Innovations Library

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Pathways to Faculty Learning and Pedagogical Improvement
Susan Bickerstaff, Nikki Edgecombe January 2013
Volume: 26 Issue: 1
Count all 433
Scaling Innovationis a project led by researchers at the Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, studying the implementation of developmental education reforms at community colleges across the country. In the course of this research, we have observed that when colleges enact such reforms, new opportunities emerge for faculty to engage in instruction-focused professional development. The reform process allows faculty to try new things in the classroom and to work with colleagues to refine and improve curriculum and pedagogy.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Why Traditional Placement Testing Is Being Replaced by Multiple Measures
Brad Bostian December 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 12
Count all 441
Traditional placement testing currently places the majority of community college students into developmental classes. The tests are inexpensive, typically costing less than $10 per student, and they take about one hour and forty minutes to complete. The real costs of the tests come from their weakness as predictors of student performance in college, and the fact that only a minority of students will complete their prescribed developmental sequences. One solution might be to do what researchers and test publishers have long advised: use multiple measures to place students.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Rallying Faculty and Securing Resources for Completion
Terry O'Banion November 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 11
Count all 432
If community colleges are to meet the goals of the Completion Agenda, they will need strong leadership from college presidents, other key leaders, and trustees. The 21st Century Commission on the Future of the Community College concluded, "Change cannot be achieved without committed and courageous leaders.... Community colleges have been developing leaders to maintain the inherited design. They need now to develop leaders to transform the design" (American Association of Community Colleges, 2012, p. 17).
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
NTER: An Open Source, Customized Solution to Course Creation, Cross-Institution Credit Articulation, Learner Analytics, and Business Intelligence
Louise Yarnall October 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 10
Count all 432
Due to trends to accelerate workforce training and meet higher student completion goals set by government and foundation funders, community college presidents need new ways to coordinate the development and delivery of instructional resources while keeping a sharp eye on student, faculty, and program performance.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Lane's Student Success Leadership Team: A Hybrid Organizational Mechanism for Implementing Ambitious Strategic Directions
Sonya Christian September 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 9
Count all 438
Lane Community College (Lane) is moving its student success agenda forward while maintaining its commitment to learning and to quality. To accomplish this ambitious aim, the college has developed a hybrid institutional body, the Student Success Leadership Team, or SSLT. Extending the learning college paradigm to its own organizational structure, Lane's SSLT operates like an air traffic control center, tracking the development of related initiatives, grants, and projects whose purpose is to move the dial on student achievement.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Leadership Development, Innovations
What Community College Administrators Should Know About Parental Involvement
Colleen Eisenbeiser August 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 8
Count all 433
Parents today are accustomed to participating in their students' academic lives because they were encouraged to do so through the K-12 experience, which was influenced by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Many traditional college students are comfortable with the involved parenting style and welcome their parents? support. Many college faculty and staff, though, express concern at the increased level of parental involvement. They consider components of the postsecondary experience to be autonomy and independence from parents.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Selling Technology Change in Higher Education: Tips for IT Leaders and Staff
Paige Francis July 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 7
Count all 431
Selling technology change in higher education can be a challenge, but excitement and ownership can easily replace fear and panic if the change is handled carefully from the start. At NorthWest Arkansas Community College, cross-campus collaboration and communication proved vital when migrating to a new online portal for students, faculty, and staff.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Technology Systems, Innovations
Flow: Expediting Peak Registration Using the Classroom Instructional Model and Workshop Checklists
D. Brent Barnard June 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 6
Count all 433
During peak registration, long lines form as students vie for the attention of overworked staff members. Frustration builds as they jockey for the help of seasoned advisors and other student-service representatives. The dilemma for administrators is the need to hire and retain masses of knowledgeable staff members in a time of shrinking budgets and the inevitable drop in demand for such personnel during the semester. What is an administrator to do? 
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Supporting Transitioning and Returning Service Members: The STARS Project at Monroe Community College
Holly Wheeler May 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 5
Count all 430
Nearly 1.7 million veterans have returned home from service in support of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than half a million of them who served after September 11, 2001, enrolled in college classes last year under the Post 9-11 GI Bill. While veterans make up only a small percentage of undergraduates overall, 43 percent of military students who attend college do so at public, two-year institutions (Randall, 2012).
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
The Leader as Archeologist: Digging into the College Culture
Terry O'Banion April 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 4
Count all 437
All community colleges have an established culture, whether they are five years old or seventy-five years old. The culture reflects formal and informal power structures, old-guard and new-guard perspectives, written and unwritten values and practices. No one single person in the institution knows everything about the culture; everyone knows something about it. New leaders who fail to make understanding the established college culture one of their first priorities do so at their own peril.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Organizational Culture, Innovations
360° Student Services: Engaging the SinclairOnline Student from Prospect to Degree
Christina Amato March 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 3
Count all 441
In an era where students increasingly expect their needs to be met without ever stepping foot on a campus, college staff are under increasing pressure to provide instantaneous assistance and access across a broad realm of college services. This dilemma has left higher education administrators with a difficult charge: engage students more than ever before, using diminishing resources. Sinclair Community College and its online division, SinclairOnline, faced a similar quandary in 2009.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Toward Understanding the Underrepresentation of African-American Faculty in Community Colleges
Tara Carter February 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 2
Count all 434
Community colleges enroll a significant number of African-American students, but the majority of these students do not have an opportunity to learn from African-American professors--a group that is underrepresented in community colleges. To better understand this underrepresentation, I interviewed  African-American community college faculty members using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the conceptual framework.
Tags: Issues and Trends, Leadership and Organization, Diversity, Inclusion, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Change and the Completion Agenda
Terry O'Banion January 2012
Volume: 25 Issue: 1
Count all 431
Community colleges live and thrive in the crucible of change--always have, always will. Built on the streets far from the Ivory Tower, they daily confront and embrace an ever-changing community, an ever-changing student body, an ever-changing societal demand for new workers and new citizens, an ever-changing technology, an ever-changing demand for accountability.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Organizational Culture, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Is It Worth It? Conducting a Program Cost Study to Determine Return on Investment
Lori Alexander December 2011
Volume: 24 Issue: 12
Count all 432
Comprehending what a program costs is important to everyone from faculty and program directors to senior administrators. With increasing enrollments, understanding the costs associated with offering additional sections of courses is critical to planning. And, with decreasing budgets, knowing the cost of a program helps prioritize resources during tough economic times and helps make the case for additional funding from external sources in support of high-demand/high-cost programs.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Accreditation of Community College Early Childhood Associate Degree Programs
Martha Munoz November 2011
Volume: 24 Issue: 11
Count all 431
Community college leaders are extremely knowledgeable about their own regional accrediting bodies as well as long-established accreditation for specialized programs. For example, the National League for Nursing Accreditation and the Commission on Dental Accreditation are among the accrediting bodies that provide specialty program accreditation. Recently, following years of study devoted to feasibility and development, a new program-accreditation process was launched.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Policy and Practice, Innovations

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