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Updates from The SOURCE on Community College
Issues, Trends & Strategies
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Published by
The Roueche Graduate Center, National American University
in partnership with Lorenzo Associates, I nc.
"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress,
and working together is success." ~ Henry Ford
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VOLUME 5, ISSUE 14 - August 23, 2015
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Editor's Note:
Dear SOURCE Subscribers:
I'd like to take a moment to thank you for opening this eNewsletter every two weeks (except for the month of July when we take a break). We've been going strong since March 2011, when we launched the first issue.
Since then, we've received numerous unsolicited notes thanking us for this service. I've listed several of these below.
More importantly, however, a big thank you must go out to  the Roueche Graduate Center at National American University, our partner in the production of this eNewsletter. Without their support, this eNewsletter would not be possible.
Finally, with more than 2,000 subscribers, we'd like to respectfully request that you consider sharing this eNewsletter with your colleagues by clicking on the "Forward to a Friend" link in the upper left column.
Sincerely,
George Lorenzo
P.S.: Please feel free to contact me anytime by email at george2@edpath.com.
KUDOS:
"Your curating is outstanding. I often find articles I have bookmarked during the week and forgotten. I love it when they pop up in the SOURCE when there is time to read."
"The SOURCE continues to be the best resource on community college issues in our field. It is one of the few resources I review meticulously. Thanks for your great work!"
"I am a grant writer from Chicago and I just want to thank you for this timely and useful information. It is so very well done! I promote this newsletter every chance I get."
"Thanks for sharing. Great resource with a variety of interesting topics."
"Thanks to SOURCE for being the clearinghouse of all great and important news and reports pertinent to community colleges and beyond."
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Miscellaneous
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08/15/2015: Central Nebraska Community College Intros Sunday Program, The Grand Island Independent - Mid-Plains Community College is offering a new way for busy people to get an associate's degree over two years. The Sunday College program allows students the option of attending classes on Sunday afternoons and early evenings, starting Aug. 30. They will complete coursework online on their own time the rest of the week.
08/14/2015: Defining College, by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed - General education is the part of a liberal education curriculum that is shared by all students, AAC&U says. And a common thread for the association and its members is the belief that a general education core should be an intentional pathway, a contiguous arc that spans disciplines and different forms of learning. 08/12/2015: Memo to Hillary Clinton: More Choice Can Thwart Community College Students, by Edward Rodrigue and Richard V. Reeves, Brookings - Community college students often have to make complex decisions with minimal guidance. This increases the importance of social "know-how," precisely the type of knowledge that many community college students lack. Students at many liberal-arts colleges, meanwhile, enjoy a "guided pathways" approach to navigating higher education. Majors consist of a cohesive set of courses, which build upon one another as students acquire a deeper understanding of the field. 08/12/2015: When the Sum Isn't Greater, by Kellie Woodhouse, Inside Higher Ed - Wisconsin doesn't have a single, unified community college system; and many of the educators at the state's two-year institutions say that's a good thing. But as a legislative committee considers possibly merging the state's two separate two-year systems, some politicians are questioning whether a more traditional community college model would work better for the state. 08/11/2015: Does Hillary Clinton's College Plan Go Far Enough?, by Vauhini Vara, The New Yorker - Clinton would reward states that stop disinvesting in higher education and eventually spend more on public universities and make it possible for students to graduate without debt; she would also keep the Obama Administration's promise to make community colleges free. (Under Clinton's plan, students would contribute to their tuition based on the wages from ten hours of work a week, while their families would give an amount based on their means.) A third of the three hundred and fifty billion would be spent to relieve students of some of their existing debt, partly by letting students refinance their loans at the current low interest rates. The rest, some fifteen to twenty per cent of the total, would be put to other uses, including investing in new forms of education and supporting student parents. 08/07/2015: The Future of Work: Making Service Work Pay, by Lydia DePillis, Pacific Standard - The latest entry in a special project in which business and labor leaders, social scientists, technology visionaries, activists, and journalists weigh in on the most consequential changes in the workplace.
To view our entire Miscellaneous Resources section, click here. |
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Statistics
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07/15/2015: Infographic: Robotics And The Future Of STEM, TechThought - This infographic also promotes KUKA KORE, a program offering high schools, tech centers, community colleges and universities the opportunity to take advantage of certified robot education on KUKA products by incorporating them into their very own STEM, Advanced Manufacturing and Mechatronics programs. This will allow students to learn basic robot programming and operation skills on exercise hardware, gaining experience of robots and control technology that is already used in a variety of industries. Educators and students have the opportunity to be trained using advanced robotic technology.
To view our entire Statistics-Oriented Resources section, click here.
