Hispanic-Serving Community Colleges enroll and educate a large share of Hispanic postsecondary students. Due to work trends and demographic changes, Hispanic and other historically underrepresented students play a crucial role in shaping the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) scholars and practitioners. We use…

A diverse stakeholder partnership led to the development of a Pre-Elementary Education program through its collaboration among faculty, academic advisement, and administration across higher education institutions. Housed at an institution that serves a minority population, this collaboration led to offering an Associate of Arts degree that is…

This chapter discusses the process Broward College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida used to embed certifications from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals into its associate and bachelor degree programs. Included is an overview of the process followed as well as challenges encountered. The chapter concludes with recommendations for…

At a time when the nation is focusing so much attention on college completion, what do we know about how students are completing their community college programs? Does the open-access mission of community colleges translate into equitable outcomes? Pathways to Results (PTR) engages practitioners in using data to close equity gaps for student…

This chapter provides an annotated bibliography of articles about the effects of transfer associate degrees and related statewide transfer and articulation policies. It also provides links to transfer degree legislation in several states.

In recent years, a convergence of several forces--increased legislative involvement in higher education, governmental and philanthropic pressure to increase postsecondary degree and certificate production, demands for a highly trained workforce, and fiscal belt-tightening at colleges and universities across America--has resulted in efforts to…

This chapter discusses the "tangled knot" of articulating associate degrees in applied fields and reviews sample programs from applied associate (A.A.S.) to baccalaureate degrees using three distinct pathways, comparing the resulting A.A.S. to baccalaureate degree pathways to similar B.A. or B.S. programs. It focuses predominantly on curricular…

The previous six chapters have focused on particular aspects of the processes involved in implementing transfer associate degrees in various states. In this chapter, the authors synthesize that information by presenting an ideal state-level organizational model for implementing these degrees and describing the various constituencies involved in…

Community colleges have a storied history of successfully providing pathways and access to credentials and degrees through various models of delivery and in diverse programs of study. Until recently, the highest degree offered by community colleges was the associate degree. During the past decade, major changes have occurred in the landscape of…

Transfer education centering on the liberal arts declined relatively beginning in the late 1960s with the expansion of vocational education. But the distinctions blurred as courses that matched university programs in business and health fields grew. By the 1970s more than half all associate degrees awarded were to students from occupational…

In 2010, California's then-governor Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1440, called the "Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act" (Padilla, 2010), into law. This bill mandated that the state's 112 community colleges (CCCs) develop a new type of associate degree, an "associate degree for transfer," that specifically prepares a…

This chapter explores the tremendous growth in the use of the Internet to deliver distance education at community colleges. The author examines various definitions of online education, including the types of courses, programs, and degrees available and the types of community colleges that offer greater amounts of online programming. Considerations…

State-level interest in meeting workforce needs and facilitating adults' baccalaureate attainment is changing conceptions of the applied associate degree and the mission of the community college. In this article, the author draws on data from a recent study about the applied baccalaureate degree (Townsend and Bragg, 2008) to describe the growing…

Student success in transfer from a community college to a university is dependent on several key characteristics of any articulation and transfer system: structure, policies and processes, and the accessibility of the system design. The public institutions of higher education in Arizona have designed and implemented a transfer and articulation…

As oil prices fluctuate widely and a worldwide recession grows, people are seeing a fundamental shift in the U.S. economy and in consumer buying behavior. This shift is forcing every organization to maximize its efficiency in order to remain profitable and is thereby creating a higher demand for new staff who have management and project management…