Professional development in higher education is increasingly shifting to online formats. However, online professional development often does not lend itself well to fostering meaningful human interconnection. Taking a constructivist approach, we share findings from a qualitative research study that explored what participants found meaningful in a…

Students attending a community college in an urban setting plagued by violence are subject to experiencing or witnessing one or more traumatic events. The purpose of this action research study was to increase faculty and staff's understanding of the prevalence of trauma, how it may manifest at colleges within students, oneself, classrooms, and…

The current study explores differences in transfer shock between veteran and non-veteran community college transfer students at a land grant institution in a rural state. Analysis includes institutional data for community college transfer students, including those who self-identified as veterans or used veteran tuition benefits from Fall 2015 to…

Facing enrollment declines that date to the Great Recession and accelerated during the worst of the pandemic, community colleges are redoubling their focus on student-readiness to seem--and become--as welcoming as possible. These efforts include: (1) ramping up student equity, diversity, and inclusion; (2) becoming more trauma-informed and…

This study developed an equity-minded and trauma-informed model for improving community college student success rates. Since up to 94% of community college students have experienced trauma, it was imperative to establish a comprehensive approach to overcoming the resulting non-academic barriers and low completion rates. Since there is no existing…

This study uplifted the stories of formerly incarcerated and/or system-impacted students attending a California community college (i.e., "Rising Scholars") to provide qualitative context to a growing literature following the state's promotion of support programs at the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and…

BIPOC students attending a community college in the Bay Area bring traumas to school with them and then they relive their traumas in the classroom through professors' pedagogy and the curriculum. This dissertation which was conducted during twin pandemics of COVID 19 and racism, researched a group of English professors that teach first generation…

Wright College is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and community college in Chicago, Illinois serving around 10,000 students per year. The majority of our students are First Generation, 36% are Pell-eligible, about 60% work in addition to taking classes, and many take advantage of the Healthy Market for free groceries on campus. In 2021 the college…

The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) study was to understand the lived experiences and demonstrated resilience of nontraditional, two-year college students from underrepresented populations who have exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and injustice. The intent of this research study was to investigate…