Today, half of all states authorize at least one community college to offer bachelor's degree programs. In the past five years alone, eight states have authorized community colleges to offer baccalaureate programs. Given the momentum behind this movement, we sought to qualitatively explore higher education leaders' perceptions of the role of…

This article reports on four synthesis findings from the Credentials to Careers (C2C) initiative -- a consortium of seven community colleges working to create and implement innovative programs to train or retrain unemployed and displaced workers for STEM, advanced manufacturing and health-care-related careers. These are 1) collaborating with…

Community colleges have long responded to local workforce needs through assembling programming and alliances aimed at reducing workforce gaps while concurrently training the next generation of industry professionals. The emergence of the North Carolina Community College System's NC Career Coach Program, stemming from North Carolina General Statute…

Cybersecurity education has grown exponentially over the past decade. This growth occurred at all levels of education -- from high schools to community colleges to four-year universities. At the same time, renewed interest in helping students transfer between higher education institutions has resulted in calls from policy makers and higher…

Rural-serving community colleges (RSCCs) play vital roles in their communities yet often struggle to facilitate student transfer to further education, especially in STEM fields. This mixed methods study explored how rural STEM educators leverage relationships to support transfer. Social network analysis of focus groups with 36 educators at five…

This paper highlights how inter-institutional faculty relationships can strengthen student transfer between two-year and four-year programs. This article stresses the value of such efforts and some of the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of getting started. This type of relationship is important to ensure that courses will transfer…

Community colleges, who are dependent on state and federal funding directly and through need-based student grants, have limited power in higher education. Similarly, public universities continue to lose decision-making authority as the neo-liberal philosophy permeates higher education broadly. This is an opportune time for public community…

Motivation among community college teachers is the driving force to direct and control the instructional activities in and out of classroom situations. Community colleges in developed countries have been immensely studied to uncover and identify the enacted practices and faced challenges. Little is known about the practices and challenges in…

In response to the national call for more college degrees, many states have implemented dual enrollment programs to try to decrease the transition anxiety between high school and college. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the number of students completing an Associate's degree from the college in…

U.S. rural community colleges serve approximately 3.4 million students, yet there is very little research on these institutions. We conducted a mulitple case study to develop a typology of rural community college locations. We gathered and analyzed publicly available data (n = 25) and private institutional data (n = 6) and conducted in-person…

San José, California, represents a tale of two cities where the immense wealth and vitality of the technology sector has not transferred to the social sector. A growing immigrant population, including undocumented students and their families, relies on an education system statewide which now structures alignment between Adult Education and…

This article describes a strategy to integrate information literacy into the curriculum of a nursing program in a community college. The model is articulated in four explained phases: preparatory, planning, implementation, and evaluation. It describes a collaborative process encouraging librarians to work with nursing faculty, driving students to…

Skill and drill remediation in developmental reading courses do not prepare students for reading tasks in future college-level courses. When a skill and drill model is replaced with a model that utilizes contextualization, students engage in relevant activities with authentic texts to prepare students for college-level activities. The reading…

Recent national attention on college completion poses unique challenges and opportunities for community colleges. Moving underprepared students through basic skills educational courses to degree attainment represents an ongoing challenge. With more than 60% of community college students enrolled in remedial education, 2-year institutions must…

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…