Innovations
For decades, Jackson College (JC) has been a U.S. leader in providing higher education access and opportunity to incarcerated students. The town of Jackson, Michigan, has long been known as a “prison city,” and three large correctional facilities are located less than 15 miles from JC’s Central Campus. In 1967, the college offered its first class “inside the walls.” In 1969-1970, a pilot prison education program for the Southern Michigan Prison was launched to provide qualifying inmates an opportunity to further their education.
Jackson Community College (as it was then called) was one of 26...
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To help higher education meet the demands of a diverse generation of students, an ever-changing workforce, and multiple crises affecting the U.S., Rio Salado College is partnering with the Presidents Forum on a new call to action—the Learners First Framework. The framework names ten guiding principles for reform focusing on equity, access, and workforce alignment strategies to help the country as it grapples with equitable access and outcomes, COVID-19, and related economic hardships.
“The events of this past year have brought a heightened sense of urgency to our mission to serve...
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June
2021
Congratulations to the 2020-2021 Innovation of the Year Award recipients from 32 participating League Board and Alliance member colleges. The League initiated the Innovation of the Year award over thirty-five years ago to recognize local community college projects and initiatives that reflect the spirit of innovation and experimentation on which our organization was founded. The competition provides an opportunity for 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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Student retention continues to be a major concern for most community colleges in the U.S. According to research conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2019), of all students enrolled in two-year public institutions beginning in fall 2017, only 48.9 percent would continue at the same institution in fall 2018. Comparatively, students at four-year public institutions over the same period boasted an 82.7 percent retention rate. While students may struggle for a variety of reasons, one way to positively address this issue is within the classroom. Over the course of an...
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) Office of Online Learning developed a Boot Camp for hybrid course design meant to help faculty with little to no experience in an online setting to rapidly design hybrid courses. KCTCS Online shared an open access version of this training for use at other institutions for the first time at the department’s “Free PD: Come for the Free, Stay for the Why” session at the 2021 Innovations Conference.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed many faculty members into a new teaching reality. Designed to help faculty quickly acclimate to online and...
The level of alumni engagement at two-year colleges is well below that which is typically found at four-year institutions (Magaw, 2013; Skari, 2013; Theis, 2018). This is an issue that affects community colleges’ bottom line, the experience of currently enrolled students, and the connection between alumni and their institutions.
The lack of alumni engagement at two-year institutions is often the result of misconceptions about alumni loyalty (Skari, 2013). Those working in alumni engagement at the two-year college level have undoubtedly heard excuses for why their institution cannot dedicate...
A unique partnership between Johnson County Community College’s (JCCC) Continuing Education Transportation program and Johnson County Adult Education’s (JCAE) Literacy program puts newly trained truck drivers on the road to success. The initiative helps non-native English speakers in Johnson County obtain workforce skills in truck driving.
Chris Specht, former Program Coordinator of Accelerating Opportunity: Kansas at JCCC, began laying the groundwork in 2017. Thanks to the combined effort of many at the college, the program officially launched in summer 2020.
“The collaboration between the...
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For many decades, community colleges have been creating and advocating different emphases in organizational culture that reflect their evolving nature and values. Historically, the most visible effort has been the creation of a Culture of Teaching, to the point that the community college has been known until recently as the Teaching College.
A Culture of Teaching
In 1988, the Commission on the Future of Community Colleges, established by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), issued the landmark report, Building Communities: A Vision for a New Century. The report emphasized...
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March
2021
2019-2020 Innovation of the Year Award and 2020-2021 League Excellence Award Recipient Video
These award recipients were recognized at the 2021 virtual Innovations Conference.
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Almost half of U.S. community college students responding to the #RealCollege survey conducted by The Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that they had experienced food insecurity within the 30 days before completing the survey (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019). In response, an increasing number of community colleges are working to eliminate food insecurity for students and their families. Through programs such as on-campus food pantries, community gardens, farmers’ markets, and food scholarships, colleges are finding solutions for students and, in some cases, staff who are...
