as how to apply for an internship or what’s the proper etiquette at a business lunch.

Giving students support from Day 1 is seen as critical at Maine Maritime, where nearly half the students are the first in their families to go to college and a quarter receive Pell Grants. College is unfamiliar to them, Loomis says, and if they stumble out of the gate, they might never make it to graduation, let alone a career. The first-year program is designed to give students the tools to navigate college. “We want to talk with them early about their goals and help them see how they can get there,” she says.

And where students go is on to fruitful careers. A study
by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce ranks Maine Maritime among the best colleges in the country for its graduates’ long-term economic gain. The center drew on federal data about college costs and graduates’ earnings to calculate the return on investment for 4,500 public and private institutions. Forty years after graduation, Maine Maritime graduates could expect to see a net economic benefit of $2 million, more than that for graduates of Harvard or Georgetown Universities — and all but five other colleges in the country.

“We want to talk with them early about their goals and help them see how they can get there.”

Maine Maritime has had a first-year course for students in its regimental-training program, those who will get a Coast Guard license, for decades. But administrators created a version for degree-seeking students a couple of years ago because they could see the difference it made in outcomes, Loomis says. They’re now tweaking the course to place greater emphasis on leadership training and ethics because they see those skills as highly correlated with success in the classroom and in the workplace.

But the college, which is publicly funded and was established in 1941 by the Maine State Legislature, doesn’t simply want to get students on the right path — it wants to be sure they stay on it. It emphasizes close advising and has a specially designated Student Early Assistance, or SEA, Team made up of faculty members, administrators, and counselors who intervene at the first signs a student is struggling academically or emotionally. Often, students’ challenges will be rooted in their family backgrounds, such as first-generation students who feel pressure to help out financially on top of their studies.

Still, Maine Maritime has some built-in advantages. With just under 1,000 students, it is easy to be high-touch. It’s the antithesis of a party school — under Coast Guard rules, regimental students are subject to drug testing and must rise early every morning for muster. “If you have to get up at 7 a.m. for muster,” says Elizabeth True, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, “you will make your 8 a.m. class.”

The college also tends to attract career-oriented students, who come to it for its specialized majors in areas like marine-systems engineering, ocean studies, and international business and logistics. It concentrates on hands-on training through internships and co-ops, and students take part in summertime training cruises, where they apply what they’ve learned in the classroom on a working ship. Ninety percent of Maine Maritime graduates have jobs in their chosen fields within 90 days of graduation, and many have offers in hand before they even get their degrees.

But while vocationally oriented majors and practical skills help students land a well-paying first job, where Maine Maritime really outperforms is over a lifetime of earnings, according to the Georgetown study. Success over an entire career is grounded in soft skills like leadership and teamwork that students learn in their first-year course and that are carried on through the college’s liberal-arts core curriculum, True says. “Those skills won’t help you get a first job,” she says, “but they matter enormously long term.”