Although any death on campus can have profound effects on the community, leaving survivors to grope for meaning and cope with feelings of grief and loss, deaths by suicide entail several additional challenges. Shneidman (2001) estimated that an individual's suicide touches the lives of at least six others, creating wide-ranging psychological…

This article reports on the findings from the 2007 Community College Survey of Student Engagement. The survey determined the services that students need but are not receiving in their first four weeks of college. It finds that many new community-college students receive little or no attention from advisers in their first four weeks of class. The…

Lumina Foundation for Education created the Dreamkeepers and Angel Fund Emergency Financial Aid Programs to assist community college students who are at risk of dropping out because of unexpected financial crises. Both programs are multiyear pilot projects that began in 2005 and are administered by Scholarship America and the American Indian…

The majority of students arriving at Kingsborough Community College with hopes of entering the nursing, physical therapist assistant, and other allied health programs (concentrations in pre-physical therapy, pre-occupational therapy, pre-pharmacy, and pre-physician's assistant) are at-risk students. A Foundations of Human Anatomy and Physiology…

This report describes the efforts of Mount St. Mary's College (California) to extend the benefits of a strong, traditional baccalaureate program to an underserved population of women in an urban region, including substantial numbers of minority and first-generation college students. To help realize its service mission and increase access to…

At the University of Akron, the administration decided to segregate the students previously called "provisional" from the "regular" population. As an open-access institution, the university directly admits only approximately 15 percent of the students to a program of study. The vast majority of students start in University College and transfer to…

Kingsborough Community College's New Start Program, designed to prevent dropping out, allows students on the verge of academic failure at three participating senior colleges to enroll as students in good standing, earn credits, and reenroll in any City University of New York senior college. (MSE)

"Lumina Foundation Lessons" is an occasional publication in which the foundation shares the results of its grantees' work on strategies to improve the persistence rates among Indiana's underserved college freshman and sophomore populations. This issue, the first in the series, contains the following articles: (1) Summer Transition…

John Merrow, president of Learning Matters, Inc., has been reporting on K-12 education since 1974, but only recently has he begun to draw attention to higher education. This award-winning broadcaster is shedding light on the underbelly of higher education--and is arguing that something must be done before it's too late. This article presents the…

Say the words "college student" to someone in the street and ask that person to describe the mental image the term generates. The image will likely be that of a recent high school graduate, a young, white, middle- or upper-income person pursuing a four-year degree on a residential campus. This image is inaccurate. students of color…

A group of college presidents has decided to expand campus public-service programs by encouraging college students to tutor disadvantaged young people, mentoring fourth through ninth graders in danger of not graduating from high school. (MSE)

In 1989, Queens College (New York) launched its Big Buddy program pairing college students with homeless youngsters. Designed to assist homeless children and increase the college community's sensitivity to homelessness, the pilot project helped provide a secure environment, build positive relationships, expand the children's world, improve…

States that faculty often attribute developmental students' academic difficulties to poor motivation. Investigates motivational differences between 60 developmental students and 74 regular-admission students enrolled in either a community college or a residential university. Results of t-test on motivational levels measured by the self-report…

Study investigates the effects of a structured reading-comprehension technique, reciprocal teaching, on postsecondary students at risk for academic failure. The sample included at-risk students enrolled in a community college who participated in either the reciprocal teaching or cooperative-learning condition. Results and implications for the…

In this article, the author shares his experiences as a professor of English at Monroe Community College in New York. He compares teaching at a community college as something similar to transporting lost souls across the River Styx. He relates that the open door admissions policy practiced at his school has given him opportunities to reach out to…