Innovations Library

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Creating Spaces for Collaboration and Innovation
Zachary Cembellin and Francesca Caparas April 2025
Volume: 20 Issue: 4
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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.
Tags: Learning and Organization, Learning Environments, Innovations
Applying Research to Close Gaps in College Economic Outcomes
Navi Dhaliwal and David Mahan March 2025
Volume: 20 Issue: 3
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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.
Tags: Assessment and Evaluation, Institutional Research, Policy and Practice, Innovations
Moraine Valley Community College’s Project Care Provides Holistic Support for Students in Need
Karen Town February 2025
Volume: 20 Issue: 2
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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.
Tags: Economic Development, Learning and Organization, Access, Learning Environments, Partnerships, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
Partnering to Create an Innovative In-Demand Baccalaureate Degree
Ray Nejafard January 2025
Volume: 20 Issue: 1
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In fall 2024, Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) began offering its first bachelor’s degree: a Bachelor of Applied Science in integrated digital manufacturing (IDM) engineering technology. To understand why Tri-C developed a four-year IDM degree, we need to look at some historic and recent economic data about Northeast Ohio.
Tags: Economic Development, Learning and Organization, Access, Learning Environments, Partnerships, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
SF Achieve: Driving a College-Going Culture
Quinten Eyman December 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 12
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In a new spin on the challenge of meeting students where they are, Santa Fe College is serving one student a time, at scale. The SF Achieve initiative offers a unique take on a Promise Program by providing not just financial help, but direct college coaching and mentoring to students in their high schools. College specialists, embedded at local schools everyday throughout the school year, meet with students regularly, get to know them, and help them understand how a college education can serve as a launching pad for their goals and dreams.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Access, College Readiness, Inclusion, Partnerships, Innovations
A Glimpse of the Cosmos: Jackson College's Astronomical Observatory
Talia Burns November 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 11
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When I was young, I used to look up at the night sky and dream. I lived in Atlanta, a location filled with light pollution, so it was rare that I saw more than a few weak pinpoints of light scattered around the moon. Still, I pondered. Where did the stars come from? Did everyone see the same sky? How did the moon change shape?
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Access, Learning Environments, Learning Resources, Innovations
Incorporating Quality in Noncredit Workforce Programs: Colleges’ Considerations for Program Design
Katherine Hughes and Michelle Van Noy October 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 10
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Noncredit workforce education has long been an important function of community colleges. These programs typically prepare students for industry-sponsored certifications, licensures, and/or college-bestowed certificates. They have traditionally been siloed away from credit programs, and, thus, do not have to match credit hour requirements and semester schedules.
Tags: Student Services, Teaching and Learning, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
Forward Thinking: 10 Community College Courses to Meet the Future
Nicholas Vick September 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 9
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Predicting the future may be a fool’s errand, but as technology evolves and societal changes occur, it is necessary for higher education leaders to consider the next phase of curriculum offerings. For the purposes of this article, the next phase will be viewed through the lens of new courses that institutions may offer as soon as 2030, if not before.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
Monroe Community College Embraces Psychological Safety to Move From VUCA to VUCA Prime
Greg Hinton August 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 8
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Community colleges are complicated environments impacted by precarious funding models, population shifts, burgeoning enrollments of students with nonacademic barriers to success, and more. An institutional climate can easily become volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In 1985, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus’s Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, “emphasized the need for leaders to be adaptable, comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, and capable of navigating complex environments” (VUCA-WORLD, n.d., para. 3). In 1987, the U.S.
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership Development, Organizational Culture, Innovations
Course and Section Data Discussions Lead to Improved Student Success and Reduction in Equity Gaps
Shuang Liu and Karen Cook July 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 7
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Literature has pinpointed metrics such as credits earned and course success as important measures to best determine academic momentum for community college students (Attewell, Heil, & Reisel, 2012; Jenkins & Bailey, 2017). In fall 2020, Anne Arundel Community College’s (AACC) average course success rate was 72 percent. However, success rates at the section level often varied widely for the same course. Equity gaps existed among student groups with different demographic characteristics and based on course and section designs, such as modality and section length.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Equity, Institutional Research, Innovations
Award-Winning Programs at League Member Institutions Exemplify Community College Innovation
From the League June 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 6
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Congratulations to the 2023-2024 Innovation of the Year Award winners from 28 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.
Tags: Innovations
AWS Collaboration Enables Work to Scale
Brad Williams May 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 5
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Dallas College, originally Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), opened in 1965 and evolved into seven independent colleges positioned to meet the rapidly growing needs of the now second most populous county in the U.S. In 2020, DCCCD consolidated its individual colleges into a one-college system, with each campus location embracing the opportunities and challenges that manifest in a thriving metropolitan area.
Tags: Innovations
A Community of Practice: Supporting Low-Income Transfer in STEM Introduction
Emily Halvorson-Otts April 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 4
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Student access and success are foundational to the community college mission. The learning paradigm proposed by Barr and Tagg (1995) initiated the student success movement, which paved the way for the completion agenda in the 2000s. However, only approximately 26 percent of community college students transfer to a four-year institution (Sansing-Helton et al., 2021). The situation is even bleaker when we evaluate the STEM fields.
Tags: Student Services, Access, Diversity, Mentoring, Student Completion, Innovations
Improving Faculty Simulation Proficiency
Virginia Massey-Holt, Michele Marbet, Kae Fleming, and Jo Ann Hanson March 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 3
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Critical thinking and clinical judgement of the nursing student is essential to the preparation of a competent novice nurse. Opportunities for students to practice making high-stakes decisions independently can be limited in the live clinical setting, for obvious safety reasons. Variations among local clinical placements may further limit the ability for entire cohorts to experience equitable patient cases. In addition, multiple nursing schools are competing for a limited number of clinical sites, straining programs’ abilities to meet clinical contact hour requirements.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Learning Environments, Programs and Practices, Teaching Strategies, Innovations
Empowering Students as Agents of Change
Todd Brown, Andres Colubri, Pardis Sabeti, and Kian Sani February 2024
Volume: 19 Issue: 2
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In a world fixated on conventional measures of success, the call to empower students as agents of change resounds with urgency. The journey begins by shifting our educational paradigm, placing intrinsic factors like competence, authenticity, and connection at the forefront. As we embark on this transformative endeavor, the following principles delve into practical steps to enhance student engagement and motivation, amplify student voices, and foster collaborative experiences.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Learning Resources, Teaching Strategies, Innovations

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