This Heroic Librarian Created a Free ‘Fashion Library’ for Job Seekers in Need

Step inside a library and you expect to check out novels, mysteries and maybe a DVD or two. But at the New York Public Library, you can leave with a briefcase, tie and handbag.
Michelle Lee, a young adult librarian, was helping individuals work on resumes, cover letters and job applications when she noticed that many of them also needed access to professional interview attire. 
“Some teens were surprised by the idea that they had to wear professional attire,” Lee told NationSwell.
So she proposed an idea for a ‘fashion library’ and started NYPL’s Grow Up program, where cardholders — who owe less than $15 in fines — can check out professional accessories, like ties and bags, at the Riverside Library branch.
NYPL isn’t alone in its efforts to provide sartorial support to job seekers. A handful of other libraries, like the Queens Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia, have launched similar programs for cardholders to check out professional attire. Watch to learn more.
More: Looking for Housing or Affordable Healthcare? Your Local Library Is Here to Help

Making Sure the Next Generation of Learners Is Employable

In a fast-changing world, education is a key to success. Whether learning is the path to advance a career, or to a job that can support a family, or simply to pursue a passion for discovery, it’s always a path to opportunity.

With a suite of world-class tools, content and products, Pearson believes we can positively change the outcomes for students to ensure that they are not just educated, but also employable

Watch the video above to see how Pearson is changing the face of modern education — and the modern workforce.
Learn more here.
 

The School for College Dropouts

Dennis Littky looks every inch an iconoclast. With his omnipresent kofia, white goatee and casual manner — the words “ain’t” and “man” regularly pepper his speech — the 74-year-old self-styled “radical educator” seems more ashram guru than international education thought leader. But his track record is hard to dispute: Littky, who holds twin Ph.D.s in psychology and education, has been founding and running schools for over 40 years, along the way garnering praise from the likes of the Gates Foundation (which has awarded several million dollars to fund his efforts) and Barack Obama.
Littky first gained attention in the late ’80s as the principal of the troubled Thayer High School in New Hampshire, where his unorthodox appearance and methods eventually got him fired (which was grist for the 1992 TV movie “A Town Torn Apart”). After co-founding a nonprofit, Big Picture Learning, that today operates more than 75 schools in the U.S. and more than 100  around the world, he turned his attention to post-secondary education with the launch of College Unbound in 2009.
Designed to address the needs of underrepresented, nontraditional college students, most of whom have full-time, low-wage jobs, College Unbound caters to adults with some college credit but no degree. Focusing on each student’s unique talents and interests, Littky’s innovative formula seems to be working: The Providence, Rhode Island–based school currently enrolls around 200 students, 80 percent of whom graduate, says Littky.
NationSwell spoke with Littky about how College Unbound supports adult students, why a bachelor of arts degree still matters, and how to get credit for one’s “life” work.
NationSwell: After establishing the Big Picture and Met schools, why did you decide to open a college for underserved populations?
Dennis Littky: There are 37 million people in this country who started college and didn’t finish. Ten years ago I [realized] college sucks for poor kids. If kids in the lowest quartile actually start college, 89 percent don’t make it through, which is absurd. So I said, “I think I can reverse that.”
NationSwell: Why is getting a bachelor’s degree so important in this country? Some might argue that vocational schools can help fill that gap.
Littky: In the year 2019, if you are poor and of color, you ain’t moving anywhere without a bachelor’s degree. It’s the bar, and it is still a symbol that you know what you’re doing. It’s the middle class that tells you, “Yeah, there are a lot of different pathways.” Yeah, [but are] you sending your kid to a four-year college or are you sending them to a plumbing school? There are other ways, but [a degree] is very important right now.
NationSwell: All of your previous work was with kids in high school and younger. Why did you change your focus to helping people finish college, particularly older people?
Littky: We started [College Unbound] with young kids, and then I kept having 25-year-olds, 35-year-olds, 45-year-olds, come to us and say, “We dropped out when we were 20, man. I went back when I was 23. I dropped out again. And we can’t get back in school. We don’t want to sit next to an 18-year-old. We’re now 38. We can’t go to school at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.” So 10 years ago I wrote a Facebook post saying, “If you started school and dropped out, come [out tonight] at 7 o’clock.” I had 78 people show up who wanted to finish their education — a lot of single moms, a lot of people working two jobs.

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Dennis Littky (left) with College Unbound founding provost Adam Bush.

