Innovation Library
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Tags: Organizational CultureMay 2026As community colleges seek to better serve adult learners and align credentials with workforce...
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Tags: Teaching StrategiesMay 2026Writing professors routinely utilize a variety of methods to engage students, facilitate skills...
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Tags: AccessMay 2026Agriculture remains the backbone of California’s economy, contributing over $50 billion...
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Tags: Community RelationsApril 2026Community colleges are central to economic and workforce development, providing direct connection...
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Economic Development
April
2026
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Graduating high school students across the nation are faced with deciding whether to continue their education or enter the workforce. Many seek higher education in order to improve career opportunities and gain economic prosperity and social mobility (Blackwell & Pinder, 2014). The College Board claims that the average annual income for individuals who have a baccalaureate degree is $53,976. The unemployment rate among these graduates is 4.7 percent, which is lower than the U.S. unemployment rate of 6.7 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). While these statistics look promising, the...
August
2020
Oakton Community College’s Cannabis Dispensary and Patient Care Specialist certificate program is the direct result of a single interaction between a senior Oakton administrator and an Oakton alumnus. The alumnus worked for a medical cannabis dispensary and expressed the need for educated patient care specialists who were able to interact with chronically ill patients—in other words, those with job skills that go beyond being a “weed enthusiast.”
Students and alumni can positively impact curriculum and academic programming as members of career advisory committees and by playing a role in...
September
2016
As higher education evolves to accommodate new forms of learning and new workforce needs, skills are being assessed across an ever-widening range of activities within the learning landscape. Campus-based and online degree programs; professional certificates; competency-based education; open online courses; professional development initiatives; cocurricular and extracurricular activities; and programs in service learning, information literacy, and entrepreneurship are just some of the higher education settings in which competencies worth recognizing are demonstrated or observed. Digital badges...
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Educational institutions feel the imperative to improve retention and graduation rates, and political and corporate interests have amplified the focus on institutional success. The general consensus among policy-makers holds that an indicator of institutional effectiveness is student learning (Erisman, 2009). Fifty-five percent of the nation's 25- to 35-year olds will be degree holders by the year 2025. It is an ambitious challenge and a necessary aspiration to elevate America's status as a world leader in educational attainment among its citizenry. And it is a compelling goal as the global...
May
2026
As community colleges seek to better serve adult learners and align credentials with workforce needs, competency-based education (CBE) has gained increasing attention. While many institutions express philosophical support, far fewer move beyond pilots to sustainable, collegewide implementation. This gap suggests that scaling CBE is less a technical challenge than a structural and organizational one, requiring aligned systems, clear design decisions, and sustained leadership attention over time.
At Jackson College, JetFlex refers to the institution’s CBE model, designed to allow students to...
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When looking at national data about American students who are identified as English language learners (ELL), overlapping definitions from two prominent sources are important to note. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the American Community Survey (2013) to obtain information about factors that disproportionately affect ELL students and their families. The survey compares statistics between "native" and "foreign" households, definitions which are determined by where the householder was born. Not all children whose parents were born outside of the U.S. are identified as ELL. However, when...
