Community colleges enroll nearly half of the students enrolled in public undergraduate programs and a disproportionate number of first-generation, low-income, underprepared and minority students. The new national completion agenda has brought both visibility and pressure to these open-access institutions, which have completion rates of less than…

The success of efforts to improve student outcomes in precollege mathematics at community colleges hinges on engaging and supporting non-tenure-track faculty [NTTF], who comprise a significant proportion of precollege instructional staff. Although research suggests weak departmental support and barriers and constraints to NTTF engagement, no…

The purpose of this article is to share the stories of an Introductory Statistics service-learning project in which students from both New Jersey and Michigan design and conduct phone surveys that lead to publication in local newspapers; to discuss the pedagogical benefits and challenges of the project; and to provide information for those who…

Academic advising administrators, academic advising professional organization leaders, and academic advising scholars have not had access to information about how academic advising is organized in their states. The purposes of this study were (a) to describe the organization of academic advising in Ohio's two-year public colleges; (b) to explore…

This study explores dental hygiene faculty's perceptions regarding the issues surrounding the concept of critical thinking skills integration within Michigan accredited associate degree dental hygiene programs. The primary research goals are to determine faculty understanding of the concept of critical thinking, identify personal and departmental…

Research indicates that students are more likely to succeed when they experience the following six factors: (1) have a goal and a path leading to this goal; (2) stay motivated to achieve this outcome; (3) believe that their success matters to others; (4) are engaged in the classroom; (5) feel connected to the college community; and (6) feel they…

The seriousness of concussions in athletics is only recently becoming fully understood and appreciated. There are significant implications for the concussed student-athlete both in returning to the playing field and the classroom. Although practices are now in place to improve identification and management of concussions in professional sports,…

This primer introduces 23 practices designed to support students inside and outside of the classroom and increase their community college success. These case studies illustrate the five themes for effective student support that emerged from Student Support (Re)defined--a multi-year study performed by the Research and Planning Group for California…

Retention of minority students continues to be a problem for many institutions of higher education. Despite increasing enrollments of minority students in higher education, there are still disparities between completion rates of non-minorities and completion rates of minorities. The disparities are perhaps more evident in low retention rates of…

The purpose of this mixed method study was to compare current practices of athletic trainers in the management of concussion in football at California Community Colleges (CCC) with the concussion management guidelines set forth by the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA). The study also set out to gain understanding of why some athletic…

The objective of this study was to provide an overview of the role that Student Services play in making post-secondary institutions healthy settings. It also identifies institutions' capacity issues related to the delivery of Student Services and provides recommendations for post-secondary institutions and stakeholders on how to address these…

This article discusses the demographic profile, employment motivations, and changing roles of virtual faculty who hold part-time appointments. These insights are drawn from a 2006-2007 survey of forty-two part-time faculty working for virtual universities under the purview of the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities for the…

This report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted in spring 2011. One is a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year…

Although there is increasing interest in evidence-based decision making in postsecondary education, there have been few large-scale empirical studies on the subject, and none of the research to date has examined in depth what specific data college faculty and administrators use in their jobs and the extent to which they use data analysis to design…

One of the predominant characteristics of higher education in Pennsylvania is the high cost of attendance across the Commonwealth. The average tuition charged by a Pennsylvania community college--the benchmark measure used by "The National Report Card on Higher Education"--in 2004 was $2,514, making Pennsylvania the 14th most expensive…