Organizational Culture

March 2024
Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) began offering associate degrees as Ohio’s first community college in 1963 and now serves more than 41,000 credit and noncredit students annually. The college encompasses four traditional campuses—Eastern, Western, Metropolitan, and Westshore—and numerous on-campus and off-campus innovative learning facilities and sites. Tri-C offers more than 1,000 credit courses in more than 200 career, technical, and liberal arts programs, and awards Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Science, Associate of Applied Business, and Associate of...
February 2024
South Seattle College (South), established in 1969, offers short-term certificates and two- and four-year degree programs in a variety of disciplines within apprenticeship, workforce, pre-college, and college transfer divisions. At South, a diverse learning community is represented by the 34 first languages spoken among students and staff and 42 percent of first-generation students (South Seattle College, 2023). Even before the recent Black Lives Matter movement, South had been searching for its own organizational identity centered on and supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion. The...
January 2024
Community college leaders must grapple with the expectation of being everything for everyone—an almost impossible task considering the increasing numbers of diverse student groups, each with their own customs, beliefs, and challenges. Finding the right balance to assist and make all students feel welcome is necessary, not only for students’ well-being, but also for their success at the college. As a specific population’s enrollment begins to grow, the challenge for the community college is determining whether additional, more specific services are needed to meet their needs. Almost always,...
January 2024
Delta College exists as a microcosm of our larger society and is, therefore, impacted by historical inequities. Many sociocultural factors prevail at Delta College which predate the current student body, faculty, staff, and administration. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that we all contribute to the current health and vitality of our learning community. Grace Lee Boggs (Harewood & Keefer, 2009) wisely asserted that “you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it” (para. 60). We are committed to...
October 2023
Dallas College is in the barrier-busting business. Those at the college, from leadership to faculty to staff, understand that community college students are inundated with challenges in life that can often force them to decide between pursuing an education and providing for their families. Through the innovative Learner Care Model, Dallas College Student Care Network provides holistic services to ensure that basic needs are met and that students are supported as they pursue their educational goals. From coaching to financial aid to mental health care, the institution’s learner care approach...
April 2023
Authors’ Note: This article is largely excerpted from the authors’ full study report, The Philosophy and Practice of General Education in Community Colleges in the United States, which was presented as a paper at the 2022 International Symposium on General Education and published in the associated Journal of General Education and Multi-Culture (2022), both sponsored by Shih Hsin University, Taiwan. Excerpts of the full study also appeared in the League for Innovation in the Community College’s Learning Abstracts, 24(12), “Understanding general education in the community college: A national...
September 2022
In 2008, during a televised event, then White House Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before” (Emanuel, 2008, 0:04). Many articles have been written about the crises the U.S. postsecondary education ecosystem faces regarding relevance, funding, and innovation, all of which demand swift action (Alexander, 2020; Cristensen & Eyring, 2011; Crow & Dabars, 2015; Grawe, 2018; McGee, 2015, Phelan, 2014). However, for many colleges, change has not come...
March 2022
For over 100 years, the community college has been evolving as one of the most effective institutions of higher education in addressing the social and economic needs of the nation. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was general agreement that the community college was a comprehensive college designed to serve the multiple needs of a diverse student body through a variety of programs, including developmental, transfer, vocational, general, and community education. In the past few decades, that purpose has been changing as the developmental, general, and community education programs have been...
March 2021
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...
December 2020
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...
October 2019
According to Inc. magazine (Curtain, 2017), the number one skill that high paying employers want in employees is the ability to solve complex problems. At Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, we are striving to help students develop problem-solving skills with the support of staff and faculty across the college through Student Applied Benchmarking (SAB). Students in this program design solutions to problems with the help of college employees. The culmination of this collaborative effort is the SAB Showcase, an event that provides students with the opportunity to...
April 2017
Midland College (MC) has been named as a Cadre 1 community college to participate in an integrated statewide approach to student success. For the past two years, MC has been designing and implementing a pathways model with clear, educationally coherent program maps that are aligned for program completion, quality credentials, workforce skills, and transferability for baccalaureate and graduate degrees. As a result of MC’s efforts, the college has been recognized as a leader in the Texas Success Center’s Texas Pathways initiative, and the MC developmental math program has been named as...
January 2017
Meeting the demand for quality professional development programming in times of constrained resources created an opportunity for innovative and creative thinking at Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over 1,200 full-time employees at CPCC are required to complete 20 hours of professional development credit annually, and all full- and part-time employees—more than 1,800—must complete a series of three required annual trainings, thus creating a demand for over 60,000 hours of professional development opportunities annually. This demand occurs at a time of...
September 2016
Snead State Community College launched the College Completion Agenda in 2010 to encourage student success with the ultimate goal of earning an associate degree. The initiative became the one thing at the college that drives everything faculty and staff do to encourage student success. Snead State was the first two-year college in Alabama to sign on to the College Completion Agenda, which developed out of a Call to Action signed by six key educational organizations: Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society, American Association of Community College, Association of Community College Trustees,...
August 2016
Many studies have shown over the years, and leave little room for doubt, that increases in risk factors such as negative personal health practices (e.g., unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, sleep deprivation, drinking, smoking, coping with high levels of stress) have a direct correlation on workplace environment, productivity, absenteeism, and associated health care costs to a company (Shane & Kramer, 2004). SnowFit is a Snow College employee health and wellness program that combines the benefits of step counting and education on healthy lifestyle choices, with support at the workplace,...
August 2015
As community colleges prepare for classes to begin in coming weeks, the League congratulates the 2014-2015 Innovation of the Year award recipients, and invites participation in the 2015-2016 Innovation of the Year awards program. Launched more than three decades ago to recognize significant innovations at member colleges, the awards are designed to recognize faculty, staff, and administrators at member colleges who have created and implemented innovative programs, practices, partnerships, policies, and activities that improve the institution's ability to serve students and the community....
December 2014
Wake Technical Community College (Wake Tech) is the largest of the 58 community colleges in the North Carolina Community College System, enrolling more than 70,000 students a year. It is a two-year, public institution with an open door admissions policy, serving the 1,000,000+ residents of Wake County with five campuses, two training centers, and multiple community sites, and online. It is also one of the fastest-growing community colleges in the United States. Wake Tech's mission is to improve and enrich lives by meeting the lifelong education, training, and workforce development needs of...
June 2014
Congratulations to the faculty, staff, and administrators who are this year's recipients of the League's Innovation of the Year Award! The League initiated the award over thirty years ago to recognize local community college projects and initiatives that reflect extraordinary achievement and the spirit of innovation and experimentation on which the League was founded. The competition provides an opportunity for member 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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