The guitar player tunes up as the drummer raps on the snare drum for a sound check. Two young women share a laugh while eating lunch. A woman blows bubbles as she talks to students. It could be a summer festival and in some respects it is, but Registration Rocks at Volunteer State Community College has one goal: get potential students into the college process early, before the rush. The event kicks off a fall registration PR campaign designed to get students into the admissions, advising, and registration process early.

Like many higher education institutions, St. Louis Community College treats strategic planning as a continuous process that begins with the college’s mission and, through careful planning and reflection, leads to a clearly articulated set of priorities. Because it ultimately calls for action to implement identified goals, strategic planning has the potential to play an integral role in shaping the course of a college. Still, making the move from identifying goals to accomplishing goals is no simple task. Strategic planning efforts may be more successful if they work from the ground up rather than the top down. With that in mind, St. Louis Community College at Meramec is taking a grassroots approach to strategic planning by involving as many faculty and staff members as possible in the process for 2008-2011, particularly in developing plans to meet identified goals.

In an effort to meet the growing demand for more flexible scheduling, Pima Community College has explored alternative delivery modalities that include online and hybrid technologies. This paper highlights the process of developing, implementing, and assessing a hybrid reading improvement course for developmental reading students. The hybrid format provides the best of both worlds in that students have the opportunity to accept a greater individual responsibility for their own learning while still providing direct face-to-face contact to help students through the rough spots.