The Tennessean, July 11, 2010, Sunday

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The Tennessean (Nashville, Tennessee)

July 11, 2010 Sunday

The graduate who didn't graduate: Extreme case illustrates problems

BYLINE: By, Jaime Sarrio and Brad Schrade

Working on a factory line wasn't what Dominique Handley envisioned when she enrolled at Tennessee State University in 2004 with a dream of earning a psychology degree.

But that's where she ended up five years later.

The Michigan native experienced the thrill of wearing her cap and gown in August 2009. Proud family members traveled from Michigan, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois and watched as Handley carried the banner for her college during the ceremony - an honor earned because of her high grade point average.

Weeks later, she moved to Louisville, Ky., and began applying for jobs to help abused children. A potential employer ran a background check as a formality and called her.

"We can verify you left TSU in 2009, but we can't verify you have a degree," the caller said.

It turned out she didn't.

Handley's case is an extreme example of the dysfunctional services TSU students have been complaining about for decades. They're part of a critical breakdown that report after report has said undercuts the success of the university.

Among some upperclassmen at TSU, there is a palpable pride that comes with knowing how to work the system. Ask one, and he or she will say to keep copies of everything and figure out which employees can help get things done.

Who's to blame?

More than a dozen students, faculty and alumni interviewed cited problems with financial aid or enrollment, including:

· Concerns about the amount of time it takes for aid to be posted to a student's account after tuition is paid. Some reported it took weeks to be reimbursed and, as a result, students didn't have money to buy books or for other start-of-semester expenses.

· Complaints that counselors are hard to reach and that some employees are rude, unprofessional and unhelpful.

· Frustration that when one employee is out, others cannot step in to do the required task, causing some students to miss critical deadlines.

TSU officials say they have made strides to improve student services, including adding customer service training, streamlining the financial aid process and making the fall check-in process more efficient.

But they've long maintained that students are a major part of the problem. Some don't attend informational seminars, they say, and some wait until the last minute and expect the university to accommodate them instantly.

"I have almost 80 percent of my students who are on some kind of financial aid. You don't find that at Vanderbilt," TSU President Melvin Johnson said. "These students require more intensive handling. Sometimes they come to the table very late in terms of paperwork. Sometimes the paperwork isn't even completed. That puts a tremendous strain at an office that would not necessarily see that kind of workload at other institutions."

That's been senior John Woodward's take on the problems, too. The 30-year-old Nashville resident says he's never had an issue with student services or financial aid reimbursement because he holds up his end of the bargain.

"I don't hold anyone else accountable," the design major said. "I know what my responsibility is, and I fulfill my part of the responsibility."

A new study suggests that investing in student services also can improve graduation and retention rates, especially at schools like Tennessee State University where 80 percent of students arrive academically unprepared and 70 percent come from low-income families.

Ronald Ehrenberg, a professor of economics and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, co-authored the new study, which looks at spending on admission and registrar departments, as well as tutoring, counseling and student organizations.

"In a sense what we found is obvious - for bright students coming from well-supported financial backgrounds, it's not going to matter that much," Ehrenberg said. "But for disadvantaged students, they don't have the support system or networks advantaged students have."

'I had no idea'

Handley wouldn't count herself among those students - her mother and siblings all went to college.

But she was no less devastated when she got the news that she wasn't actually a college graduate.

Over the phone, a university employee told her what academic advisers repeatedly failed to mention: Handley was two credits shy of a diploma because she took a developmental math class her freshman year. Those classes show up on transcripts but don't count toward a degree.

"I called my mom crying," she said. "I had no idea. If they would have told me, I would have taken an extra class that summer. I could have stayed in Nashville to finish."

TSU officials did not respond directly to Handley's case but say participation in graduation is not evidence a student has earned a diploma. The school's website also states that rule.

According to Handley, she was never told the developmental class's hours would not count toward her degree.

Her job opportunity fell through, and she was forced to take a series of temporary jobs, including one on a factory line, placing labels on cassette tapes. TSU agreed to a plan by which she'll earn her degree in August after taking one criminal justice class at a community college in Louisville.

But Handley's mother felt so strongly about the university's liability that she wrote the Tennessee Board of Regents in March, asking them to launch an internal review of problems at the school.

"No one wants to take responsibility for their actions," Gloria Handley said. "There's so much incompetence there. And people just figure that's the way it is."

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