Moreno Valley College, a two-year community college in Southern California, experiences an annual migration of cliff swallows. The presence of these birds inspired the development of the undergraduate research program Flying with Swallows. The assessment of the project indicated significant increases in qualitative student outcomes such as…

Background: Most community college students from low-income families have ambitious educational degree goals, but only a small fraction attains them. For many decades, sociologists have primarily attributed this problem to a cooling out process in which college practitioners diminish students' educational ambitions using academic reorientation…

College Promise programs are thriving in California, and with the continued growth comes a need to understand the features of these diverse efforts and the perspectives of the communities in which they exist. In 2018, the James Irvine Foundation supported California College Promise Project (CCPP) at WestEd to study the College Promise landscape in…

The purpose of this study is to determine which factors influence the achievement of program objectives for Kyrgyz Republic alumni of the U.S. governmentally sponsored UGRAD program. The UGRAD program was designed to provide university students from the former Soviet Union an opportunity to study at an institute of higher education in the United…

Career and technical education (CTE) students pursuing occupational associate's degrees or certificates differ from students seeking academic majors at 2-year institutions in several ways. This article examines several theoretical models of student persistence and offers a conceptual model of student success focused on CTE students in community…

Over the past decade or so there has been increasing concern over the unprecedented wave of retirements of community college leaders, from department chairs all the way to presidents. There are three different venues for developing future leaders in order to offset this deficiency: university-based formal degrees, professional and continuing…

The Mid-South Region of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi as a long history of pervasive poverty and educational underachievement. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2008), the poverty level of residents in the Mid-South Region is higher than the national average. Consequently, many of the region's best and brightest students of all…

This report describes how Miami Dade College (MDC) has begun to develop a systematic and data-informed method for assessing and improving student outcomes across its large eight-campus college. Told from the point of view of MDC's Office of Institutional Effectiveness, the report recounts how the college has responded to the problem of poor…

Community college leaders need honest information about what's working in the community college and need to be challenged about the things that are not. State Legislatures and Congress need updated facts to assist them in making wise funding decisions. Community college advocates need updated information to assist them in their advocacy work, and…

The plan to be used by the Los Angeles Community College District during the 1973-1974 school year, as well as the next five years, as a basis for the planning and implementation of new career training programs and services and for the review of existing programs is provided. The four parts of this report on the plan are as follows: Part I.…

Describes how North Island College, British Columbia, has developed an educational program which combines the North Americna community-college concept with the British open-learning system. (DB)

In spring 1985, Morton College's (MC's) counseling staff instituted a student development model for academic advising to encourage students to assume greater responsibility in planning their educational and career goals. During their first academic advising appointment: (1) new students are made aware of the importance of their commitment to their…

The document covers the Navajo Studies Program (NSP) at Navajo Community College (NCC). The Navajo Studies Program differs from other Indian Studies Programs in 7 ways, e.g.: (1) it is located on the Navajo Reservation and controlled by the tribe; (2) NCC incorporates Indian studies into every individual program and area of concentration--English…

California Community Colleges' (CCC's) Fund for Instructional Improvement (FII) was created in 1977 to support the improvement of teaching and learning in the CCC's through a program of grants and loans fostering innovative educational programs and services. This report provides information on the FII, as well as a list of the model projects…