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Online Education
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08/11/2015: A College Without Classes, by Alana Semuels, NationalJournal - For the most part, colleges and universities have changed very little since the University of Bologna gave the first college lectures in 1088. With the exception of MOOCs, which mainly expect students to use resources online to complete courses themselves, competency-based programs depend on faculty mentors to walk learners through the learning process. "You get to teach them things that matter, when they matter," Michigan's Gruppenand says, "not try to cram a bunch of information down their throats." July-August 2015: Competency-Based Education: Leadership Challenges, by Thad Nodine and Sally M. Johnstone, Change Magazine - Western Governors University (WGU), has been working with a group of community colleges that have developed their own versions of CBE programs, mostly with their own resources but also supported by grants from the US Department of Labor and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To view our entire Online Education section, click here.
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College Readiness
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 08/13/2015: How One West Michigan School District Wants to Increase College Readiness, by Brian McVicar, MLive.com - A partnership places a graduate student from GVSU's College of Education at Godwin Heights High School for one year to help students navigate the process of applying for college. The GVSU student will also participate in efforts to help build a college-going culture at Godwin, which has a large number of low-income students and lags behind the state average in post-secondary enrollment rates. 08/10/2015: A Walk Through Early College High, by Katherine Burgess, The Jackson Sun - Phillip Warwick, program coordinator, said ultimately he hopes Early College High will be a separate high school. Already, numbers might increase as parents have called asking whether they can still enroll their children. 08/2015: Math Matters, by Max Marchitello and Catherine Brown, Center for American Progress - Through the Common Core, students are taught to understand both the procedures for doing math problems - such as memorizing multiplication tables or learning to "carry the 1" - and how and why these procedures work. This approach allows students to more deeply understand the concepts that underlie mathematics, improve their critical thinking skills, approach problems from different perspectives, and apply what they learn to real-world problems. In other words, students will study why 5 x 10 = 50 in addition to memorizing multiplication tables.
To view our entire College Readiness section, click here.
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Remedial Education
|  08/14/2015: Arizona Community College Sees Major Gains With In-house System, by Tara Garc�a Mathewson, Education Dive - South Mountain Community College in Maricopa County created its own Learner Support System to track tutoring services and student outcomes, finding great success.
08/13/2015: Some Community Colleges are Fixing Unfriendly Placement Policies, by Jay Mathews, The Washington Post - The Virginia Community College System, including Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), three years ago attacked this logjam with a new kind of placement test and a shorter remedial course designed to focus on what students do not know, rather than making them retake basic high school math.To view our entire Remedial Education section, click here. |
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College Completion
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08/10/2015: Search for Success, by Jacqueline Thomsen, Inside Higher Ed - The University Leadership Network aims to help students who appear to be least likely to succeed by creating an algorithm of 13 factors that can impact a student's ability to graduate in four years.
08/2015: A Better Completion Agenda: Expanding the Range of Acceptable Outcomes in Higher Education, by John Sener, e-Mentor - The Completion Agenda is part of a larger transformative shift in education, which is moving from a focus on providing instruction to a focus on producing results. This gradual but profound paradigm shift has been underway for multiple decades, and its impact on higher education cannot be understated; as one well-known description of this phenomenon noted, shifting the focus from teaching to learning "changes everything" about how higher education is conducted.
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Workforce Development
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08/14/2015: Cayuga Community College Answers Demand for Event Management With Online Program, by Carrie Chantler, Auburn Citizen - Possessing the knowledge and ability to plan and manage large-scale events has become an in-demand skill set in corporate settings and in the hospitality and tourism sectors. Cayuga Community College is ready to prepare students to get those jobs. New this year, CCC offers a one-year 30-credit hour certificate program in event management delivered solely online.
08/13/2015: Apprenticeships Fill Manufacturing Workers Gap, by Carrie C. Causey, The Herald Weekly - After finishing the apprenticeship program, participants have earned an Associate of Applied Science degree in Mechatronics through Central Piedmont Community College and a Journeyman's Certificate awarded by the state. Along the way, they will have worked at least 6,400 hours at one of the participating companies to gain hands-on training.
08/13/2015: 8 State Models Linking Higher Ed to Careers, by Meris Stansbury, eCampus News - The Pathways to Prosperity Network, an initiative of Jobs for the Future (JFF) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, began three years ago in an effort to help more students enter not only postsecondary education, but full-time jobs that directly help companies fill critical positions.
08/13/2015: Tapping Wages for Training, by Ashley A. Smith, Inside Higher Ed - Companies teaming up with local colleges and universities to develop employee training programs isn't new. But a program in Michigan has found success with an unusual way to fund these programs.
