College leaders know from experience that success comes from a balance of responding skillfully to what we cannot control and being proactive in shaping the outcomes we can. For our team at Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW), the challenge of adapting to...

November 30, 2022, was a harbinger for monumental scientific and social change with the presentation of generative AI, specifically ChatGPT,1 in a way that both scientists and laypeople could understand. Since then, a nearly ubiquitous discussion of AI, ranging from...

An academic program evaluation system (PES) should enable smart, data-informed decisions about new programs to start, existing programs to grow, and a few programs that may need to be phased out. AI has been the foundation of PES for over a decade.

As artificial intelligence has gained prominence in society over the past few years, a divide has emerged among its users. Early adopters are quickly integrating these tools into various aspects of teaching and learning, while others remain hesitant to use or even consider them.

Financial obstacles continue to burden individuals who are seeking to advance their careers. Acquiring student loans and working multiple jobs while taking courses to acquire new skills can overwhelm even the most ambitious person driven to find a better future for themselves.

Education Design Lab hosted Fellows from Harvard’s Project on Workforce during the summer of 2023. The Fellows conducted interviews with community college leaders, employers, and community organizations to evaluate collaborative opportunities to better serve today’s learner-earner population.

Hudson County Community College (HCCC) aspires to reach new levels of excellence to provide its diverse communities with inclusive, high-quality educational programs and wraparound supports that promote student success, equitable workforce solutions, and the business community most effectively.

Many colleges provide programs and services that help student parents succeed, such as on-campus child development centers, welfare-to-work programs, and lactation rooms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the particular struggles of students responsible for school-aged children were made visible, as parents and children had to navigate access to computers, Wi-Fi, and quiet study space, among many other challenges.

What goes into your health?

What happens when you make a unified effort to successfully connect workforce ecosystems not only to pave the way for meaningful employment, but also to focus on addressing foundational needs like stable housing and food security? You reduce poverty.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many educators recognized that higher education is operating in an increasingly complex and volatile world. While leaders aspire to turn uncertainty into a clear vision for the future, we are often doing so during tumultuous times, such as during significant leadership and funding model changes or while our biggest competitors are simultaneously overhauling their strategies.

San Carlos Apache College (SCAC), one of the newest tribal colleges in the U.S., has become a major player in efforts to build an innovative, yet traditional, community college of tomorrow. During a League for Innovation “Community Colleges and Communities: Collective Workforce Development and Wraparound Services” project convening in June 2022, the SCAC team presented a concept that provided new insight to creatively connecting student support services with a college’s community, students, and staff.

In today’s community college classrooms, technology is everywhere you turn. As higher education institutions embrace the role of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in everything from sprinkler systems to lecture delivery, it’s clear that the question for many instructors is no longer whether to use tech in the classroom—it’s how to use it well while also maintaining their authentic teaching style.

Higher education has been in upheaval for the last two years due to the pandemic. Broader funding for higher education has increased, but funding for wraparound services has not only decreased, but not fully recovered from the cuts made during the 2008 economic recession. There is evidence that investment in wraparound services can help increase retention and graduation rates for students who attend community colleges.

As we look back at how the pandemic has shifted higher education, the message moving forward is that the learning and upskilling experience must evolve to better meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. Within a new learn-to-work era, there are three clear signals that require attention.

When Northeast Texas Community College (NTCC) applied to participate in the League’s Innovative Solutions for Hunger Relief and Student Success Project in 2019, project lead Carmen Shurtleff had no idea...

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored gaps in infection control knowledge and practice in healthcare settings nationwide. In spring 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with...

The League for Innovation in the Community College (League), with support from the Garcia Family Foundation, is leading a three-year collaborative project designed to support low-income, first-generation...

Working with the Western Association of Food Chains (WAFC), and with support from ECMC Foundation, the League for Innovation in the Community College (League) is engaged in a two-year project to demonstrate...

Congratulations to the almost 300 faculty, staff, and administrators from 60 member institutions who received 2021-2022 Excellence Awards for exemplifying exceptional teaching and leadership!

