This study sought to explore the relationships between changes in net revenues and the changes in different classifications of institutional expenditures within community colleges in the United States in order to identify trends in how teaching-focused colleges prioritize their efforts in response to financial stimuli using multivariate multiple linear regression....
The shortage of physicians serving rural communities is well documented. To address the rural shortage, medical schools have developed extracurricular programs, called rural health tracks, with an intent to foster medical students’ interest in serving rural communities. While there has been some research about the effects of these tracks, almost...
The proportion of professional staff on higher education campuses has significantly grown in recent decades. Despite this growth, the racial makeup of this employee population still does not reflect the increasing diversity of students in higher education. While higher education institutions pronounce their commitments to developing diversity, equity, and inclusion...
The counseling field is infused with multiculturalism and social justice competencies from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs accreditation standards of the academic institutions to the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics. Counselors are tasked with understanding multiculturalism from self-awareness to clients’ worldviews to larger implications...
While there is an abundance of literature written on academic program review in higher education, there is a gap in the literature found in program review related to community college workforce education programs, employer responsiveness, student employment outcomes, and program discontinuance (Fleming, 2015). Additionally, in the literature review, the researcher...
There have been some gains in the number of women who occupy the college presidency (Gagliardi, Espinosa, Turk & Taylor, 2017), yet the gains reflect a slow pace towards gender parity, particularly at the community college level. Public two-year colleges are represented by 36% women presidents (Gagliardi et. al., 2017)....
The majority of teachers in the state of Oregon are White, prompting the state’s legislative bodies to explore and create ways to increase racial diversity in the profession. Contextually, both state level mandates and national accreditation bodies have attempted to address the lack of diversity amongst teachers in the K-12...
This study frames the problem of needing to better understand retention patterns in Alaska among students from distinct levels of rurality and how those levels of rurality or geographical distance may interact with other variables including race and gender in predicting student retention. Alaska is a highly rural state with...
The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify the combination of factors, both individual and programmatic, that contributed most significantly to the persistence and progression of students enrolled in a public comprehensive community college. As open-access institutions, community colleges cater to students from a broad range of socioeconomic, cultural,...
The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of faculty in Washington State regarding climate for instructional improvement. The Survey of Climate for Instructional Improvement (SCII) was administered to faculty at a community college in Washington State. Through exploratory factor analysis, four factors emerged which aligned with four...
Background: The numbers of Southeast Asian women in higher education, whether within administration, teaching faculty, or counseling and student services are scarce. The specific needs of minority women go largely unnoticed and remain unaddressed and may contribute to the low numbers of minority women in higher education leadership.
Purpose: The...
Background: As the number of multiracial individuals in the United States continues to grow, institutions of higher education have also seen an increase in enrollment of multiracial students. Subsequently, there has also been an increase in studies on multiracial identity and the effects of campus climate on multiracial students. Although...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student involvement in tutoring and timely completion of an associate’s degree among first-time, full-time students attending Oregon rural community colleges. Timely completion was defined as earning an associate’s degree within three years. Propensity score matching was used to control...
Community colleges are changing to meet the needs and demands of the 21st century and these changes are also a driving force behind the shifts that are happening to the essential functions of the presidents who lead the community colleges. In order to navigate the complex systems and lead colleges...
The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to describe the lived experiences of librarians and how they provided support and innovation for community college OER programs. Examining the experiences of librarians as innovators sought to understanding how best practices developed for OER programs. It further sought to examine how...
The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experience of students to discern the impact of their interaction with the food pantry. This knowledge may, in turn, influence future food pantry methods and wider policy, both at PNW College and more broadly. Not only does student hunger have...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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: Legislators, policy-makers, and leaders in higher education and within communities, are increasingly turning to place-based scholarships, or “promise programs”, to encourage college enrollment and address growing public concerns regarding college affordability. One such program, the Oregon Promise, was implemented across the state of Oregon in the fall of 2016....
