In partnership with the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB), the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) has had an ongoing commitment toward providing support for Illinois community colleges, with the goal of advancing equitable outcomes for students. In pursuit of this objective, OCCRL researchers have worked with…

In this comprehensive practitioner guidebook, the Northeast Resiliency Consortium colleges have shared their work and have collaborated to develop a competency model, along with a rich and robust set of principles, strategies, resources, and guidelines for helping students develop strong resiliency. The Resiliency Competency Model outlines the…

The mission and vision of adult education is to provide every individual in Illinois access to Adult Education and Literacy services. In Illinois, more than 1.15 million adults have less than 12 grades of formal education, approximately 2.8 million Illinois residents speak a language other than English in their home, and more than 350,944…

For the past decade, MDRC has evaluated a number of interventions designed to improve the outcomes of community college students, including enhanced counseling, learning communities, and financial incentives. Encouragingly, many of these strategies have produced positive effects, affirming that changes in institutional practices and policies can…

In this article, the author writes from the perspective of a community college research practitioner, an institutional researcher whose daily work is intended primarily to affect policies, procedures and understanding of student learning and institutional effectiveness. The audience for this work is composed of faculty, administrators, staff,…

This collection of essays by community college administrators and faculty was developed to help administrators initiate better policies and procedures for evaluating students, full- and part-time faculty, administrators, programs, student services, external relations, and the institutions themselves. The volume contains: (1) "The Role of…

Discusses the performance evaluation problems specific to community college librarians, looking at student evaluations of librarians, peer evaluations, and self-evaluations. Compares two methods, one measuring job performance and professional development factors on a Likert scale and the other consisting of some variation of management by…

Describes a study of faculty evaluation procedures and practices in selected New York community colleges. Offers guidelines for minimizing negative consequences of adversary faculty-administrator relationships found in most faculty evaluation systems. Recommends a system based on 15 considerations (e.g., faculty involvement; publicized purposes;…

This paper reviews systematic research findings on the effectiveness of various interventions designed to help at-risk students remain in college. It shows how changes in federal policy and public attitudes since the mid-1960s have opened up higher education to women, minorities, and nontraditional students and also shifted the "center of gravity"…

Designed for faculty members at Beaufort Technical College (BTC) in South Carolina, this handbook describes the college's faculty evaluation process and procedures. The first sections of the handbook explain the rationale and method for the faculty evaluation process, state the purposes and objectives of the system, and offer a model which breaks…

Program review is essential for long-range planning, financial accountability, and self-validation. One option for dealing with the limitations of many program review models is a mini-accreditation approach to assess the extent of goal attainment within a broad category of activities or outcomes. All members of the department being reviewed should…

In the past several years, Tacoma Community College (TCC) has devoted increasing attention to evaluating faculty and staff performance. In recognition of the benefits of a growth-oriented evaluation process over a summative evaluation, the counselors and the Dean for Student Services at TCC developed a comprehensive evaluation system for…

Recent concern about academic quality and costs has resulted in growing criticism of the transfer function of the community college. This criticism has arisen, in part, from the evaluations of university-based researchers who have argued that a very small percentage of community college students succeed in transferring to four-year institutions…

Whether by state mandate, institutional initiative, or the requirements of accrediting bodies, community colleges and other institutions of higher education are giving increased attention to assessment and evaluation. In the region accredited by the Middle States Association (MSA) of Colleges and Schools, for example, several community colleges…

Dealing with issues related to the assessment of community college accountability, effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, student outcomes, and quality improvement, this volume examines the practical considerations of assessment from the perspectives of state-level coordinating boards, accreditation agencies, college presidents, and…