This digest is drawn from the spring 2002 issue of New Directions for Community Colleges, titled "Next Steps for the Community College." It summarizes three overlapping challenges facing colleges in the coming decade: educating a more diverse student body, assessing student outcomes, and maintaining the educated workforce needed to meet…

Criticisms have been raised about large scale community college involvement in developmental education. A number of these criticisms seem valid, while others clearly are not. Some of the most commonly voiced concerns include the following: (1) "The community college is the wrong place to provide developmental education"; (2)…

This digest offers community college academic leaders a synopsis of the key components necessary for building a successful developmental education instructional framework. Specific emphasis is placed on program structure, faculty, and program improvement. Developmental education is defined as "courses or services provided for the purpose of…

Successful college instruction programs have two features that are associated with increased grade point averages and retention: (1) they are comprehensive and meet student needs, and (2) they are better institutionalized into the academic mainstream of the college or university. Several program characteristics are crucial to learning improvement,…

This Digest reviews ERIC documents and journal articles on the roles currently being played by two-year college learning resources centers (LRCs) in instruction and instructional development. After acknowledging that community college students have different needs for bibliographic instruction than their counterparts at four-year institutions, the…

This digest reviews the role of community colleges in delivering remedial education. With demand for remediation increasing, community colleges are under pressure to provide, with very limited financial resources, the bulk of developmental courses for students. In finding effective solutions to this dilemma, policy makers should consider a broad…