We morphed the college into what we call a degree-completion college, so it’s for people who have started [college]. We get them to come out one night a week for three hours. They’re in a cohort model so they support each other. They’ve all dropped out a million times. We’ve been keeping 86 percent of the people in, which is ridiculously good. And that’s with 75 percent who are eligible for federal Pell grants, which is ridiculously poor. To give you perspective, 7 percent of students at Brown University are eligible for this aid.
NationSwell: College Unbound provides childcare and dinner for students. I have a 4-year-old so I can understand how complicated going back to school would be, especially if also working full-time.
Littky: The other day [a prospective] student heard me talk. She hadn’t been able to go back to school. And then I said, “Food — you can come right from work.” She checked it off. She has a kid, so she checked daycare off. We do everything we can do to help an adult get through. We’re also inside the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; we’ve had 93 students in the prison. When they get out, they take what we call a gateway course, which helps them with the transition back to society and prepares them to move into the college.
NationSwell: I was reading that you partnered with another school, an accredited institution, that provides the actual diploma. Is that how it works?
Littky: We had [being doing that], but now we’re on our own — we got approved as the 13th college in Rhode Island, and we were the first school approved in 26 years. The [accreditation commission] is very protective of who they let in; it’s very tough. We went through a three-year process. And last September, we got what’s called candidacy, the most important step, which means we now can apply for the federal government to give our students financial aid — that’s a big thing. If you have poor students, you need them to be eligible for financial aid, and they can’t get that unless the school is accredited.
NationSwell: So when students graduate this year, their diploma will say College Unbound for the first time?
Littky: Yes. Hopefully in the fall, the first people entering can collect financial aid right through us.
NationSwell: I skimmed your course catalog and noticed more pragmatic fields of study like social and business ethics instead of, say, a film class or other squishy liberal arts stuff. Why is that?
Littky: We have one major that’s going to help people succeed in life: organizational leadership and change. They take courses on leadership; writing for change; and reframing failure, where they reexamine [past mistakes] and do a “résumé of failures.” There’s also a research course, and one that contextualizes their work and workplace. We try to make everything relevant. But we have science courses, we have statistics courses, we have everything. We give out 120 credits, like everybody else.
NationSwell: College Unbound serves nontraditional students, all of whom are adults. What is a typical day like for these atypical students?
Littky: Most people going to community college take a course here, a course there, and they’re 80 before they graduate. The majority of our students have jobs. A student might come in at 5:30 p.m., grab her food, put her kid in the corner with a book. She’ll start mingling with her cohort, about 15 people. Every student has a project. There’s usually either a professor online or a professor right there who’s giving them some content about their courses. They take two courses at a time for eight weeks. One day they’re meeting with a lab faculty advisor to get one-on-one work.
Our job is to get these people [to graduate], right? And to honor what work they’ve done for the last 20 years, OK? So we have something called prior learning experience. There’s an organization called the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning that we partnered with. You can put together all the novels that you’ve read and all the work that you’ve done, and they can be submitted. If they find a course that’s similar, an English course, you can get credit for it. There’s also something called CLEP exams, which are proficiency exams and have been approved in this country as college credit. So if I have people that speak Spanish — and half my population speaks Spanish — they can take those exams and get six to 12 credits.
After Kurt Vonnegut wrote “Cat’s Cradle,” [the University of Chicago] gave him an honorary degree. I was thinking about that — I’ve got a lot of honorary degrees. Sometimes you just think it’s bullshit, but on the other hand, it’s based on real work, right? And that’s what we do. We try to give credit to adults for their life’s work.
More: What If We Could Nearly Double the Graduation Rate of Community College Students With One Simple Idea?

At This Library, People in Need Can Check Out Accessories for Job Interviews

Michelle Lee was in the middle of a job-hunting workshop when the subject of wardrobe came up. “I was talking about work fashion, and one teen said that he didn’t have any clothing [suitable] for job interviews,” Lee told NationSwell. “And some teens were surprised by the idea that they had to wear professional attire” when interviewing for jobs.
Lee was taken aback by their comments. As the young adult librarian at the Riverside branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), Lee coaches local students on how to write resumes, practice for interviews and learn the skills they’ll need to join the workforce. But this was the first time Lee had thought about their attire and the importance of dressing for success.
It sparked an idea: What if the library could be a place where job seekers of any age could borrow the accessories they might need in order to impress a potential future boss?

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A selection of handbags available through NYPL Grow Up.

