Innovations Library

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Inclusion of Student Voices in the Faculty Hiring Process
Theresa E. Glenn March 2022
Volume: 17 Issue: 3
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Colleges and universities across the U.S. and beyond are striving to recruit and retain a diverse faculty that is representative of their student populations. Institutions have revamped their practices to ensure that faculty diversity is at the forefront of hiring considerations; everything from recruitment practices to committee trainings has been transformed with great care. A recent step taken by Austin Community College (ACC) to enhance its diversity efforts was to pilot the inclusion of the student voice when hiring full-time faculty.
Tags: Leadership and Organization, Diversity, Inclusion, Innovations
New Cuyahoga Community College Initiative Recovers Students Affected by COVID-19
Jenny Febbo February 2022
Volume: 17 Issue: 2
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The interruption of high school students’ postsecondary education plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a troubling trend with long-term negative ramifications for students as well as for the nation’s economy. The trend has been particularly severe among low-income, African American, and Hispanic students (Belfield & Brock, 2020; Causey et al., 2021; National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2021; St. Amour, 2020).
Tags: Innovations
Celebrating the Arts in Times of Uncertainty
Jennifer A. Cunningham January 2022
Volume: 17 Issue: 1
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Students are drawn to the arts through their desire to create, perform, express, and interact with other people. In March 2020, the give and take, central to creating art, was gone. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many students in the visual and performing arts to create in boxes on computer screens with spotty picture resolutions and sound distortions, depending on Internet speed, the weather, devices, and countless other factors.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Access, Community Relations, Learning Environments, Partnerships, Innovations
Community College and Industry Collaboration: Creating a Qualified Cannabis Workforce
Becky Black December 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 12
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Humanity has had a long relationship with cannabis, with evidence dating back 12,000 years suggesting that it may be one of the oldest plants cultivated by humans (Russo, 2007; Warf, 2014). There is also a 5,000-year history of cannabis being used as a therapeutic agent (Burnett & Reiman, 2014). Siberian burial mounds contained cannabis seeds as far back as 3,000 BCE, while cannabis pollen and cannabinoids were entombed with Ramses II and cannabis seeds in Viking ships date back to the mid-9th century (Warf, 2014).
Tags: Workforce Preparation, Innovations
An Agile and Design Thinking Approach to Faculty Development During and After the Pandemic
Diane P. Janes, James Beres, Matt Karns, Terri Eklund, and Christina Tulloch November 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 11
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In the December 2020 issue of Innovation Showcase, Diane Janes and Lorraine Carter (2020a) described educational institutions’ pivot to “remote operations, quarantine, and technology-enabled strategies for working and learning” in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (para. 1). In particular, the article described how Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) ensured the techno-resiliency of instructors.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Learning Environments, Teaching Strategies, Innovations
Supporting One of Our Most At-Risk Populations: Student-Parents
Mary Ann DeMario October 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 10
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College students who are parents, a.k.a., student-parents, have always been enrolled in community colleges, but only within the past few years have they been explicitly recognized as a distinct student group with a unique set of support needs. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2018), more than one in five postsecondary students in the U.S. is a student-parent. This holds true at Monroe Community College (MCC), where 21.4 percent of students enrolled in 2019-2020 had children under age 18 (DeMario, 2021).
Tags: Student Services, Access, Inclusion, Programs and Practices, Innovations
New Cannabis Program at Moraine Valley Community College Trains Students for Emerging Industry
Karen Town September 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 9
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Moraine Valley Community College introduced its new Cannabis Retail Specialist Certificate program in fall 2020 to attract students to the cannabis industry during its infancy in Illinois. In spring 2019, a retired Moraine Valley professor and department chair approached his former colleague, Dr. Margaret Lehner, Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Executive Assistant to the President, to gauge the college’s interest in developing a program in this emerging field on behalf of a vice president at Cresco Labs. Lehner discussed the issue with President Dr. Sylvia M.
Tags: Partnerships, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
Dallas College’s State-of-the-Art Construction Sciences Building Set to Fill In-Demand Skilled Trades Positions
Cherie Yurco August 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 8
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Ground broke on Dallas College’s state-of-the-art Construction Sciences Building in 2019, and the need for the new training facility could not be more urgent. Before the design for the new building began, the National Center for Construction Education and Research (2019) had already predicted a shortage of one million craft professionals in the construction industry by 2023. In Dallas, the shortage is critical.
Tags: Economic Development, Learning Environments, Workforce Preparation, Innovations
Using Innovative and Strategic Solutions to Provide Access to Underserved Populations Through a Corrections Education Program
Bobby Beauchamp July 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 7
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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.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Access, Inclusion, Learning Environments, Innovations
Award-Winning Programs at League Board and Alliance Institutions Exemplify Community College Innovation
From the League June 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 6
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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.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Innovations
Creating a Campus Culture of Self-Directed Student Learning
Chardin Claybourne May 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 5
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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.
Tags: Teaching and Learning, Student Completion, Student Retention, Innovations
Alumni Engagement and the Community College
Jeff Hooks April 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 4
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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.
Tags: Resource Development, Fundraising, Mentoring, Programs and Practices, Innovations
Share Your College’s Innovative Solutions for Hunger Relief
From the League March 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 3
Count all 10
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.
Tags: Student Services, Access, Community Relations, Organizational Culture, Partnerships, Student Retention, Innovations
Reconnecting, Reenrolling, and Retaining Stopped-Out Students
Carol Bonner February 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 2
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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.
Tags: Student Services, Access, Enrollment Services, Student Completion, Innovations
Collaboration Across the Curriculum: Model UN Program at Monroe Community College
Shirley Batistta-Provost January 2021
Volume: 16 Issue: 1
Count all 26
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.),
Tags: Leadership Development, Diversity, Partnerships, Innovations

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