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...
The research‘s purpose was to examine how exemplary community college study abroad programs assisted student participants in acquiring global competence. Three research questions were explored: 1.What issues need to be anticipated when planning a study abroad program for community college students in order to effectively incorporate opportunities for students to...
The focus of this study was to examine the administrative legacy of two African American women administrators, Maxine Buie Mimms and Wintonnette Joye Hardiman, who administrated The Evergreen State College-Tacoma, Washington (TESC-T) campus for more than three decades. TESC-T is nationally known for its community-based curriculum and pedagogy, high retention...
The purpose of this study is to name and give voice to the spiritual expression of leadership by women community college presidents. The following questions guided the research: (1) How do women community college presidents describe spirituality? (2) How does spirituality convey itself in the reflections, self-expression, and practice of...
The purpose of this study was to discern the nature of legislators' perceptions about community colleges' abilities to generate revenues through alternative funding sources and the resultant effects on state allocations to these colleges. Selected community college-related staff members and legislative staff members in Idaho and Oregon were asked to...
This study examines the relationship between organizational absorptive
capacity and organizational responsiveness to changes in their environment exhibited
by growth-oriented SMEs in Russia. Adopting the theoretical framework and
methodology used by Liao, Welsch and Stoica in their 2003 study of the absorptive
capacity and organizational responsiveness of U.S. growth-oriented SMEs,...
The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe how Oregon governors
Barbara Roberts and John Kitzhaber, whose tenures both coincided with the passage
and implementation of property tax limitation measures, determined the community
college budgets within their recommended state budgets. The stories of Robert’s 1993
and Kitzhaber’s 2001 decisions...
The purpose of the study was to provide a method for evaluating the effect, impact or role that (as perceived by automotive, diesel, automotive collision faculty and administrators) the nationally recognized industry training standards developed by Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) and National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) have on the...
The purpose of this study is to explore, through their own voices, the higher
education experiences of selected urban American Indian females in California
community colleges. This study is an attempt to identify pathways to academic
success by teasing out college practices and support systems that help Native
women navigate...
Community college and university degree partnership programs allow students to tailor their educational experiences to fit personal goals and preferences while transitioning back and forth seamlessly between a community college and four-year university. This qualitative research study, telling the stories and lived experiences of six students participating in a community...
College governance is a function of structure and of how people act within that
structure. Organizational strategies no longer identify administrations as monopolies
that possess all of the good ideas. Recent organizational management approaches to
governance promote inclusiveness in decision-making and are at odds with the
community college's historical structures,...
The primary responsibility of electric utilities is to supply consistent, dependable, and affordable energy to private customers, businesses, and industries. As with many businesses, electric utilities are experiencing the effects of an aging workforce and expending considerable resources to train their current and replacement workers. Community colleges can partner with...
More than any other single factor, access to community college education depends on proximity. The advent of the community college branch campus has opened higher education to broader segments of the population.
The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to discover services that students who attend a branch campus...
The purpose of this research was to hear the stories of Northern Cheyenne women's educational experiences using the method of testimonio, a method culturally aligned and academically appropriate for use among indigenous people. The researcher, also a Northern Cheyenne tribal member used testimonio based on its roots in resistance literature...
This study was designed to investigate a phenomenon, retention of Hispanic adult second language learners in Washington State's community colleges, from a qualitative paradigm and phenomenological approach. The focus of this study was to capture eight foreign-born Hispanic ESL non-continuators' voices and experiences, in their native language of Spanish, who...
The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of single fathers attending a community college. Single fathers comprise one-fifth of all single parent families, yet little research has been done on this growing segment of the population. A phenomenological approach was utilized to examine the attributes, needs, and...
The purpose of this phenomenological research is to deepen understanding of the interrelationship between being lesbian and community college leadership experiences, values, priorities, practices, and identity negotiation. The following outlines thematic research findings.