As libraries expand beyond books and become hubs for artstechnology and social services, they are now providing sartorial support. NYPL’s Grand Central branch gives referrals for organizations that provide professional clothing for work or a job interview, as part of a program run by the economic empowerment nonprofit Single Stop. And the Queens Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia both have tie-lending programs.
So Lee submitted a proposal for a “fashion library” to NYPL’s Innovation Projectwhich provides funding and support for library staffers to pitch ideas for creative programs and solutions services for clientele. Lee ended up winning a grant to launch NYPL Grow Up as a pilot program at Riverside. Grow Up combines an attire rental service with a new series of “adulting” workshops that cover workplace fashion as well as budgeting, healthy living and other life skills.
Grow Up’s library features a range of neckties, briefcases and handbags that patrons can rent for up to three weeks. All they need is a library card (with less than $15 in fines attached to it). Grow Up even offers bow ties if interviewees are in need of something formal. “They can use it for a school performance or prom if they want,” Lee told the Washington Post.
Grow Up has already seen some success, particularly among female job seekers who report that the handbags are not only stylish and useful, but also practical: “You can put a lot of stuff in there,” one renter said.
If you would like to contribute to the program, the Riverside Library accepts donations of work-appropriate handbags, briefcases and ties during normal business hours.

Bridging the Civilian-Military Divide Through a Service Year

Nathan Moser and Alyssa Menard both grew up in rural areas and spent most of their childhoods outdoors. But until recently, their similarities ended there.
Menard stayed close to home to attend college, where she never quite figured out what she wanted to pursue after graduation. And Moser joined the Marines, serving for a time overseas. Once both were finished — Menard with school and Moser with the armed forces — they found themselves wondering what to do next.
In 2015, Menard began her first service year at Virginia’s Pocahontas State Park after applying to a number of AmeriCorps park programs. She also participated in Service Year Alliance’s career development program, which is designed to give its members the basis for finding employment in their chosen field.
After Moser came back stateside, he began searching for a career path where he could work outdoors and as part of a team. Now he is completing his first service year at Pocahontas, where he’s worked closely with Menard and has come to view her as a mentor.
For Menard’s part, she recognizes the drive and skills Moser brings to the table.
“He is ready to do things,” Menard says. “He isn’t afraid to take the initiative, take the lead. He goes for it. And I like that because it helps get things done.”
Watch the video above to follow along as Menard and Moser complete their training and prepare for jobs in the state park system.

NationSwell asks you to join our partnership with Service Year Alliance. Watch the video above and learn more about how a service year is truly for everyone. Together, we can lead a national movement to give young Americans the opportunity to help bridge the divides in our country.

This Professor Proved That Everyone Deserves a Fair Shot at a Good Job. Then He Made It Happen

When  Columbia University’s Arthur Langer studied 47 low-income young adults to understand why they struggled to find career opportunities, he found that it wasn’t because they lacked talent. What they needed was a way to develop professional skills. The four year study suggested that anyone would succeed if given a fair opportunity.
So instead of stopping there, Langer took it upon himself to provide that opportunity: He founded Workforce Opportunity Services in 2005 to provide disadvantaged young adults and veterans with educational opportunities that lead immediately to long-term careers. WOS has flipped the traditional job-placement model. First, it finds employers who have or create job openings, then it finds disadvantaged youth and veterans to fill those jobs. The students then undergo a rigorous training program where they attend night classes on social skills, read The New York Times and read books on office politics. They also write weekly journal entries and take classes on interpersonal communications. Their weekly assignments can ask questions like “Describe your level of self-esteem.” In Langer’s mission statement, he said the program is designed not only to create good workers — it also wants to create better people and citizens. When the training ends, the employees are guaranteed a well-paid job in information technology. WOS has gained a large and well-recognized client base that includes Prudential Financial, Johnson & Johnson and Hewlett Packard.
Students have to apply for their positions, but once they’re in everything is covered. Though the students have to work very hard once accepted to a program, the long-term job security and free tech training is definitely worth it. “Our approach is simple: skills first. We want to teach our students valuable skills and launch them into careers,” Langer said on WOS’ website. “They work on their degrees part time and graduate from college, debt free.”
MORE: Helping College Students Graduate Debt Free and On Time

Here’s a Scholarship That Does More Than Send Kids to College

The state of Maine realizes that one size doesn’t fit all in the realm of higher education and career preparation. So it’s using the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program to offer low-income students multiple options to gain an education and a job in a high-growth field. The program awards funding for four-year degrees, certificate training, or apprenticeship programs to students who demonstrate that there are jobs in their chosen field within commuting distance, or in an area of Maine where they’ll move after their education is completed. The Department of Labor is working on making the program more effective and able to serve more students, so it can help more Maine residents get out of poverty and into a good job.