Community colleges are institutions that provide access to higher education to anyone with a high school diploma or GED (Kim & Dolan, 2015). The student body is highly diverse and may not be prepared for academic coursework (Cohen et al., 2014). These challenges may be supplemented through embedding services directly into college courses. The…

In this dissertation, I present readers with three studies about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research experiences impact undergraduate learning, perspectives, and academic/career activities. In the first two studies I focus on this topic by investigating the ways in which undergraduates were impacted…

The goal of this action research was to bring awareness of the first-generation community college identity and acknowledge that this identity has many layers. It is important community colleges across the state use the information provided in this action research to be well-informed on how to better support first-generation students. This…

Efforts to address the harmful physiological effects of stress and anxiety among nursing students are ongoing. Incorporating stress-reduction techniques into the nursing curriculum is highly beneficial, but there is a lack of research regarding what methods to use and how to implement them. The setting for this research was a small rural community…

Due to ongoing financial cuts and budget restraints, community colleges have turned to alumni association fundraising to support their mission and advance their institution. Fundraising for any organization is challenging, but community college alumni institutions have a more difficult time than their university counterparts in recruiting alumni…

Many institutions of higher education offer research opportunities for undergraduates, but community college students often do not get to benefit from this high-impact educational practice. There are several reasons for this problem, including that community college faculty and students have limited time availability for research and the mission…

Institutional researchers (IRs) at higher education institutions fulfill a crucial role in identifying, processing, and disseminating data to administrators. Identifying effective ways for leaders to make sense of data is essential to advancing the most critical institutional issues, including achieving equitable student outcomes. However, leaders…

The state of California has the largest community college system in the United States with 1.8 million students from diverse backgrounds and 64% percent of students who are economically disadvantaged (California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, 2022; Felix & Castro, 2018). California community colleges also experience inequitable…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) outcomes of community college students by looking at students' sense of project ownership, science self-efficacy, and science identity using an end of course survey. A total of 54 students, 41 females and 13 males, completed the survey.…

This action research study, informed by qualitative critical bricolage methods explored immigrant-origin adult learners' lived experiences around education. It examined a California community college's practices and campus climate that hinder adult immigrant learners' equitable access to and success in postsecondary education. In an attempt to…

This study examined opportunities for enhancing transfer outcomes for community college students through summer research opportunities at a university. It emphasizes the significance of academic capital, derived from Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, in facilitating successful transfers. By offering ten-week paid summer research opportunities at…

Community College Written Communication 1 (ENC) instructors encounter complex challenges when attempting to teach writing skills to diverse student populations. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the perceptions of full-time community college ENC faculty and determine the instructional strategies they use to…

Undergraduate research experiences (URE) can help retain and support STEM undergraduate program persistence for underrepresented populations, women, and nontraditional STEM students, such as community college students. Understanding their primary discipline, obtaining critical thinking skills, improving their communication skills, gaining…

With just 43% of community college students graduating within six years (Causey et al., 2022b), low graduation rates have been the defining, animating issue for community colleges for over a decade (Cutler & White, 2022). Concurrently, high-impact practices (HIPs) have proven enormously successful in improving student outcomes at higher…

The perceptions and experiences of female community college administrators, particularly those that are part of the Millennial generation, have often been neglected in current research. This study examines community college leadership in a new context, by exploring the lived experiences of female identifying Millennials. More specifically, this…