Using narrative inquiry, this qualitative study sought to examine the community college experiences of 12 South Sudanese refugees resettled in Massachusetts. Through interviews, I gathered participants' narratives around three focal areas: the impact of culturally responsive practices on their learning experiences, the challenges and obstacles…

When the H1N1 virus ascended to national attention in April 2009, colleges and universities in the United States were thrust into the role of managing an unforeseen health crisis. While other institutions were scrambling to coordinate the appropriate crisis response to the H1N1 virus, Babson College was using the lessons it had learned during its…

An early warning system is a data-based tool that helps predict which students are on the right path towards eventual graduation or other grade-appropriate goals. Through such systems, stakeholders at the school and district levels can view data from a wide range of perspectives and gain a deeper understanding of student data. This "Statewide…

This study investigated a federal comprehensive community initiative, the Promise Neighborhood initiative, in order to understand higher education community engagement in an embedded context. Promise Neighborhood programs aim to create a place-based system of family and education services that can support youth from early childhood through college…

The OpenCourseWare movement has its roots in New England. The concept emerged in 2000 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where then-President Charles Vest charged a faculty committee with answering two questions: "How is the Internet going to change education?" and "What should MIT do about it?" MIT moved quickly to…

This study evaluates how welcoming thirty American cities--the twenty-five largest and five smaller "hotspots"--are to "nontraditional" problem-solvers and solutions. It assumes that the balky bureaucracies meant to improve K-12 education and hold leaders accountable are so calcified by policies, programs, contracts, and…

Recent advances in technology are transforming our lives, but in many cases they are also limiting the way children are exposed to local communities and physical spaces. Technology can help young people actively connect with their neighborhoods, but doing that requires different methods and tools from the ones typically available in schools,…

The concept of experiential learning, in one form or another, has been around a long time, some would say going back to Confucius. More recently, however, within the United States it was put into practice in a very aggressive form, cooperative education, created by Herman Schneider and initiated at the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 1906.…

The purpose of this case study is to understand and explain the characteristics of a small business incubator located on the campus of a community college. Business incubation and entrepreneurship programs are increasing in number on community college campuses across the country (Montoya, 2009). As community colleges have traditionally played a…

This brief highlights key information about enrichment activities, which represent one of the main components of the Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. Over time, the ELT initiative has supported over two dozen schools across the Commonwealth. A comprehensive evaluation of the ELT initiative found that implementation of the…

Over the past year, many national leaders have committed to reform education and reshape America's school system. With this goal in mind, the Obama administration created a competitive grant program entitled Race to the Top (RTTT), which was passed by Congress as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). RTTT features two grant…

To become full and active participants in today's technologically saturated society, young people need to become creators (and not just consumers) of interactive media. Developing the requisite abilities and capacities is not a wholly individual process; it is important for young people to have access to communities where they can collaborate and…

Project Coach is an after school program developed and directed by the authors. The program, which is set in a high-need urban community in Springfield, Massachusetts, teaches high school and middle school students to be sport coaches and then to run youth sport leagues for elementary-aged youth in underserved neighborhoods in their own community.…

In 2006 and 2007, undergraduate and certificate students in gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston investigated the elder livability of seven area communities. Elder "livability" refers to features of a local community that support residents who wish to age in place--characteristics such as the availability of appropriate…

Through generous support from the Kresge Foundation, Lumina Foundation, USA Funds, and Walmart Foundation, the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research on Education (CARE) teamed up with the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) and three AANAPISI campus partners--City College of San Francisco,…