Ride Along with Reynolds -- February 2025

Ride Along with Reynolds, a series about where the college is heading, who's joining us for the ride, and why it matters for our students and the community.

In this episode of Ride Along With Reynolds, we recap an extraordinary day at the General Assembly meeting with legislators and advocating for Virginia's community colleges. We also celebrate remarkable progress at our 2025 Spring In-Service.

Transcript

Hi, I’m President Paula Pando, inviting you to ride along with Reynolds — a regular update on where the college is heading, who’s joining us for the journey, and why it matters for our students and community.

Phew! January 2025 felt like the month that would never end, but the calendar finally turned. Despite snow and arctic-like temperatures, our staff and students showed up and showed out at multiple events, proving yet again that collective effort creates impact at scale.

Let’s start with an extraordinary day at the General Assembly. Reynolds led a delegation to downtown Richmond to meet with legislators and advocate for Virginia’s community colleges. Words can’t fully capture how proud we are of our students. They spoke with passion and conviction about their journeys and the transformative impact of their community college experiences.

These incredible individuals are the future of our region — future nurses, automotive technicians, respiratory therapists, paramedics, and more. Our students didn’t shy away from tough questions, asking legislators why community colleges are the lowest-funded higher education institutions in Virginia.

And then came the mic-drop moment: one of our nursing students boldly declared, “I am not half of a nurse, so why do we get half of the funding universities get?” It’s hard to top that level of clarity and truth.

At Reynolds, we don’t just educate — we prepare students for careers that meet critical needs in our community. Imagine what we could do with stronger support — expanding programs, innovating for the future, and serving our students and region even more effectively.

Closer to home, we recently brought our faculty and staff together for our Spring In-Service. It was a moment to celebrate remarkable progress — much of it the result of our focused work on the critical first year of a student’s journey.

The research is undeniable, and we’re seeing it come to life at Reynolds. When we help students start on a defined path with a detailed roadmap and support them in reaching early milestones, their likelihood of completing a credential of value in a timely way increases exponentially.

It’s this kind of intentionality that ensures we’re not just opening doors but walking students through to brighter futures.

A special thank-you to Joshua Wyner from the Aspen Institute for his thought-provoking presentation, Community College 3.0, emphasizing that community colleges can no longer simply aim for completion as the goal. We must be intentional about post-completion outcomes — starting with the end in mind, as one college did by redesigning its programs to ensure students graduate into meaningful opportunities and not into poverty.

We can align every effort with brighter, sustainable futures for our students. Thanks for joining us on the ride — see you next month.