Community colleges are academic institutions with a large number of nontraditional students whose needs must be understood before their academic needs can be fully addressed. Previous research studies have established a positive correlation between academic performance and the personality traits of Conscientiousness and Openness to Experiences,…

Over the last three years, 724,116 online courses were attempted within the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). From these attempts, 206,533 resulted in a grade of D or F or a withdrawal, accounting for 29% of all attempted online courses (Virginia Community College System, 2015). This does not account for the students who may have dropped…

Approximately a quarter of community college students are entering college-level courses underprepared for the literacy and critical thinking skills required to be successful in discipline courses (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013). Discipline faculty are considered experts in their content area and are often not trained in…

This case study examined the perceptions of scholarship recipients participating in Southwest Virginia Community College's (SWCC's) S-STEM scholarship program which examined whether the program helped remove barriers to students' educational goals and STEM career aspirations. The study used a focus group and a survey to elicit responses from…

Community college classes are increasingly diverse, both culturally and ethnically, but how can teachers best educate students concerning cross-cultural issues? This author proposes a cross-cultural teaching model that focuses on a personalized approach.

In this study, students completed two different projects about personality. The results showed that while the students learned more about themselves, personalizing the material also increased their ability to understand core concepts.

The improvement of communication both within and outside of the classroom is promoted by the national Communication-Across-the-Curriculum (CXC) initiative. The first CXC-based program emerged in 1974 at Center College, in Iowa, and since that time, the CXC initiative has gone through a number of changes and challenges. The Virginia Community…

Because of a 50% drop-out rate of first-year to second-year students at Mountain Empire Community College, retention was identified as a priority. Students and faculty were surveyed to determine causes of student withdrawals, a summer retreat was held, and a retention task force was created to develop a comprehensive retention plan for the fall of…