Innovations
Maricopa Community Colleges launched its first formal bachelor’s degree transfer partnership with another Arizona community college in July 2025. This innovative collaboration with Northland Pioneer College (NPC) creates an accessible pathway for students statewide and represents a bold step toward expanding high-quality, affordable bachelor’s degree options for students in urban and rural communities. It also offers a replicable model for other community colleges seeking to build student-centered, workforce-aligned partnerships.
Transferring Made Easy
Through this partnership, students who...
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Like most community colleges across the United States, the Maricopa Community Colleges (MCCCD), a 10-college district in the Phoenix metro area, has been challenged by high attrition and low completion rates. In fact, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2024) shared that while community colleges are starting to see slight increases in retention and completion, most continue to lose more than 45 percent of students after one year, and even more after the second year.
After decades of retention rates hovering around 50 percent and completion rates in the teens, in 2019, Maricopa...
At Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), digital accessibility is more than a compliance issue; it is a vital component of our mission to offer high-quality, affordable, accessible, and innovative lifelong learning opportunities. According to the World Wide Web Consortium (n.d.), digital accessibility means that “websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them” (para. 6). From providing accurate captions for videos, enabling navigation without a mouse, and structuring documents for screen readers and for users who benefit from clear...
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“Gig work” and “side hustle” are labels often used to describe the work done by today’s entrepreneurs. These self-employed individuals are a significant component of today’s workforce, and their number is growing. This segment of the workforce found new momentum during the pandemic, which led to 36 percent of the U.S. workforce freelancing in 2021 (Upwork, 2021). Businesses were shut down, workers were sent home, and unemployment compensation was slow coming in and sometimes insufficient. So, workers undertook the steps necessary to feed themselves and their families.
The rapid need to pivot...
July
2025
Onboarding of faculty workgroups at Delta College is facilitated by the faculty-run Faculty Center for Teaching Excellence (FCTE). As the workgroups have varying needs, the onboarding process for each is, likewise, varied. By tailoring the onboarding process to the workgroup, Delta College strives to achieve its mission to empower, include, and welcome our diverse community.
The FCTE designs onboarding experiences with an intensive focus on belonging because we believe it is the key to retention. To this end, we endeavor to ensure that the welcome is sincere, the integration of all parties...
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In the dynamic landscape of media production, where skill and adaptability are paramount, Cuyahoga Community College's (Tri-C) Film Academy stands out as a beacon of innovation. Its six-week Film Crew Intensive Training is not just an educational offering; it is a strategic intervention designed to cultivate a cadre of immediately employable film technicians. Tri-C's model presents a compelling case study in how targeted industry-integrated training can directly address workforce needs and foster student success.
Building Local Crew: The Origins of Tri-C's Film Initiative
The genesis of Tri-C...
As part of its One College model, HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, has created a framework referred to as HawkSOAR. It consists of a collegewide cross-functional team focused on the alignment of HACC’s student success efforts. The concept stemmed from the college’s partnerships with Achieving the Dream (ATD) and the Community College Research Center (CCRC), both of which champion evidence-based institutional improvements for student success. HawkSOAR consolidates all programs into one cohesive structure to establish a strategic, data-informed culture for students and employees...
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Congratulations to the 2024-2025 Innovation of the Year Award winners from 35 participating League member colleges! The League initiated the Innovation of the Year Award over 35 years ago to recognize local community college programs and initiatives that reflect the spirit of innovation and experimentation on which our organization was founded. The award provides an opportunity for colleges to showcase their innovative efforts; celebrate the dedicated educators, staff, and administrators who are responsible for this exceptional work; and promote a culture of innovation at their institutions....
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Lone Star College-Tomball's (LSC-Tomball) leaders recognized educational technologies that will revolutionize education and reshape teaching strategies and student learning experiences years before ChatGPT gained popularity. The Internet, social media, and a wide range of educational resources had widespread digital influence, presenting both opportunities and challenges for traditional brick-and-mortar academic environments (Wiesinger & Beliveau, 2016). The college strived to stay at the forefront of the newest trends and challenges, which prompted the development of proactive strategies...
Monroe Community College (MCC) is a cornerstone of education and workforce development in the Finger Lakes region of New York. As part of Governor Kathy Hochul’s One Network for Regional Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships (ON-RAMP) initiative, MCC is honored to lead the Finger Lakes-based ON-RAMP program alongside those in the Capital, Mohawk Valley, and Central New York regions.
The primary hub of the Finger Lakes ON-RAMP Center will be located at the Finger Lakes Workforce Development (FWD) Center located on MCC’s downtown campus. At the center, learners will earn industry recognized...
The Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI) at Foothill College originated in summer 2022 as a way for virtual reality (VR) to be integrated into education. ETI’s mission is to give all staff, faculty, students, and administrators a chance to engage with emerging technologies that have the potential to shape change in society and education. Opportunities include interacting in physical lab settings such as Foothill’s VR lab, where faculty and students can explore how technology can provide more immersive learning experiences, and participating in research projects, where they engage with...
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In 2014, Dalton and Crosby noted that, “colleges and universities have long recognized that helping students to become personally connected and committed early in college is critical to their successful retention and graduation” (Abstract). However, feeling connected to an institution and its academic process can be “especially challenging for new students who must quickly master a wide range of academic, personal, and social adjustments” (Dalton & Crosby, 2014, Abstract).
In a mission to retain students and guide them toward success, Rio Salado College, an online community college based...
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Whether or not college pays off financially, and to whom, is an increasingly important question for institutions of higher education and their students. Career reasons are top motivators for students when deciding to enroll in postsecondary education, yet public perception has declined for the past five years regarding whether college is worth the cost (Lumina Foundation, 2023; Nguyen et al., 2024). This issue is especially salient for community colleges, underscoring the need for robust evidence that students of all backgrounds can attain positive post-completion career outcomes.
Measuring...
In July 2022, Rogue Community College’s (RCC) new President, Dr. Randy Weber, energized the college with an initiative to stabilize enrollment. This was identified as the first of five institutional priorities. Leveraging his expertise in strategic enrollment management (SEM), Weber, in collaboration with the newly appointed Dean of Enrollment Management, spearheaded a strategic shift. This transition moved the college from a narrow focus on recruitment and new students to a more comprehensive approach, embedding American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers SEM...
"Find the need and endeavor to meet it" is the seminal quote from David A. Sinclair, Director of YMCA of Dayton, later named Sinclair Community College, from 1887 to 1902. This powerful message still serves as a mantra for the institution’s faculty and staff. The original mission of D. A. Sinclair and the YMCA was to support the Dayton community by providing services such as adult education courses and job training (YMCA of Greater Dayton, n.d.). Subsequently, due to the proliferation of automobiles in the late 1800s to early 1900s, an automotive technology curriculum was developed by the...
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Change is inevitable in higher education, presenting both challenges and opportunities. Leading effectively through change requires courage, innovation, and compassion. Leaders in higher education must not only navigate these transformations but embrace them as opportunities for growth, innovation, and meaningful progress.
The Changing Landscape of Higher Education
Moore’s Law, the 1965 prediction that computing power would double every two years, shaped technological progress for generations (Intel, 2023). But in 2022, this foundational rule crumbled, marking a pivotal shift in how...
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Moraine Valley Community College is committed to providing students with the resources they need to be successful. Understanding that students cannot accomplish their educational goals if they face challenges in meeting their basic needs, the college developed the Project Care initiative, which offers an array of wraparound services and resources to help them meet those needs, ultimately allowing them to better focus on their education.
According to Teresa Hannon, a counselor at the college’s Counseling and Career Development Center (CCDC), the initial focus of Project Care was the campus...
The integration of BrickMMO into Humber Polytechnic’s programming fundamentals program in fall 2023 provided students with the opportunity to learn through a workplace integrated classroom (WIC) teaching methodology which resulted in increased learning, opportunities for solutions-based problem solving, and cross-program collaboration projects. BrickMMO is a smart city education platform made of a 1:45 scale smart city designed to provide students with a hands-on sandbox, or safe testing environment, to apply their newly acquired skills. This project was originally envisioned to develop a...
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Arapahoe Community College (ACC) celebrated the completion of Phase 1 of its Health Innovation Center in October 2024 with healthcare and education partners, state and county officials, donors, civic leaders, and ACC students and employees. The Center’s simulated education spaces are used across ACC’s healthcare programs to improve functional collaboration between disciplines while preparing students to better serve patients. This expansion of healthcare programming, which began as a vision in 2017 before finally commencing in May 2023 with the renovation of ACC’s existing two-level annex...
The Seattle Promise Initiative, a pioneering program launched by the City of Seattle, aims to ensure that all public high school graduates in Seattle have access to higher education without the financial burden of tuition. An innovative component of this initiative is the Path to UW program, a collaboration between the Seattle Department of Education and Early Learning, Seattle Colleges, and University of Washington (UW). The program provides targeted support to Seattle Promise students as they transfer from community colleges to one of the most competitive universities in the nation....
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