This chapter discusses the employment engagement efforts of Missouri's twelve community colleges to improve program development, student recruitment, program assistance, student support, and employer hiring.

University housing has the capacity to offer more than comfortable living spaces, and campuses across the U.S., including our own, are exploring models of residential learning communities that provide both academic and social support students while cultivating a strong sense of community. In this article, we describe our campus foray into offering…

The University of Missouri Extension needed to develop an annual program review process that collaboratively engaged county-level stakeholders. The results from the first 2 years highlight the results, challenges, and implications of the design process. The annual review process needs to be adaptive, responsive, and reflective from year to year…

As additional states embark on the process of implementing four-year degrees at community colleges, they can learn from others' experience for help navigating the legislative, regulatory, and program approval processes. This brief uses examples from states currently offering bachelor's degrees at their community colleges to provide guidance for…

Making Connections was the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based, community-change initiative of the 2000s. It sought to build on previous work and launch an effort focused firmly on the framework of family strengthening. The Foundation started Making Connections in 22 places, focusing eventually on first 10, then seven sites. It…

Web-based survey tools such as Survey Monkey can be used in many ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Extension professionals. This article describes how Survey Monkey has been used at the state and county levels to collect community and internal staff information for the purposes of program planning, administration, evaluation and…

Extension has long been successful at recruiting and serving diverse audiences, and with the rapid growth of Latino families across the United States, many Extension professionals are discovering an increased need to recruit and serve Latinos. This article shares successful recruitment strategies incorporated in a project that recruited low-income…

Lynette Brown-Snow, vice president of marketing and government relations for the Community College of Philadelphia, is one of several community college leaders across the country who have taken up one of the challenges proffered by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in its 2012 report, "Reclaiming the American Dream:…

After nearly a decade as band director at St. James High School in St. James, Missouri, Derek Limback knows that the key to building a successful program is putting the program itself above everything else. Limback strives to augment not only his students' musical prowess, but also their leadership skills. Key to his philosophy is instilling a…

To stem the tide of students dropping out, many schools and districts are turning to early warning systems (EWS) that signal whether a student is at risk of not graduating from high school. While some research exists about establishing these systems, there is little information about the actual implementation strategies that are being used across…

One viable economic development option for rural areas is the creation of business incubators--facilities that aid in the early stages of growth of an enterprise by providing rental space, services, and business assistance. Business incubators promote community development by diversifying the economic base, enhancing the community's image as a…

This is an early assessment of the Rural Community Service Coordinator Program (RCSCP), organized by the University of Missouri Extension Service using funds from the federal Food Security Act of 1985. Five full-time coordinators were named by area mental health officials to help rural people cope with despair and emotional disturbances caused by…

Describes the development and baseline evaluation data from the Ozark Heart Health Project, a community-based cardiovascular disease risk reduction program in rural Missouri that targeted smoking, physical inactivity, and poor diet. Several Ozark counties participated in either intervention or control groups, and researchers conducted surveillance…

The Model Cities Educational Priorities and Program Development (EPPD) Project involved two elementary schools located within the Model Cities areas of Kansas City, Missouri, during the 1972-3 school year. The stated objectives of the program were as follows: (1) Identify the educational needs of inner city children in America in the 1970s, with…

A comprehensive Career Education Project for 10 secondary non-urban high schools in Missouri has been developed to implement job development and job placement programs and follow-up of area high school seniors. The program components seek to: (1) establish a Centralized Job Placement Office; (2) implement a job placement service in each high…