Learning Communities: A Sound Investment in Higher Education

University and college leaders are tasked with enhancing student outcomes with fewer resources. Student retention is one such key outcome of interest for many policy makers as well as for university administrators. Over the years, administrators have turned to High Impact Practices (HIPs) such as Learning Communities (LCs) to aid in retention. This quantitative study explores the impact LCs have on student retention at a large R1 university in the Midwest. Additionally, the financial return on investment in LCs at this institution is measured via tuition dollars generated from students who are retained as a result of their participation in a LC at the institution. Two key findings of this study are that LCs are positively associated with increased odds of student retention, and that investing in LCs makes good financial sense. Our research contributes to the scholarship on retention attributable to LCs and provides researchers and practitioners with a “template” to evaluate the efficacy of specific retention initiatives in relation to their financial return on investments.

Understanding Budget Cuts within Student Services in Community Colleges: A Critical Review of Practical Responses for Human Resource Leaders

Using a critical lens, this article discusses some of the most common recommendations for human resource and community college leaders on how to respond to budget cuts to student affairs and support services at community colleges. Student affairs and support services are often the first to experience budget cuts in higher education, yet little is known about the impact of—as well as responses to—declining budgets to such services in community colleges. As part of this critical analysis, we frame recommendations using resource-based perspectives to better understand institutional actions in the face of budget cuts, such as identifying sustainable alternative financial resources and increasing efficiency of existing financial and human resources through increased coordination with other community college units. We also discuss how these best practices can also lead to other challenges in times of financial crisis that institutional leaders should consider.

International Student Experience at US Community Colleges at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study’s purpose is to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international students who were studying at US community colleges at the onset of this public health crisis. While previous work has explored the impact of the pandemic on international students generally, we argue that community college international students deserve focused attention due to their potentially marginalized status on their campuses. Using a mixed-methods research approach, we analyze survey and focus group data provided by 17 randomly-selected community college educators. Our results speak to two overarching themes: the supports provided to students at the onset of the pandemic (and educators reasons for providing these specific supports) and the unique impact of the pandemic on community college international students due to their citizenship or residency status. These findings have important implications for community college leaders and international educators as they work with international students during future times of crisis.

Leadership model and planning strategies in private Catholic colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper aims to examine the leadership model and planning strategy of private Catholic colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic in Samarinda City, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. This study adopted a qualitative approach using interviews, observations, and documentation to collect data from 10 lecturers and seven staff as. The collected data were then analyzed descriptively. The results of this study indicate that the leadership model that often appears as a hallmark of private Catholic college leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic is a situational and distributed leadership model, with an emphasis on principles of leadership servant in dealing with changing organizational needs. The planning strategy carried out shows a visionary leadership model, college leaders can rearrange strategies that are adapted to the situation in developing educational programs and improving the quality of the college.

Developing Bilingualism in Nursing Students: Learning Foreign Languages beyond the Nursing Curriculum

Nursing curriculum usually focuses on vocational development to train students to become nursing professionals after graduation. However, due to the packed major schedule and curriculum, many students are not required to take additional foreign language courses for their associate degree. Based on the lens of social cognitive career theory, the researcher sought to understand the motivations and reasons behind the learning behaviours. One research question was guided in this study, which was, what are the motivations and reasons for taking foreign language courses beyond their (i.e., nursing students) major curriculum and coursework plan? A qualitative research method was employed to collect interview data from 60 nursing students. The finding of this study indicated that the interest in career development and personal consideration were two of the most important factors for foreign language learning for these groups of nursing students. The results of this study provided recommendations for college leaders, government agencies, and policymakers to reform and polish foreign language courses and offer directions to contemporary students of the nursing curriculum. Students may also be benefitted as the study outlined the motivations and reasons for foreign language learning. Therefore, all parties may take this study as a blueprint to exercise their future developments.

Convergence of Adult Learners, STEM Programs, and Promise Programs in Community Colleges

American higher education is currently experiencing a convergence of three trends: a rise in adult learners as the largest population of students on college campuses, an increased focus on academic STEM degree programs and credentials, and the proliferation of promise programs that provide financial assistance to students. Community colleges as open access institutions are at the nexus of where these three trends converge and thrive. This chapter provides an overview of these three trends with recommendations for practice to guide community college leaders and faculty who are charged with management of these three trends during this unique time in higher education.

Research and Practice of Constructing Engineering Practice Base for Application-oriented Universities

"Practical training" is very important in construction engineering, especially for the construction engineering major of application-oriented undergraduate colleges. For students to master professional knowledge, it is necessary to carry out effective practical teaching. Generally speaking, teachers carry out practical training at the practical training base. Therefore, college leaders and teachers have always been very concerned about the construction of training bases. This article analyzes the construction of the construction engineering training base focusing on how to build a practical training base in application-oriented undergraduate colleges, in order to train more construction engineering professionals to meet the needs of social development.

Launching an EdD in Community College Leadership Program with Activism in Mind

The purpose of this article is to share an example of how an activism framework was used to design and launch a new EdD in Community College Leadership. Capper, Theoharis, and Sebastian’s (2006) framework for preparing leaders for social justice along with the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate’s (CPED) guiding principles and the American Association of Community College’s ([AACC], 2018) competencies for community college leaders guided program design and implementation. Marketing and recruiting efforts aimed at identifying a talented, diverse cohort and on-boarding strategies focused on creating a safe learning environment and a sense of urgency related to social justice and equity are shared. Examples of how activism is being emphasized through coursework and plans to nurture activism through experiential learning and the dissertation are also discussed. Doctoral programs seeking to promote activism will discover an effective framework and practical examples for this work.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how elite universities responded to black campus activists by making racial inclusion and inequality compatible, focusing on the University of Michigan (UM). Since the 1960s, UM has gained national recognition for its racial inclusion programs. University and college leaders from around the country began visiting Ann Arbor because they saw UM as a model of inclusion. For the same reason, opponents of affirmative action and racial sensitivity training targeted UM in op-eds, books, and lawsuits. Given UM's reputation, it was no surprise when the university found itself at the center of two of the most famous affirmative action lawsuits of the twenty-first century: Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). In the eyes of black students, however, UM has never represented a model of racial inclusion. Black students' share of the student body has never matched blacks' share of the state or national population, and the majority of black students have never reported satisfaction with the university's racial climate. Nevertheless, black students' critiques never stopped UM leaders from claiming that racial inclusion was one of the university's core values.