For over 2 decades, the Learning Community Program has impacted students at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), with its emphasis on critical thinking, community, belonging, and student success. Faculty teaching this high-impact practice (HIP) not only implement an integrated curriculum in 2 paired courses representing different…

Background: Condensed courses, as opposed to semester-long courses, are an increasingly popular strategy to improve equity in higher education. With condensed courses, students focus on a smaller number of courses during seven- to ten-week terms (Gullatt, 2006; Zepeda & Mayers, 2006). Historically marginalized students may benefit because the…

A significant demographic shift in community colleges reveals that more than half of enrolled students are adults aged 25 and older. In response, states are instituting reconnect programs aimed at recruiting and reengaging adult learners. Despite these initiatives, existing processes and practices within community colleges often inadequately…

The increasing number of part time instructors in the community college professorate combined with low student retention and graduation rates makes research into part time faculty and student success highly germane. My dissertation investigated if higher ratios of adjunct faculty were related to student retention, certificate/degree attainment,…

Background/Context: As students increasingly enroll in online postsecondary courses, instructors and students need new strategies to maintain engagement, motivation, and sense of belonging to have academic success, particularly for historically disadvantaged students. This study focuses on improving student success in online postsecondary STEM…

The transfer pathway from community college to university holds promise for advancing equity in STEM because it is followed by disproportionately high numbers of underrepresented students. Among the challenges these students face is cultivating belonging in multiple institutional settings. By combining belonging and validation theories, this…

This study developed an equity-minded and trauma-informed model for improving community college student success rates. Since up to 94% of community college students have experienced trauma, it was imperative to establish a comprehensive approach to overcoming the resulting non-academic barriers and low completion rates. Since there is no existing…

The demand for colleges across the world to convert their courses to an online format has increased with the number of learners enrolled in at least one online course increasing each year (Seaman et al., 2018). Unfortunately, a study by Garris & Fleck (2020) found that many students complained that when their courses transitioned to an online…

This study is centered on first-generation Latinx students at Sacramento State and their academic journey. The research explores the impact of community engagement through service learning, community-based learning, volunteerism, and civic engagement on these students and their degree completion. The undergraduate experience in higher education is…

This dissertation examines the relationship between academic advisor interventions and course outcomes following an academic alert raised by faculty in the Starfish Retention Solutions software program at a small, rural community college in west-central Illinois. Utilizing a quantitative correlational study, using binary logistic regression…

Organizational climate (OC) affects employees, their interactions with students, and is essential to student achievement. However, the research is limited in that it is not clear how college faculty and staff perceive OC factors that may contribute to student academic achievement. The aim of this study was to answer the following research…

Community colleges are trending toward a decrease in full-time faculty and an increase in adjunct faculty. Using 2019-2020 IPEDS data from 853 community colleges, researchers explored the relationship between full-time faculty and community college student retention, and combined graduation and transfer rate. Results demonstrated that proportion…

The purpose of this Executive Position Paper was to research how to design an online, synchronous, asynchronous, or face-to-face training program for higher education instructors to serve the needs of a diverse student population of emergent learners, specifically in the community college sector. The subsequent research resulted in a faculty…

It has long been recognised that a key element in improving student transition, retention and success in higher education is cross-institutional consistency and unity of action among disparate academic, policy and support units. However, transferring this principle into practice often requires overcoming departmental silos, negotiating shared…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of community college faculty and the impact of those perceptions on the academic success of African American and Hispanic students. Within the context of the achievement gap, finding out how colleges can better serve disadvantaged students supported the aims of this study. This…