If you ask faculty at Hennepin Technical College (HTC) to describe their students, most will use the word “resilient.” Many HTC students must overcome tremendous obstacles in their lives to pursue their education goals. The majority of the HTC student population is economically fragile, including students of color and low-income, first-generation, and adult students.
In an effort to increase student persistence, the college launched a new research project to take a closer look at the challenges facing students. The project—Stop Drop Enroll!—was conducted in partnership with nearby North...
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In fiscal year 2019-2020, Sinclair Community College (Sinclair) received $10,000 from StrivePartnership Cincinnati and Learn to Earn Dayton to develop and implement a strategic communication plan to reach students who had stopped out in the previous two years without completing a degree from any postsecondary institution. Sinclair chose to expand their reach beyond the originally funded 2,000 students to include an additional 6,300 students who had stopped out in the previous five years. The communication strategy consisted of a combination of intentional personalized phone calls, email, mail...
Rio Salado College is one of 67 postsecondary institutions to be included in an expansion of the U.S. Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative. One-hundred and thirty colleges in 42 states and the District of Columbia will now be involved in this initiative, which provides need-based Pell grants for people incarcerated in state and federal prisons to pursue higher learning. The majority of incarcerated individuals are Pell-eligible, but they have been banned from applying for assistance since 1994 as a result of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law...
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The Model United Nations (UN) program is extremely popular throughout the United States and globally, with hundreds of thousands of students from all levels of education participating every year (United Nations, n.d.). This UN simulation enables college students to engage in and learn about international political issues and the UN while developing their communication, deliberation, leadership, and debate skills. According to National Model United Nations (NMUN) (n.d.),
Cooperative, hands-on, experiential learning allows students to confront a range of topics with the perspective of their...
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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the bars, cafés, and eateries we so casually take for granted have been forced to close or drastically alter the way they conduct business. Stories of restaurant employees being furloughed, or worse, laid off completely, have been too numerous to count. And then there is the bleak reality of what the future may hold for the restaurant and hospitality industry’s new normal. According to a recent study by the Independent Restaurant Coalition (Amel et al., 2020), 85 percent of independent restaurants could permanently close by the end of this year. Imagine,...
In March 2020, as the world became drastically different due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions found themselves pivoting to remote operations, quarantine, and technology-enabled strategies for working and learning. At SAIT, a polytechnic in Western Canada, actions to ensure the techno-resiliency of instructors were taken through innovative use of a community of practice (CoP) model and a digital learning exchange, which have proven to be effective in empowering postsecondary educators to master this difficult transition. We have learned that CoPs can also be used to advance...
The College Innovation Network (CIN) announced on August 4, 2020, the names of higher education organizations which will serve as founding partners in its pilot year, including Rio Salado College. CIN was launched in the spring by WGU Labs, Inc., with support from the Charles Koch Foundation, and is designed to connect leaders from colleges and universities with educational technology (EdTech) innovators to advance students’ academic, career, and life outcomes.
“This CIN pilot will provide resources for us to continue and expand upon our long-standing heritage of developing innovative...
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Sacramento City College student and entrepreneur Christian Espinoza’s personal essay was published in Makerspace Impact: Implementation Strategies & Stores of Transformation: “At the time, it was all I ever wanted—to create things that were unbelievable and out of this world,” wrote Espinoza, who exemplifies thousands of students whose lives have been transformed by the CCC Maker initiative. He continued,
But as I grew up, those dreams felt more and more unachievable. I thought I could only work a standard job with a fixed pay and maybe benefits, which didn’t sound half bad. I assumed...
The Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) Honors Council is offering a new pilot program called Give Honors A Try! The program permits non-honors students who meet certain criteria to take honors courses and engage in honors-related activities. Each year, CCAC’s Honors Program provides a myriad of opportunities for scholastically minded students to develop leadership skills and to participate in a variety of conferences and community service projects that foster academic and personal enrichment. These include opportunities to hear from guest speakers, field trips, real-world...
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