Overcoming Educational Racism in the Community College: Creating Pathways to Success for Minority and Impoverished Student Populations (original) (raw)

Ideas That Are Transforming the Community College World

Through 13 chapters, O'Banion's edited book yields a robust historical context for understanding the formation of the U.S.'s community college as well its contemporary challenges. In the forward, Bumphus characterized the book as timely and relevant with the potential to reboot and reenergize the community college of today. O'Banion structured the text into three parts centered on national initiatives, internal functions, and enabling ideas for the future of the community college. The following review provides an overview of each part, strengths and opportunities, and usefulness of the book.

13 Ideas That Are Transforming the Community College World

Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice

Through 13 chapters, O'Banion's edited book yields a robust historical context for understanding the formation of the U.S.'s community college as well its contemporary challenges. In the forward, Bumphus characterized the book as timely and relevant with the potential to reboot and reenergize the community college of today. O'Banion structured the text into three parts centered on national initiatives, internal functions, and enabling ideas for the future of the community college. The following review provides an overview of each part, strengths and opportunities, and usefulness of the book.

Reexamining the Community College Mission. New Expeditions: Charting the Second Century of Community Colleges. Issues Paper No. 2

2000

This document is part of the series, "New Expeditions: Charting the Second Century of Community Colleges," sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Initiative. Addressed specifically in this paper is the history and current status of community colleges with regard to trends in enrollment, persistence rates, associate degree attainment, and transfer rates. The paper concludes with a look into the future of community colleges in regard to diversity, technology, operational reforms, and priorities for action. While community colleges make up only 28 percent of all colleges and universities, their collective enrollment constitutes about 37 percent of students in higher education. More than half of all Hispanic and African American students who attend college following high school enter two-year institutions. Overall, persistence rates continue to be a problem for all groups, and statistics show that in most two-year colleges, even those with diverse student enrollments, well over half of all associate degrees were earned by white students. Calls for reform have already been made to bring about the structural transformations needed to improve transfer education and persistence rates, recruit a diverse community of faculty, staff and students, and encourage greater interaction between faculty and students. (Contains 40 references.) (AF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Community College Success: Is It a Path to Opportunity? The Progress of Education Reform. Volume 9, Number 5

Education Commission of the States, 2008

Is it a path to opportunity? In his remarks before the graduating class at Harvard University this spring, Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke said the primary vehicle for decreasing income inequality and increasing the productivity of America's workers is to provide greater access and success in postsecondary education. While he was talking to the nation's best and brightest at one of its most prestigious institutions, he made the case that community colleges will play a central role in accomplishing this goal. 1 A recent report from the College Board's National Commission on Community Colleges makes the case that community colleges are overburdened and underappreciated at a time when their mission to provide greater access to postsecondary education for underserved populations and respond to community needs is more important than ever. 2 According to the report, 46% of all undergraduates in the United States attend community colleges, including 47% of African American undergraduates, 47% of Asian American undergraduates, 55% of Hispanic undergraduates and 57% of American Indian undergraduates. What's Inside Are community colleges a good route to a bachelor's degree? Which students succeed at community colleges? Strategies that promote community college success

Community Colleges: Multiple Missions, Diverse Student Bodies, and a Range of Policy Solutions

2016

The national commitment to increasing postsecondary educational attainment, combined with growing economic anxiety, has made community colleges the focus of many federal and state policy initiatives. There is good reason for this: by virtue of their nature and reach, community colleges—public institutions of higher education that predominantly award associate degrees and sometimes bachelor’s degrees—are indispensable to meeting national goals for educational attainment as well as for the development of a productive workforce. But no national system of community colleges exists, and national policies to improve opportunity and success at community colleges should reflect their diversity of students, programs, missions, and funding structures.

