In "America's Hidden Economic Engines," editors Robert B. Schwartz and Rachel Lipson spotlight community and technical colleges as institutions uniquely equipped to foster more equitable economic growth across America's regions. As Schwartz and Lipson show, these colleges are the best-placed institutions to reverse the decades-long rise…

This chapter highlights the role of institutional coaches in supporting community college transformational reform efforts, such as guided pathways. The history of coaching support for student success is explored along with a description of a national network of state intermediaries supporting the work of coaches focused on campus-level change.…

The reasons for success and well-being, and therefore of inequality, are numerous. A large number of systemic factors influence who succeeds or fails, who is healthy or sick. These factors, many of which are hard to understand or measure, interact in important and surprising ways. In contrast, humans tend to choose simple explanations of the…

In higher education, a need is felt to redesign curricula to better prepare students for the evolving 'world of work'. The current exploratory study investigated first-year (N = 414) students' approaches to learning, well-being and perceptions of their learning environment in the context of an innovative educational concept: design-based…

The college promise -- or "free college" -- movement is rapidly expanding throughout the United States; however, there is much to learn about community colleges' organizational responses to promise programs and corresponding partnerships with nonprofit organizations that are involved in some programs. Using institutional logics to frame…

Collaborative leadership, a management style in which leaders encourage employees to contribute their own ideas and work together to develop solutions for meeting institutional goals, is becoming more common in community colleges and other organizations. In leveraging the ideas of a broad range of people, collaborative leadership often leads to…

Higher education institutions in the United States are under intense scrutiny to engage in data-driven decision-making to address systemic deficiencies. An innovative strategy to increase the use of data in higher education is through interactive data visualization whereby users are more involved in the creation of knowledge. The problem that was…

Among the basic medical sciences, anatomy and physiology (anatomy & physiology) is a fundamental subject for students majoring in nursing. Due to its diversity and difficulty, nursing students experience stress when studying it. Previous graduates generally presented lower achievements in anatomy & physiology than in other nursing-related…

In this book, Carrie B. Kisker illustrates how community colleges can utilize design thinking to identify and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities, and experiment with the internal changes necessary to optimize outcomes for stakeholders. Kisker outlines a process whereby college leaders can empower faculty and staff to think creatively about how…

Young adults today are the least happy demographic group, departing from a long-established U-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age in many countries worldwide. The longstanding U-curve reflects the unhappiness and stress that most people experience in the midlife years as they juggle financial and family constraints while both the…

This chapter discusses the forces creating a strong demand for innovation, highlights innovative practices at various community colleges, and concludes with recommendations for igniting and sustaining innovation across the rural community college sector.

Student food insecurity is associated with lower grades, depression, higher perceived stress and lower graduation rates. Campuses across the country are responding to the problem in a variety of ways, including distribution of food directly to students through food pantries. This research is based on a national survey of campus food pantries to…

There has been much written on the topic of higher education in America. All facets from formation to expansion to experimentation to controversial issues in institutions of higher education have been discussed and dissected. However, one of the most compelling higher educational topics is the emergence and development of the junior college. This…

This chapter explores the unique design of one of America's newest and most innovative community colleges: Stella and Charles Guttman Community College in New York City. This highly successful College offers its diverse student population a relevant, integrated curriculum and student support that is embedded in the classroom.

The purpose of this qualitative single-case study was to investigate how a partnership between a rural community college in New Jersey and a manufacturer of emerging optics equipment reflected the regional networked innovation system, a type of regional innovation system. This single case study provided a comprehensive overview of the perceptions…