Innovations
July
2014
Community colleges serve a huge variety of students--traditional and nontraditional, daytime and evening, part-time and full-time, as well as career- and academic transfer-oriented. To meet the wide-ranging needs of their student population, they offer a complex variety of programs and courses. This vast range of choices can be confusing for students, and can result in students making unexamined decisions that may waste their time and money or divert them from a promising academic or career path.
Community colleges want to better help students navigate the wide range of choices they face, yet...
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June
2014
Congratulations to the faculty, staff, and administrators who are this year's recipients of the League's Innovation of the Year Award!
The League initiated the award over thirty years ago to recognize local community college projects and initiatives that reflect extraordinary achievement and the spirit of innovation and experimentation on which the League was founded. The competition provides an opportunity for member colleges to showcase their innovative programs, practices, policies, partnerships, and resources; to celebrate the dedicated educators who are responsible for such exceptional...
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May
2014
Step UP is a grassroots program that evolved from the 25 member, cross-functional Developmental Education Committee that, in 2003, sought to create a program to improve the success and retention of developmental education students. The objective was to design a program at Howard Community College (HCC) that would provide positive support and encouragement to students as they make the often difficult transition and adjustment to college. After researching programs and interviewing students, a model for Step UP was created.
The program was piloted with five coaches and students in spring 2005....
May
2014
The engineering technology (ET) program at Del Mar College recently received a significant boost with the approval of a grant for $332,267 by the Jobs and Education for Texans (JET) Advisory Board, chaired by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs. The funds will be used to purchase equipment to train students for high-demand jobs in fields such as automated manufacturing, energy production, and refining.
"The grant is very important to our ET program," said Larry Lee, the college's Dean of Business, Professional and Technology Education, who led the grant team-writing effort. "Major industries are...
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April
2014
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April
2014
On the second floor of an otherwise unassuming office building in Bellevue, WA, Donna Hudson is leading a lecture on environment and community. It's the type of scene you'd expect to see in a movie depicting college life: The professor asks a question of the class and in short order, a lively discussion is underway that quite possibly brings up more questions than are asked. It's the kind of student-teacher rapport most of us rarely get to experience—let alone on a regular basis.
As class progresses, however, it becomes clear that this class is more than just a picture-perfect college...
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April
2014
From left: Brett Mellington, LEDA Manager, Business Development and LCTCS Board member; Bud Barrow, CEO, Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center; Kathy Bobbs, CEO, Regional Medical Center of Acadiana and Women's & Children's Hospital; Laurie Fontenot, Dean of Nursing, Allied Health, and Safety, SLCC; David Callecod, President/CEO, Lafayette General Health; Dr. Natalie Harder, Chancellor, SLCC
A new program at South Louisiana Community College (SLCC) will help fill a growing need within Acadiana's healthcare industry. SLCC administrators, along with the Lafayette Economic Development...
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April
2014
While many people dream of turning their good idea into a bestselling product, Colfax High School engineering and design students are off to a quick start because their Fast Forward ski sensor idea is going through the design process with Quirky. The New York based company makes invention accessible by reviewing as many as 4,000 ideas per week from inventors all over the world, and using a community selection and development process to bring the best ideas to market. A limited number of the ideas make it through the first stage so being chosen for evaluation by Quirky was a rare honor for...
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March
2014
In 2009, the Northwest College of Houston Community College (HCC) proposed the development of a Center for Entrepreneurship in response to local business leaders who requested assistance in reviving an economically declining area of town. The leaders sought ways to create jobs and revitalize the local business community. Seven key strategies were developed to address this challenge:
The creation of strategic partnerships with key economic drivers: management districts, chambers, Community Development Financial Institutions, Greater Houston Partnership, Houston Minority Supplier Development...
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March
2014
The energy and passion is palatable to anyone who tours Sacramento Hacker Lab, a place where entrepreneurs, hobbyists, students, artists, retirees, and corporate employees mix, inspire, and produce in incubator offices and hands-on fabricating space. Models, custom parts, video game characters, and aquaponics system components are being made on a professional level 3D printer thanks to the Sierra College Center for Applied Competitive Technology (CACT), based in Rocklin, CA.
The Sierra Community College District covers Placer, Nevada, and parts of Sacramento County, and stretches from...
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March
2014
In May 2013, over 70 students in the first class of Early College High School at Midland College (ECHS@MC) received associate degrees during Midland College's (MC) 40th commencement ceremony. A week later, in a separate ceremony, the 17- and 18-year-old college graduates received high school diplomas when ECHS@MC observed its first high school graduation ceremony at the Al G. Langford Chaparral Center on the MC campus located in Midland, Texas.
ECHS@MC is a joint educational commitment by Midland College and the Midland Independent School District (MISD). The majority of students attending...
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February
2014
As colleges strive to improve student success and completion, helping students delay pregnancy and parenting (or having additional children) means one less factor that can interfere with their college education. However, pregnancy planning and prevention is not something most community colleges have addressed. Free resources are now available for colleges, including three short and easy-to-use online lessons that have been shown to improve students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intent when it comes to preventing unplanned pregnancy.
Unplanned Pregnancy and College Completion
Unplanned...
2014
This document in the final report of the League for Innovation's Community Colleges and Public Health Project, published in fall 2014. It provides background on the role of community colleges in education for public health and provides two broad curricular models for community college certificate and degree programs, including "Public Health Generalist and Specializations" and "Health Navigators." The project was initiatied in partnership with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) Framing the Future task force.
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2014
Beginning in fall 2011, as part of a three-year Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant-funded intervention, nine urban, small town, and rural U.S. community colleges were selected to adopt a Facebook-based application, known as Schools App, for limited use by invited students, staff, faculty, and administrators.
This report on the Getting Connected Project provides an overview of this research, which was the first longitudinal research study to use real-time data generated by the users of Schools App to examine how commuter-based community colleges attempt to use social media technology...
December
2013
Lone Star College System (LSCS) is joining colleges across Texas to encourage students to successfully complete their educational goals through participation in the Commit to Complete initiative. This initiative was created as part of Texas Completes, which brings together three community colleges and five community college systems—Alamo Colleges, Austin Community College, Dallas County Community College District, El Paso Community College, Kilgore College, Lone Star College System, Odessa College, and South Texas College—with a common vision to rethink college practices, transform community...
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December
2013
I don't blow a whistle, wear a jersey, or give pep talks in a locker room, but I am a coach--an instructional coach. The players are the teachers at a community college, the field is the classroom, and I help a team to practice teaching methods that engage students and improve academic success. Instructional coaches are on-site professional developers who work collaboratively with teachers, empowering them to incorporate research-based instructional methods into their classrooms (Knight, 2007). Interest in coaching has grown dramatically in the last ten years with school districts and states...
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