Community colleges are experiencing a leadership shortage due to the majority of college presidents retiring by 2011. This leadership shortage has created financial and operational challenges for the nation's community college system. To remedy the shortage, community colleges and other organizations have developed leadership development programs.…

Based on a literature review and interviews with administrators at five California community colleges, this report examines staff development efforts undertaken to improve the productivity of classroom instruction. Chapter I reviews the literature on staff development, considering the following issues: increasing demands for educational…

A 1996-97 follow-up of 1989-90 case studies of community college programs for older adults in Arizona, New York, and Ohio showed that programs were successful in terms of leadership, funding stability, institutional support, and organizational structure/placement. Major changes occurred over time in leadership and movement to new divisions, but…

The author finds that students who have not previously mastered arithmetic skills do not benefit from an individualized review course. He describes such a course and presents four case studies in support of his position. (SD)

Drawing on case studies of six urban community colleges, this report examines the community college mission with respect to economic and workforce development and describes model partnerships involving colleges, community-based organizations, government, and social service organizations to create pathways to employment for the urban poor.…

In 2002, the Policy Center on the First Year of College (supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and Lumina Foundation for Education) sponsored a project to recognize colleges and universities as "Institutions of Excellence" in their design and execution of the first year. Thirteen colleges and…

Faculty and staff development (FSD) programs in the California community colleges currently receive funding under the California Assembly Bill (AB) 1725, which has distributed approximately $5 million each year since 1989 to districts on an enrollment-based formula. A study was conducted which surveyed FSD programs statewide to assess program…

Presents findings from a survey of two-year colleges with nontraditional economic development programs. Focuses on factors associated with success, program independence from traditional college structure, faculty inclusion/exclusion, labor/management relations, administrative structures, and unrealistic expectations. Considers the emerging role of…

This monograph describes the activities of the second year of a 5-year program of Transition Institute research to understand and assist evaluation of demonstration transition programs for students moving from special education to work and adult living. A case study approach was used to create a description of two transition programs, based on the…

Data envelopment analysis, which is designed to assist in identifying best practice performance in the use of resources among a group of like organizations, was used to estimate the technical and scale efficiency of vocational education and training in 25 New Zealand polytechnics serving a total of 94,201 students. The polytechnics' efficiency was…

To gather data on the goals and effectiveness of a postsecondary program organized from the perspective of multiculturalism, a case study was conducted of Nuevos Horizontes (NH), an immigrant education program at Triton College, in Illinois. NH is designed to facilitate access to higher education for Hispanics and other minority students; provide…

The cooperative education program at the Mingchi Institute of Technology, a 5-year technical junior college in Taiwan, is often praised as an exemplary model. Mingchi has implemented cooperative education in cooperation with Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) for more than 30 years. The school year at the college is structured with the winter and summer…

The Southern Maryland Educational Consortium's Tech Prep Model Demonstration project is described in this final report. The consortium members are Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary's county school districts and Charles County Community College in southern Maryland. The project is based on a 4 + 2 model in which ninth-grade students develop career…

In the Southern Maryland Educational Consortium's 4 + 2 tech prep program, ninth-grade students develop career plans and follow career pathways in one of three technologies--health and human services, electronics and engineering, or business. The program was evaluated by an independent social science research firm to identify the different…

Since the passage of the Carl D. Perkins legislation in 1990 and the School to Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) in 1994, considerable funds and effort have been put into tech prep and school-to-work programs. To determine the extent to which these programs actually improve educational opportunities for students, case studies were undertaken of six…