Humanities, Leadership, and Belonging: Inside Tri-C’s Mandel Scholars Academy

In this episode of CCA on the Air, Midwest Region Alliance Engagement Director Nichole Mann takes listeners inside Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) in Cleveland, Ohio, for a conversation that came straight out of CCA’s Complete College Photo Library project. She sits down with Dr. Connie Kassor, Chair of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Humanities Center and Mandel Scholars Academy, and Morgan Dillard, a Tri-C theater student and Mandel Scholar, to talk about what it really looks like when a program gets belonging right. Dr. Kassor breaks down how the academy’s cohort model, humanities curriculum, and “Cleadership” activities build community, drive persistence, and connect students to the city they call home. Morgan offers her own powerful perspective, tracing her path from discovering the program through TRIO, to acing honors courses she never thought she’d take, to earning a spot in the Continuing Scholars program with a potential full scholarship to Cleveland State’s Honors College on the horizon. Don’t sleep on community colleges. Don’t sleep on the humanities. This episode makes the case for both.