This study examines 45 community college institutional agents across four states in their role as implementer of policies that affected undocumented and DACAmented students. The findings delve into the role of changing implementation landscape, policy vagueness, implementation burden, and institutional support in this implementation environment.…

The purpose of this case study was to evaluate the lessons learned from the development of a project that set out to revitalize an economically depressed area with an innovative approach to workforce development through partnerships. The focus was to utilize the development of the Niagara County Community College Culinary Institute as an example…

Objective: Guided by validation theory, this study aims to better understand the role that academic advising plays in international community college students' adjustment. More specifically, this study investigated how academic advising validates or invalidates their academic and social experiences in a community college context. Method: This…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lifeworlds of low-income, single student mothers in two contrasting welfare regimes, the United States and Germany, to understand how their individual experiences as students and as mothers at the micro-level were shaped by policies regarding childcare and financial support at the…

College Heads of Department (HoDs) are increasingly expected to perform more curriculum-leadership tasks, maintaining and advancing the department curriculum, especially in developing countries. However, in practice, HoDs are reported to pay little attention to this aspect of their job due to several factors--one of which is a lack of professional…

For 8 years Washington State has operated a performance funding policy, the Student Achievement Initiative (SAI). The policy allocates appropriations to the state's 34 community and technical colleges based on points earned through student achievement of college-readiness, retention, and completion milestones. Grounded in a conceptual framework of…

Burgeoning student debt and the ability of programs to adequately prepare students for jobs that will allow them to repay that debt comprise a topic of great interest in the current higher education policy environment. A key accountability measure used by the Department of Education for more than two decades has been the student loan cohort…

The purpose of this short article is to review the findings from an instrumental case study that examines how a college president used what this article refers to as "frame alignment processes" to mobilize internal and external support for a college initiative--one that achieved success under the current president. Specifically, I…

Evolution is a core concept of biology, and yet many college biology students do not accept evolution because of their religious beliefs. However, we do not currently know how instructors perceive their role in helping students accept evolution or how they address the perceived conflict between religion and evolution when they teach evolution.…

Through a year-long study of welfare-to-work students in the community college CalWORKs program, we investigated what self-authorship development looks like by examining developmental progress, and whether there are patterns in development along the three dimensions of self-authorship. Findings demonstrate progress toward self-authorship, but…

A leadership gap is occurring as the result of Baby Boomer retirements coupled with the lack of academic succession planning. Transferring organizational knowledge from leadership to successors is a challenging task during leadership change. Succession planning processes are designed for present and future organizational needs by facilitating…

Increasing the number of young people who attain postsecondary credentials has become one of the primary educational objectives of the 2010s. While low college success rates are typically linked to students' lack of academic preparation for college and their subsequent need for developmental or remedial instruction, research suggests that even…

This qualitative multiple comparative case study investigated attrition in online Spanish language courses, from both instructor and student perspectives. Attrition rates in online courses have been found to be up to 50% higher than attrition rates in face to face courses, when studying the phenomenon of attrition in higher education. Attrition is…

There are champions of sustainable causes and initiatives within higher education; their actions are numerous and diverse as are the employment positions these champions hold on their respective campuses. This dissertation utilizes qualitative research methods inclusive of semistructured in-depth interviews to formulate case studies that are then…

Early college high schools are a promising but expensive pathway to college readiness. Most such schools are supported with state funds and/or grants. This descriptive case study presents an early college program, now in its fourth year in a traditional high school, in which the families, high school and local community college shared the entire…