Michelle Ashley obtiene una titulación en Justicia Penal gracias a las ayudas a la formación

Excelsior College’s corporate, association, and government partnerships give people the opportunity to complete their degrees through high-quality programs, affordable and discounted tuition and fees, flexible course schedules, and generous credit-transfer policies. The College’s partnership with Zone 5 Law Enforcement Training Academy in Schenectady, New York, ended up being the perfect opportunity for Michelle Ashley to pursue her higher education.

Ashley, a public campus safety officer from West Sand Lake, New York, was going through training at Zone 5 while she was employed with University Heights Association Inc., a security company for colleges and college housing units. “I became a supervisor and that is when Excelsior and [Zone 5] went into a partnership,” she says. Ashley has an associate degree in business from SUNY Cobleskill but decided to pursue criminal justice. Many of her subordinates also had associate degrees in criminal justice and Ashley wondered what their learning experience had been like. She had also been watching the Zone 5 training pages and saw an announcement to earn an associate degree in criminal justice with Excelsior.

She had previously learned that a lot of her credits from SUNY weren’t going to transfer to other schools, and she would have to essentially start all over again. When she looked deeper at Excelsior, she realized having been at Zone 5 gave her a leg up in making her degree happen. “I was so excited that some of my work I did at Zone 5 transferred as credits over to Excelsior because then that made getting a degree achievable,” says Ashley. When she found out she could complete her criminal justice degree in a year with Excelsior, it became a more tangible dream that Ashley could achieve and not, as she explains, take away from her family time.

El formato de aprendizaje en línea de Excelsior resultó perfecto para Ashley, que trabaja a tiempo completo en el turno de noche. Sin embargo, admite que le resultó difícil cursar dos asignaturas a la vez. «Me esfuerzo por sacar las mejores notas… Cursar dos asignaturas a la vez me dificultaba asimilar la información. Pero seguí adelante y pude terminar ambas asignaturas», afirma. Como estudiante, contaba con su formación en Zone 5 como respaldo y pudo recurrir a su experiencia para aportar ejemplos en los temas de debate.

Ahora está animando a su marido, que es agente de policía, a que termine la carrera en Excelsior. Le explica que, con su experiencia y los créditos que ya tiene, está aún más cerca de obtener el título de lo que ella lo estaba. «En cuanto a la parte de guardia de seguridad, lo hice en un año más o menos, pero luego, como agente de policía, usteda aprovechar más lo que ofrece la Zona 5», explica, refiriéndose a la cantidad de créditos que Excelsior acepta de la formación de la Zona 5.

Her degree has opened her eyes to the administrative world of criminal justice. She says it’s helpful that she is able to pull information from her class research to show data that supports various ways of dealing with people who break the rules. Ashley’s favorite courses with the College were CJ 120 Introduction to Corrections and CJ 256 Criminal Justice Administration. CJ 120 helped her understand why it is important to try rehabilitation as an alternative to incarceration and it showed her how biased the social justice system is against low-income persons. CJ 256 gave Ashley many administrative strategies to use in her career.

Ashley afirma que el apoyo de sus profesores fue fundamental para que pudiera tener éxito en Excelsior. «Cuando pedía ayuda a los profesores, se mostraban más que dispuestos a buscar información, enviar enlaces o hacer preguntas para ayudarme», afirma. Ashley obtuvo el título de Técnico Superior en Ciencias de la Justicia Penal en agosto de 2018 y, aunque no tiene pensado cambiar de trabajo a corto plazo, afirma que su título le será de gran ayuda cuando aspire a un ascenso.

She plans to pursue her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice because, with Excelsior, she found she likes the online format. “My company gives me tuition reimbursement so it makes it more achievable,” she says of pursuing her education. She’s not sure what topic she will pursue; she wants to keep her options open and see how she will best fit with her company, but administration, fire safety, and community policing are on her list. Thanks to her degree from Excelsior and her training from Zone 5, Ashley can keep her options open and pursue higher education and career advancement whenever she pleases.