1. Lesbian community college administrators' have experiences in:
-- Anti-lesbian work environments that exposed them to homophobic...
The purpose of this cross-cultural study is to improve the understanding of the educational experiences of immigrant students who leave postsecondary education prior to completion of a program in two traditionally immigrant-magnet countries. This research focuses on Bangladeshi immigrants in the United Kingdom and Mexican immigrants in the United States,...
As community colleges have responded to shifts in funding structures,
demands from an aging population, the emergence of for-profit competitors, the
development of globalization, and the increasing use of technology, the role of
faculty has evolved and new leadership opportunities have emerged. This study
examines informal faculty leadership at a...
The focus of this study is a search for the voice of African American community college trustees as they work to impact the changes community colleges must make over the next quarter century. It examined the lived experiences and perceptions that selected African American community college trustees have of their...
This study was purposed to extract, collate, and statistically format data contained in the national Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) Longitudinal Study: 1996-2001database that pertained to persistence and attainment rates of GED recipients who began their postsecondary education at a community college during the 1995-96 academic year. The
primary objective was...
The founders of Cascadia Community College changed faculty role and duties as they designed a new college. The college founders chose which themes of learning reform would be enacted by faculty in this new setting. They determined what elements of traditional roles continued to be important and what new expectations...
This autoethnographic research explores learning, teaching, and leading from the perspective of an adult woman who is both a nontraditional student and a non-traditional worker in the academy. Because she returned to school at the age of forty to earn a bachelor's degree, and is currently an associate professor of...
The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn about the perceptions and
experiences of students who graduated with the Associates of Arts/Oregon Transfer
(AA/OT) degree. This study answered the following questions:
1) How did the AA/OT degree attainment assist in the overall achievement
of goals?
2) How did AA/OT...
The purpose of this study was to describe and record the experiences of people of color in a community leadership development program. Selected people of color were asked to describe their experiences as participants in the American Leadership program in Tacoma-Pierce County in the State of Washington. The American Leadership...
Different racial/ethnic groups often perceive the realities of the campus environment differently: This difference in perspective and the attendant reactions can be a factor in student satisfaction or dissatisfaction. A quantitative survey administered in 1996 and 1999 revealed that African-American students on the campus of a diverse two-year community college...
Research into community college governance has in the past centered on the formal aspects of decision-making of these institutions. These past studies often ignore the informal governance practices and policies that operate within all organizations. Staff perceptions of community
college governance have not been studied and possible disjunction between formal...
The purpose of this research study is to investigate and gain understanding of the factors contributing to development of the Center for Advanced Learning (CAL), a regional collaborative educational reform project and the partnerships that emerged from that process. The development process and partnerships are examined from a systems thinking...
The purpose of this qualitative study was to research the experience of six Hispanic students who were interviewed in depth regarding their persistence in school and success at a community college. The students reported on their educational experiences prior to college and how that related to attendance at the college;...
The purpose of this study was to better understand the historical development of the British Columbia (B.C.) community college, university college, and institute system with the focus on the changing nature of voluntary inter-institutional collaboration in relation to provincial coordination. The study also examined the related themes of centralization and...
From 1990 to 2000, Oregon community colleges experienced a shift in their revenue sources from primarily local taxes to primarily state funding. Additionally during this time Oregon approved term limits for state officials and legislators. In preparation for the 2001-2003 biennial Legislative session, the community colleges pursued new approaches to...
The study was designed to determine how learner outcomes, one aspect of a comprehensive assessment plan at an urban community college in the Northwest, may have influenced professional practice. Research subjects were selected from a group of forty-four faculty who participated in a college sponsored professional development activity. The purpose...
Today's community colleges are challenged to respond to rapidly changing internal and external environments. Their responses must promote highly responsive and relevant programs and services, while keeping intact the strengths of community colleges--access, student success, and a focus on teaching and learning. Further, these responses must occur in the context...
