Author: By Deborah Gastfreund Schuss, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, June 28, 1998

Page: C7

Section: Learning

Harrington, who holds two master's degrees and a doctorate in English, has taught 19th- and 20th-century English literature at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, surveying modern writers such as D. H. Lawrence.

But the instructor is not only assigning homework, he also has done his own cramming. Harrington, of Newton, just finished a software-technical-writing program at Middlesex Community College in Bedford, a course of study that is helping him with a career change.

"Far too many people are chasing a tiny number of jobs in academia in the Boston area," said Harrington, 36. "Five years out of graduate school, I still haven't managed to find permanent work; I was tired of living three months at a time."

Across the state and country, academic credentials like Harrington's are no longer the exclusive domain of the faculty at community colleges; rather, they have become increasingly common among students, education specialists say. In the last five to 10 years, there has been a "marked increase" in the number of community-college students with bachelor's, master's, law, and doctorate degrees, according to the College Board in New York. The board estimates they represent up to 20 percent of community colleges' credit-seeking students nationwide.

The popularity has been fueled by more mid-career switches and rapidly changing job requirements that call for more frequent training, college officials say.

There also is a growing appetite for recreational learning among adults of all ages, and specialists predict that as well-educated baby boomers retire, community-college classrooms will have even more folks like John E. Miller. The 73-year-old Westport resident, who holds a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a leader in the design of the guidance, navigation, and control system for the Apollo space program's flight vehicles.

Recently, the retired rocket scientist has spent at least 12 hours a week in a different kind of laboratory: He has taken culinary-arts courses at Bristol Community College in Fall River, where his technical expertise was broadened to include vichyssoise and poached salmon with hollandaise sauce. Miller said his mission is control of his home kitchen; he wants to relieve his wife, Janice, of the cooking, so she'll have more time for her work as an artist.

"It's astonishing how the community colleges can serve such a range of populations, from the illiterate to the PhD," said Carol Aslanian, director of the College Board's Office of Adult Learning Services, who likens community colleges to "graduate schools" for degree-holders enhancing their skills or retraining. "Even those students who . . . earn one or more degrees . . . are not finished. They will be back to their community college, perhaps over and over, throughout their lifetimes."

This national trend has caught on here as well, with several community colleges reporting more post-baccalaureate students. In eight years, Middlesex Community College experienced a nearly 500 percent increase -- from 21 in 1989 to 120 last fall -- in students with at least a bachelor's who take courses for credit, despite an 11 percent drop in for-credit enrollment to 6,125.

But at Middlesex and other community colleges, there are many more students with "invisible" academic credentials that aren't recorded because they are not in credit-bearing courses or programs.

"Traditionally, the community college was for the nontraditional students looking for a career or to transfer after an associate's degree, but it has branched out to community service," said Janice Motta, executive officer of the Massachusetts Community Colleges.

Many need the course work to keep a job, others to land one. Shawn Doyle of Cumberland, R.I., who has a bachelor's in geography, said he enrolled in the occupational-therapy-assistant associate's degree program at Bristol Community College to regain work quickly after his job as a US Navy lieutenant and flight officer was eliminated.

Some are there to get "parachute" skills in case the bottom falls out of their present careers. And several are taking prerequisite courses for medical school, with much lower tuition than private colleges. Newly arrived immigrants enroll for an employable skill that will pay the bills while they accumulate necessary credentials in their former professions.

Still others, such as Stephanie Clayman, want a second career that enhances both their bank account and sense of satisfaction. Clayman, of Somerville, received a theater-arts degree from Brandeis University in 1981. The freelance actress and acting teacher said she always wanted to serve the deaf community, so she enrolled in the deaf-studies program at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, a curriculum in which about half the students have at least a bachelor's, school officials say.

"I'm a more serious student than I was at Brandeis," says Clayman, who plans to work as an actress and freelance sign-language interpreter. "A lot of college is you're busy figuring out who . . . you are. That takes a lot of energy. I'm a lot older. I know who I am and why I want to be there."

Personal experiences can spark a new professional interest that leads to community-college schooling. Debbie Chameides, a Barnard College graduate, worked in college administration after she received a master's in English literature from New York University. The 32-year-old Pittsfield resident had planned to get a doctorate and teach, but changed her mind.

"I got interested in women's health from my childbirth experiences, and decided I wanted to go into nursing midwifery," said Chameides, a student in the associate's degree program in nursing at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield.

Community-college education also has become popular with companies embracing the concept of lifelong learning for their work force as they face stiffer competition, Aslanian said. Bristol Community College, for instance, offers prerequisite courses for its associate's degree in engineering at Texas Instruments Incorporated in Attleborough, and Massachusetts Bay Community College in Wellesley has a systems-maintenance training program that guarantees a job at EMC Corp. in Hopkinton to those who successfully complete it; both programs have students with advanced degrees.

The diverse ages, educational backgrounds, and abilities have brought no change to the level of instruction, community-college faculty say. "I don't think I teach any differently knowing I have a person who's only 20 and not had any college, and knowing there's a person with a master's in the class; I still teach to the standard of practice," said Ruth Pelkey, coordinator of nurse education and professor of nursing at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester. "Sometimes the very young students are just as helpful, because they see things through very ideal eyes that other people become hardened to; it's mutual give and take."

They also add insight by personalizing class discussions with examples of their own families' issues, said Richard Nicoletti, a 60-year-old Cornell-educated business-transactions lawyer. Nicoletti recently attended an abnormal-psychology class at Massachusetts Bay Community College for three hours every Thursday afternoon. Such revelations by students did not take place in his undergraduate days, he said.

"I've gotten such a kick out of talking to the people in the class," said Nicoletti, whose starched shirt and tie stood out among his classmates' shorts and T-shirts. "I find tremendous richness in their experiences. I'm so happy, I really am, with what I have found."

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