Advancing Community College Research and Practice in the Year 2020

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2019

Seven years after Alvin Toffler published his classic book, Future Shock (1970), the Community College Journal of Research and Practice (CCJRP) published its first issue. This was a moment in American history when change was felt in the air as futurists studied, discussed, wrote and debated their insights on the past and present in the context of visions and challenges for the future, including life in the year 2020. In Future Shock, Toffler (1970) looked to the past to explain the role of change in the world and provided insights regarding our future. Fifty years after its first printing, Toffler's description of fast pace lives, throw away societies, fractured families, of overstimulated individuals, complex systems, and traditional educational systems still has value today. Later, during the 1980s, John Naisbitt published Megatrends: Ten Directions Transforming our Lives (1982), another classic futurist book where he predicted the future based on his present analysis of America. While Toffler (1970) described the role technology played in our past and offered future projections, much of Naisbitt's (1982) focus was about the rapidly changing and sophisticated technology of the era and ever-changing systems. Naisbitt (1999) built on his earlier works with his book, High Tech High Touch: Technology and our Search for Meaning, where he examined the role technology plays while cautioning us detrimental effects to the individual and society. Although Toffler and Naisbitt did not describe the role community colleges played in an everchanging society and their role in shaping our future, these seminal futurists both emphasized the importance of flexible and responsive educational systems. Experienced community college practitioners and researchers alike know that community colleges have a storied history of being flexible and responsive by addressing the challenges of change through programs in areas of workforce, transfer, developmental and community education. During this era when futurists were describing the past and present in the context of future challenges, community colleges were embracing these challenges as agents of change and shaping the future in their communities. Since the 1970s, the Community College Journal of Research and Practice has published 516 issues that document programs, research, and practices about these evolving and changing community colleges. Today, the CCJRP has flourished as a scholarly peer reviewed journal that is published 12 times per year. Two types of manuscripts are considered for publication: Full Length Scholarly and Research articles and Exchange articles. Full Length manuscripts are concise, yet sufficiently detailed, to permit a rigorous double-blind peer review. Exchange articles are shorter papers that present practical and thought-provoking scholarship and research serving as a forum for the advancing of knowledge and understanding in the development of community colleges. Both types go through external double-blind peer review processes prior to publication. This essay aims to highlight the efforts and achievements of the 2019 volume year, prelude the upcoming issues for 2020, reflect on the journal's impact and reach, and gratefully acknowledge the volunteer reviewers, editorial board members and other colleagues for the contribution of their expert service and time to the CCJRP.

The Recipe for Promising Practices in Community Colleges

Community College Review, 2010

This study identifies and examines the key practices of California community college programs that have demonstrated success in improving (or that have shown significant potential to improve) the achievement of underrepresented groups whose educational attainment often lags behind the attainment of relatively well-off White students. Unlike many examinations that focus only on the transfer mission, this study includes other vital areas of the community college, including workforce preparation and developmental education. Study findings reveal that the practices of these programs had four common characteristics: cohesion-the ability of program personnel to operate as a unit in which behaviors and actions mesh or are rationally consistent; cooperation-the degree to which program personnel work together toward common goals and form good working relationships with each other and with students; connection-the ability of program personnel to sustain interdependent relationships with internal and external entities, such as other departments within the college and industry representatives; and consistency-the presence of a distinctive and stable pattern of program behaviors that promote program goals. In addition, study results show the central and critical role played by the faculty in assuring program success.

Supporting and Sustaining Community College Scholarship and Research

Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 2018

For the past 42 years, the Community College Journal of Research and Practice (CCJRP) has remained a steadfast supporter, sustaining its commitment to serve as a forum for researchers and practitioners to publish scholarship of the highest caliber about ideas, research and innovations in the field of community college education. Since the journal's inception in 1976 to 2018, the CCJRP has published 504 issues, including dozens of special issues about contemporary issues and challenges facing community colleges. The CCJRP's full-length manuscripts are double-blind peer reviewed and our success is dependent upon dozens of expert scholars and practitioners who serve as volunteer reviewers. This essay highlights our 2018 volume year, previews our issues for 2019, describes our editorial and publication processes, and thanks dozens of volunteers who have contributed to the success of the CCJRP.