Offers topics for research as a basis for improving the community college. Suggests attention to the following areas: mission, philosophical commitments, institutional management and operations, faculty role, student needs, academic planning, and community services/lifelong education. (DMM)

Argues that the need for research on the community college is intensified by the ever-changing character of learner needs and community conditions. Addresses two criticisms of two-year college research: the same questions are researched repeatedly and the effort overtaxes institutions. Calls for a stronger research base on the two-year college.…

Summarizes several significant research studies conducted since 1978 that have focused on community colleges. Offers an agenda for future research, covering student objectives and outcomes, administrative decision making, and faculty administrator relationships. Identifies several research issues as fundamental to repositioning community colleges…

Discusses the following factors influencing the role of community college institutional researchers: the current emphasis on proposal writing and grant management, fiscal constraints, mission expansion, marketing, program evaluations, faculty/administrator relations, institutional credibility and change, college planning, and issues of the 1980s.…

Advocates collecting student background, needs, and goals data to match students with appropriate programs and thereby counteract the high dropout rate. Uses medical analogies, in which each case is "curable," but only after assessing all relevant information. Descries the lack of dropout research and suggests a prescriptive admissions policy. (JG)

Presents the views of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges' Task Force on Rural Community Colleges in the areas of equal opportunity for the small, rural college, financing, accreditation, federal and state constraints, and the lack of literature and research relating to rural community colleges. A bibliography is included.…

Discusses the institutional image of community colleges from a marketing perspective. Suggests ways community colleges can quantify and thus better understand their image in particular marketplaces. Describes a preliminary study conducted by university marketing majors to assess the image of a community college among local high school students.…

A variety of methods currently in use for selecting candidates for admission to community college allied health programs are described, and research is reviewed showing that typical indices of academic performance are unrelated to job performance. Needed research and possible selection approaches are suggested. (LH)

Proposes a definition of transfer rate based on a longitudinal cohort analysis conducted by the Center for the Study of Community Colleges. Explains the methods by which data were collected and analyzed. (DMM)

Discusses the causes of an ever-widening rift between college and high school. States that neither meets the needs of the other or the students. Argues for enhanced communication between schools and colleges, cooperative efforts to remediate students' skills deficiencies and ease the school-college transition, and improved research capabilities.…

Reviews the literature on student attrition and suggests ways to increase enrollment and re-enrollment at community colleges without establishing labor-intensive programs and services. Focuses on the creation of the necessary environment for retention; the importance of campus-based research; and ways of predicting and preventing unnecessary…