In Pursuit of Excellence
In Pursuit of Excellence

Author: John E. Roueche

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2000-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780871173416

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book reports on how the Community College of Denver (CCD) (Colorado) improved the success of its students under difficult conditions. CCD is an urban community college with inadequate resources that serves diverse and at-risk students. Demographic factors are discussed, such as the fact that Denver's population decreased 5% between 1980 and 1990, while people of color rose from 33% to 39% and families with children tended to move to the suburbs or send their children to private schools. One-third of all Colorado's welfare recipients reside in Denver. The population has lower levels of education and lower salaries, and there are more people working in blue-collar and service jobs than there were a decade ago. In addition, CCD's tuition rate is the fourth highest in the country, well above the national average for community colleges. All of these factors create barriers for the residents of Denver who would seek to continue their education beyond high school. However, in the last decade, CCD has taken steps to coalesce its curricula, create a more organized context for learning, and involve all its constituents in improving the learning enterprise. Among CCD's recommendations to other community colleges are: (1) hire the best faculty and support their work; (2) create a centralized model for developmental education; (3) integrate technology into service and instructional plans; and (4) seek outside funding to support college initiatives that help improve retention and achievement. (Contains five figures, eight tables, and 74 references.) (NB)

Redesigning America’s Community Colleges
Redesigning America’s Community Colleges

Author: Thomas R. Bailey

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-04-09

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0674368282

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year—nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America’s Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase their rates of student success, if they are willing to rethink the ways in which they organize programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a cafeteria-style model in which students pick courses from a bewildering array of choices, with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of “guided pathways”—clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students’ choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost. Distilling a wealth of data amassed from the Community College Research Center (Teachers College, Columbia University), Redesigning America’s Community Colleges offers a fundamental redesign of the way two-year colleges operate, stressing the integration of services and instruction into more clearly structured programs of study that support every student’s goals.