The testimonios of three Canadian women athletes and the 1980 Olympic boycott are presented. The Latin American method of testimonio is adapted as a framework for understanding personal stories. Testimonios written in a series of interpretive narratives and poems--poetic testimonios--represent three women's voices. This study includes three journeys: the research...
This phenomenological research study focused on educational change as perceived by 16 Liberal Arts faculty members at a Pacific Northwest community college. Research data were collected through in-depth dialogic interviews and a follow-up dialogue session with six participants. The principal guiding research questions comprised the following: 1) What is the...
This phenomenological study explores what it means to teach part-time in community colleges in the United States. The increasing use of part-time faculty in community colleges and the concomitant emergence of a two-tiered faculty are discussed.
The study examines the nature of part-time work in the United States, thus providing...
Community colleges are being pressured to increase their direct support of the economic development agendas of their communities, their states, and even the nation. These pressures develop both externally and internally, and are exacerbated when increased demands for access to community college education must be met with chronically flat-lined or...
The purpose of this study was to identify the strategies and tactics community college presidents used to influence state legislators. Selected State Board for Community and Technical Colleges staff and legislative staff members were asked to independently name 3-5 presidents whom they perceived to be most influential with legislators. Ten...
The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and communicate a student-constructed model of student services for electronic distance education (EDE). This study seeks to answer the following questions: Do students enrolled in EDE perceive a need for student services? If not, why not? Which services do students want/need?...
This study was conducted to investigate the student-to-student interactions that take place in an online community college course, and how the interactions impact an online learning community. The literature review revealed three related themes: (a) the impact of the teaching/learning environment on student interaction, (b) barriers in the online environment,...
The purpose of this study was to: (a) determine the design features of the physical learning environment that support and enhance collaborative, project-based learning at the community college level; and (b) to gain an understanding of the rationale for the selection of the features. The characteristics of the physical environment...
Low completion rates have created serious "leakage points" (Astin, 1988) and "severe hemorrhaging" (Lango, 1996) in higher education to a large number of Hispanics. Traditional research on college persistence, which has blamed the students' culture for low performance, is inaccurate. Little research has specifically investigated academic persistence from a cultural...
This is a study of the process of collaboration between a community college and selected social service agencies for the purpose of developing an integrative social service and education delivery system, the One-Stop Center. Particular focus is on the interpersonal dynamics among the key stakeholders involved in a collaborative partnership....
This study sought to understand how post-secondary students experience and process issues of diversity, to discover what those views of diversity are, and how those views might change. The two issues that participants felt most strongly about were homosexuality and scholarships for students of color. Their views on homosexuality ranged...
Employers often lament that many American workers are not qualified for present and future jobs due to changing skills requirements and deficiencies of schools. In 1991, the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report recommended educators use work sites to help students achieve foundation skills and workplace...
The purpose of this study is to identify the internal support systems that contributed to the success of community college faculty teaching in a distance education setting. How do those faculty who are perceived as being successful in this setting attain such stature? What are the contributing factors? If contributing...
The purpose of this study is to describe the factors and issues surrounding development of one community college baccalaureate degree program, the three-year Bachelor of Manufacturing Technology at Westark College in Arkansas. This study probes three primary movements at play in the Westark baccalaureate program, which was developed to respond...
This ethnography describes a learning context where transformational learning routinely creates an emancipatory experience. It identifies those elements that increase understanding of transformative process-describing how the context that contains and supports this learning is constructed and a perspective transformation is sparked by group synergy. It names three transformational learning outcomes:...
The purpose of this study was to examine how faculty curriculum committees from different disciplines moved through a major curriculum change process from content-focused curriculum to outcomes-based curriculum. Data was gathered through direct observations, committee member interviews, a questionnaire, and the Gregorc Style Delineator from four curriculum committees representing different...
