The role of community colleges as open-access institutions that bring racial diversity to careers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is essential (Musante, 2012; Reyes, 2011). Yet, the opportunity to attend postsecondary institutions is not enough to guarantee the success of People of Color as they navigate...
Retention literature has shown that student retention is impacted when economic factors are considered when selecting a college. Students who are low income typically choose colleges that are closer to home and rely on financial aid to pay for college. Further, financial aid is generally a positive indicator of retention...
More than half of students in Washington state community colleges enroll in developmental mathematics, but a relatively small percentage of these students persist to the second year. Many students place into these courses and never enroll; others enroll at some point after the first academic term, even when faced with...
This exploratory, narrative study investigated two research questions. One, how do executive leaders at community colleges describe how their cognitive schema and sensemaking approach informed their understanding of a crisis that their organization faced. Two, how do executive leaders at community colleges describe what leadership traits, behaviors, and competencies they...
Understanding the relationship between motivation, academic achievement, and persistence may help higher education administrators develop plans for increasing student engagement and student success. Prior research on higher education indicated connections between motivation, academic achievement, and persistence, but there has been limited research that relates these concepts to the rural community...
Background. As community colleges are increasingly composed of Millennial-aged professionals, workforce retention of those professionals is now a major priority. The Millennial generation is more diverse and more likely to be impacted by technology than any generation before them and is a generation characterized by dual-income partnerships. These and other...
Background. As part of the nationwide student completion agenda, the Achieving the Dream (ATD) national reform network was established to help community colleges quickly institute sustainable change scaled to impact all students at the institution in a short period of time. Although ATD has been in existence for over a...
Background. Many studies addressing the reasons why minority students fail in higher education are based on what is defined as a deficit model. A deficit model documents that a significant number of minority students fail because their culture is distinct from that of the majority population. Numerous minority students do...
This dissertation was a qualitative case study focused on part-time faculty teachingdevelopmental mathematics courses in one large Pacific Northwest community college. Thecollege was selected for its size and maturity; the topic was selected for three related reasons:part-time faculty have been widely relied upon to teach these courses nationwide; students indevelopmental...
This study documented the influence of the completion agenda on decision-making by community college career and technical education (CTE) deans. Ten career and technical programs deans were identified as the sample for the study. Washington State was selected because of the Student Achievement Initiative that was developed as a completion...
Approximately 600,000 individuals will be eventually released from the prison system and millions will be released from jails across the United States each year (Mukamal et al., 2015). Some of these individuals will make their way to a local community college to make a better life for themselves. There is...
The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) and the eight public colleges and universities in the system, have depended on the Federal Pell Grant program for more than 40 years to assist students to attend. For some of these institutions, the amount of Pell grant dollars received is as much...
Background: Social interaction among peers on a campus of higher education has long been considered an important part of the college student experience, in particular for the first-term students transitioning into college life. Students who socially connect with peers on campus tend to persist at higher rates, while other benefits...
Background: Previous studies suggested that the professional identity of community college faculty is less than clearly articulated. Lack of clarity with regard to professional identity may have impacts in a number of areas, including recruitment, professional development, and the overall reputation of community colleges.
Purpose: To examine how community college...
The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine the role a rural community college plays in the development of its community, using a holistic, community-based lens that considered college and community context, interactions and results to answer the question: How does the rural community college impact the development...
An interpretative philosophical framework was applied to a case study to document the particular experiences and perspectives of ten women engineering transfer students
who once attended a community college and are currently enrolled in one of two university
professional engineering programs. This study is important because women still do not...
The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of first-generation persons of color attending and persisting at a community technical college. Students of color continue to be an increasing population in our higher education system. Many of these persons of color are choosing to attend two-year institutions. A...