During the conduct of the 2004 Community Colleges Futures Assembly, sponsored by the University of Florida, delegates to the meeting identified three critical policy issues facing America's community colleges and challenged the delegates attending the 2005 Assembly to debate these issues and make recommendations. A total of 252 higher-education…

Explains the City University of New York's reversal of its 1970 Open Admissions Policy and discusses the ramifications of that reversal. (NH)

In this article, the authors present two stories that depict the best and worst of times experienced by today's community college students. Within these narratives are both vestiges of the past--pieces that some colleges have yet to fully discard--and exemplars of a potentially brighter, more engaging future. While they are fictitious, these…

Open online courses (OOC) with a massive number of students have represented an important development for online education in the past years. A course on artificial intelligence, CS221, at the University of Stanford was offered in the fall of 2011 free and online which attracted 160,000 registered students. It was one of three offered as an…

America's community colleges have a unique mission to provide open access and affordable education to all who desire to learn. Unfortunately, this core mission is being threatened by myriad economic, social, and political challenges that community college leaders must confront and overcome.

This paper examines how emergent technologies could influence the design of learning environments. It will pay particular attention to the roles of educators and learners in creating networked learning experiences on massive open online courses (MOOCs). The research shows that it is possible to move from a pedagogy of abundance to a pedagogy that…

In this paper I report on a research project designed to address the question of how the policy of continuous enrolment has been working in practice in the AMEP (Adult Migrant English Program), the national English language program offered to newly-arrived migrants to Australia. Managers, teachers and learners from around Australia were…

In 1976, Indiana University began offering a General Studies degree to open degree opportunities to those who are not necessarily able to return to the campus and meet residency requirements for other degrees. As a cornerstone of the program, a flexible admission policy was included for those 21 years or older. (JOW)

Community colleges must deal with the academic weakness of students upon admission as well as their competency at graduation. Describes a program at North Iowa Area Community College designed to help students see life as a whole, gain basic skills needed in the world of work, and produce grades reflecting the attainment of those skills. (JOW)

Acton (Massachusetts) Public Schools' open enrollment experience shows that a system can develop a common curriculum while allowing individual schools and teachers considerable instructional latitude. Confronting open enrollment pitfalls such as intensified competition, pressures for curriculum standards, and enrollment dilemmas helped this…

Explores the racialized discourses surrounding basic writing students by using the notion of education as "white property." Shows how students are racialized as "minorities" despite the significant numbers of whites in the program. Argues open-admissions students are discursively coded as non-white. Contends that racialization…

Study of school choice in the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colorado, finds increased stratification of schools according to race, ethnicity, and income created by open-enrollment procedures. Per-pupil costs and money raised through fund raising were higher in choice schools, as was student achievement. Recommends actions to limit the…

A trend is emerging to open enrollment for honors and AP classes to all students who wish to take them. Teachers of these open enrollment classes may be facing several dilemmas. How can the high standards and academic rigor of the course be maintained? How can students who struggle to learn be supported in their endeavors to keep up with the…

This article explores the literacy lives of students enrolled in English Composition courses at two open-admission universities in Central Appalachia and the complex role of immediate and extended family members as sponsors of literacy in these students' lives. Some relatives emerged as both sponsors and inhibitors-or perhaps more accurately,…

When colleges and universities provide academic assistance, adequate counseling, and ample financial aid, open admissions students overcome initial academic deficiencies and successfully progress towards graduation. (MM)