The study established how community college leaders establish connections
with other community leaders. Connections that form broad and inclusive networks
can be used to develop positive social capital in communities. Results showed that
new community college leaders follow a pattern of community engagement
including the identification of other leaders, making...
This qualitative study explores the experiences of women who are welfare
recipients attending a community college under the auspices of a new program,
Washington State's WorkFirst/Work Study program. The study, conducted over
two academic quarters, includes in-depth interviews with WorkFirst/Work Study
students, observations in a weekly seminar, and interviews with...
Critics of higher education urge educators to transform their institutions so as to align them with the needs of the twenty-first-century learner. However, colleges desiring to survive in a rapidly changing external environment often discover they must first find a way to make
fundamental changes in their institutional culture. Some...
This study documents thick-description single-source data from the life and experiences of a Native American / Native Canadian language worker. The worker, raised and educated in the United States, was separated from his ancestral village until his thirties. The worker, with a Masters degree in education from Oregon State University,...
The purpose of this study was to describe the presidential search process at a
newly created community college and to learn how that process reflected the
emerging organizational culture. A single research question guided the inquiry: How
did the presidential search process at a newly created community college reflect the...
This study presented an in-depth exploration of international student perceptions of a coordinated studies program (CSP) at Seattle Central Community College. In conducting this research project, a phenomenological research methodology was used. Qualitative data were collected through participant observations, focus group, document review and individual in-depth interviews with nine students....
Community colleges are in a strategic position to meet the growing demands for educating a population that is in a dynamic state of change, a population that is becoming more diverse with each passing year. A diverse population and other critical issues have created a new challenge for community colleges....
This study describes the historical development of the Associate Degree Nursing Program at Portland Community College by women faculty leaders in a male-dominated organization. In-depth interviews of eleven participants were transcribed and analyzed. The participants gave a very rich description of this nursing programthus describing its culture. Six themes were...
The era of "customer satisfaction" brings students to colleges who are increasingly identifying themselves as customers. Competition among a growing number of institutions and learning organizations is sharpening the desire of institutions to deliver high quality service in order to attract and retain students. Some examples of interactions where service...
This study compared recidivism rates of adult male completers and non-completers
of correctional education programs in ABE/GED/high school, vocational, and
college transfer programs over a five-year period. A total of 1382 releasees was
studied for the five years following their release. Recidivism was the dependent
variable. Recidivism was defined as...
The purpose of this study was to discern unpredicted, non-linear patterns that may emerge in complex instructional systems design projects. A secondary purpose was to determine how existing models could be redesigned to accommodate emerging factors. The following questions focused the inquiry:
1. In what ways does the actual ISD...
The purpose of this study was to produce data and information that inform California
Community College decision-makers of: (a) extent of variance in California's associate
degree definitions and graduation requirements, and (b) perceptions of curricular leaders
regarding the variances. Associate degree definitions and graduation requirements were
compiled and analyzed from...
Time is the educational resource educators most desire, but which is
in shortest supply. Educators cannot add more days to the 12-month
calendar year, or minutes to the day. Whatever control is to be had over the
calendar and clock rests in the way time is managed by those in...
In education today, there is a growing sense of urgency to build the capacity of
educators, parents, and community members to work together to solve the complex issues
facing schools. The central purpose of this study was to explore how one elementary school
site council learned and adopted a set...
The purpose of this research was to examine the
effects of a co-curricular program on the behavior of
seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) middle school
students. Co-curricular activities are any school-based activities that give students an opportunity to
blend the various aspects of their academic learning
with personal actions.
This was...
The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of participants involved
in one community college's strategic planning process in which faculty, administrators, and
staff at all levels of the organization were encouraged to participate. Data were collected
through direct observation, focus group interviews, analysis of institutional documents, and...
Persistence has been identified as an issue at all levels of higher education,
and numerous strategies have been attempted to stem the flow of students who leave
an institution before completing their programs of study. Persistence research
abounds at the community college, four-year college and university levels, but little
research...