As Northeast Texas Community College transformed its new food pantry into the CARE Center (see From Food Pantry to CARE Center: A Holistic Approach to Student Basic Needs), staff and students used a variety of activities to...

Many community college students come from low-income, minority households where the family is not able to assist with college costs. Students, therefore, often work to support themselves and concurrently pay for their education.

For millennia, the Socratic method has been a pillar of effective, engaging classroom discussion. Rooted in sparking thoughtful dialogue among learners, it has been touted as the type of authentic learning (Levine & Rascoff, 2020) that may help higher education recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has helped expose two systemic flaws in higher education. First is the inflexibility of the traditional learning model, and second is the institution’s overvaluing of their campus experience.

Almost half of U.S. community college students responding to the #RealCollege survey conducted by the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice indicated that they had experienced food insecurity within the previous 30 days

For years, access was solely about opening doors to those who didn’t know they belonged in our classrooms.

America faces a desperate shortage of workers with the skills and training to do the jobs that keep the economy and the country going, including jobs in healthcare, clean energy, IT, construction, and other vital industries.

The Art and Science of Culture Change creates a visual, linguistic, and conceptual infrastructure that provides scaffolding for shared transformational journeys and engages practitioners in intellectual fun on the road to innovation and entrepreneurship.

The United States is at the front end of the greatest talent shortage in its history. The combination of unprecedented global competition, historic low unemployment rates, unacceptable high school dropout rates, and the departure of 80 million baby boomers from the workforce requires better talent supply chain models.

Through my daily interactions with students and employees at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, and with members of the community, I learn their needs, hopes, and aspirations and hear how our institution can help them fulfill their dreams.

The need for innovation at community colleges is clear. Innovation ensures the long-term success of our institutions. It enables more effective courses, greater community impact, and more sustainable economics.

The word Zeitgeist represents the spirit of the times and the prevailing ideas and beliefs as society moves forward. As we look to the new decade and beyond, how can we lead the Zeitgeist on our campuses and better serve our students, colleagues, and communities?

Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset within our community colleges is part of a mission to better serve our students and communities.

As part of its recent strategic planning process, the League for Innovation in the Community College Board of Directors brainstormed a list of current challenges facing community colleges—challenges the League could use in its programming to help its full membership develop and share solutions.

Since 2012, the League for Innovation in the Community College has led its Community Colleges and Public Health Project with an overarching goal of involving community colleges in education for public health.

In 2000, the League published Learning Outcomes for the 21st Century, a report of a study designed to help community colleges define and clarify the knowledge, skills, and abilities students would need for success in the new millennium.

Science education is in crisis. Students in STEM programs across higher education fail, drop out, or change their majors at alarming rates. Two years ago, we challenged ourselves to do better for our science students.

Today’s financial, political, and higher education environment poses unprecedented challenges. Public financial support and trust in quality, productivity, and value is eroding.

Today’s community college landscape is evolving, and change seems to be a constant—particularly at institutions embracing innovation as part of their culture. That is why it is imperative for all community college leaders to be mindful about how their teams handle the change required to remain relevant in the postsecondary sector.

With Walmart Brighter Futures, the League for Innovation in the Community College continues its long history of leading workforce development initiatives. Walmart Brighter Futures 3.0, the third iteration of this workforce development project funded by the Walmart Foundation, focuses on career mobility for incumbent retail workers, specifically by providing the core skills and knowledge needed to move into management and leadership roles in the retail industry.

The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) began in 1916 with 11 students and two pieces of donated machinery. Over the last 100 years, SAIT has become a leader in applied education, specializing in action-based learning.

According to Wisconsin HOPE Lab’s Hungry and Homeless in College (2017), 67 percent of community college students across 24 U.S. states are food insecure, with 33 percent of those students experiencing the very lowest levels of food security. Moreover, about half of community college students experience housing insecurity, and 14 percent are homeless.

Challenges Community College Students Face

The last decade has seen a remarkable and much-needed wave of innovations in developmental education, and the mechanisms for placement are no exception.