The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine undecided first- generation students' experience with academic advising at a community college and whether receiving advice from an academic advisor helped guide them towards a major. The researcher conducted one-on-one-interviews with ten students using a protocol based on three research…

Academic dishonesty remains a pervasive, multi-discipline dilemma which has been reported as having the propensity of resulting in longstanding consequences beyond academic settings. Previous research has suggested that students who participate in dishonest behaviors while attending institutions of higher education have greater tendencies to…

This qualitative case study explored how a theory could explain how outside contributors could influence a student's decision to return for the second and final year of their academic career program. Using Holland's person-environment fit theory as the theoretical lens, this study contemplates how specific contributors, such as family and friends,…

This study sought to understand the Community College Career and Technical Educational (CTE) deans' perceptions of the internal and external forces they perceive as influencing their decision making; what evidence exists to demonstrate the influence of the completion agenda on CTE deans' decision making; and if there is a perception that there is…

In this qualitative narrative study, the stories of 10 Latino men students were used to understand their transfer experiences from a community college to a university. The Hero's Journey conceptual framework was used in this narrative study to understand what motivates and influences Latino men to transfer from a community college to a university.…

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding for the experience of enrolling in a community college through the lived experience of high-achieving, low-income students. Prior research highlighted the disparate enrollment behaviors of HALI students. In particular, HALI students disproportionately attended open-access, for-profit, and…

The purpose of this proposed study was to address the issue of the effectiveness of community college retention programs, particularly their impact on poor or low-income students. Indeed, this study sought to identify actions and events that contributed to students choosing to drop out and the positive impact that college retention programs did or…

This dissertation examined the decision-making experience of students receiving an early alert notification at a community college and what influenced students' responses to the alert. Early alert programs are identified as a high impact persistence practice and may involve significant financial, technology, and personnel investments. Examining…

Community colleges serve a diverse student population. Research studies have indicated that African American males have the lowest persistence rate in colleges. Although there are studies examining the overall persistence rate among African American male students, there is a limited amount of research looking at how the first semester experiences…

Objective: The objective of this article is to delve more deeply into the thought processes of the key decision makers at community colleges and understand how they make decisions. Specifically, this article focuses on the role of the community college president's personal values in decision making. Method: We conducted interviews with 13…

This dissertation investigated the effects of the intervention of the Just One Mentoring Program on student persistence in completing their career programs. The population for this study consisted of a heterogeneous group of students enrolled in the Just One Mentoring Program during summer 2003 through fall 2006 at a community college located in…

This convergent parallel design mixed methods case study of four community colleges explores the relationship between organizational capacity and implementation of data-driven decision making (DDDM). The article also illustrates purposive sampling using replication logic for cross-case analysis and the strengths and weaknesses of quantitizing…

As a growing entity within higher education organizational structures, enrollment managers (EMs) are primarily tasked with projecting, recruiting, and retaining the student population of their campuses. Enrollment managers are expected by institutional presidents as well as through industry standards to make data-driven planning decisions to reach…

There are thousands of articles, books, essays, dissertations, and more devoted to leadership in higher education. All of them highlight the importance of a person "out front" who is charged with moving the organization forward and people who follow to ensure that movement takes place. The author's favorite definition of leadership is not found in…

Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving outcomes among community college students, especially low-income students and students of color. A central ATD strategy is to promote a "culture of evidence," in which colleges collect, analyze, and make decisions based on information about students in…