To view our entire Workforce Development section, click here. |
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Technology Adoption
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08/18/2015: Instructure Reportedly Planning IPO, by Tara Garc�a Mathewson, EducationDive - Education software company Instructure, which created the Canvas learning management system, is said to be planning an initial public offering for later this year with the help of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
08/13/2015: Three-Quarters of Students Say More Tech Would Improve Their Learning, by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology - Nearly six in 10 students (56 percent) would feel more comfortable being in a digital class than an in-person class and almost three-quarters (74 percent) report that they'd do better in their courses if only their instructors would use more technology.
08/07/2015: Dear Students and Faculty: Please Go Digital, by David Levin, HuffPost, Business - By combining digital content with software that harnesses the science of learning - essentially, how the mind masters new concepts - we can work with faculty to create experiences that make learning more effective and efficient. These types of technologies go far beyond what's offered in an e-book, making learning entirely richer and more personalized. While it seems like this package would come at great expense, it's actually available today for roughly half the price of print.
08/2015: High-speed for Higher Ed, by Katie Kilfoyle Remis, University Business - The most reliable conduit for delivering high bandwidth of a gigabit or more is fiber. Fortunately, providers are laying more of it, thanks in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that made one-time grant funds available to deploy broadband infrastructure.
To view our entire Technology Adoption section, click here. |
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Data Analysis & Assessment
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08/16/2015: Pencils Down: More U.S. Colleges Drop Standardized Tests, by Ian Simpson, Reuters - Proponents of making the tests optional say the switch can help schools become more diverse and admit students who will thrive even though they may have lagged other applicants on scores.
08/14/2015: Does Assessment Make Colleges Better? Who Knows?, by Erik Gilbert, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commentary - Has anyone looked into whether assessing student-learning outcomes over many years has made American colleges, or students, better in some way? Has anyone tried to compare institutions with different approaches to assessment? I am a historian so I am not familiar with the education research, but as best I can tell from a literature search and from asking people in the field the answer is "no."
06/10/2015: Analyzing Schools in the U.S. News Community College Directory, by Robert Morse and Anjelica Pitts, U.S. News & World Report - U.S. News published the second edition of its online Community College Directory, which includes data on nearly 950 community colleges from 50 states, as well as the U.S. territories and associated states. These are colleges whose highest degree granted is an associate degree.
To view our entire Data Analysis & Assessment section, click here.
Back to 'In This Issue' |
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Funding & Economics
|  08/19/2015: A Benchmark for Making College Affordable, Lumina Foundation - This draft benchmark provides an outline for future, more detailed interpretive work that could inform policy and practice. Next steps in determining how to actualize the benchmark will necessarily include consideration of a full set of specific actions that could be taken by higher education leaders and policymakers.
08/17/2015: The Higher-Ed Landscape in Iowa: State Cuts and Tuition Jumps, by Colleen Murphy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Administration - Larry H. Ebbers, a professor of higher education who has taught at Iowa State University for 50 years, says he has seen the states' institutions "unfortunately moving more toward a private-good model" that places more of a burden on families, on the theory that a higher education is primarily of value to the person, not the society.
08/13/2015: Student Loan Delinquencies Jump As Crisis Spreads, by Shahien Nasiripour, HuffPost Politics - About 11.5 percent of outstanding student debt was at least 90 days late or in default as of June 30, up from around 10.9 percent at the same time last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed estimates that nearly one in four borrowers whose loans have come due are severely delinquent, or double the published rate, because nearly half of student debt doesn't presently require a monthly payment.
08/11/2015: Why Lowering Student Loan Interest Rates Isn't A Game Changer, by Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR, It's All Politics - The question is who is having the most trouble paying their loans down. Counterintuitively, it's the people who owe the least. The New York Fed examined student debtors in 2009 and found that delinquency rates decline as you move up the ladder of how much people owe.To view our entire Funding & Economics section, click here. |
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Transfer & Articulation
|  08/14/2015: Pittinsky: Digital Transcripts' 'Quiet Revolution' Just the Beginning, by Tara Garc�a Mathewson, Education Dive - With colleges across the two-year and four-year spectrum committed to digital transcripts, the possibility of data sharing has already cleared a major hurdle. "Reverse transfer" initiatives either launching or being developed in several states strive to connect former community college students with their alma maters once they've earned additional credits at four-year institutions that qualify them for an associate degree. 03/17/2015: Crossing State Lines, by Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed - California's 112-campus community college system is making it easier for graduates to attend historically black colleges and universities across the country. The system is launching a new program that guarantees students admission to nine HBCUs if they graduate with an associate degree. The deal allows a student with 60 community college credits to enter the historically black colleges as a junior. To view our entire Transfer & Articulation section, click here. |
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The SOURCE on Community College Issues, Trends & Strategies
The Roueche Graduate Center, National American University & Lorenzo Associates, Inc.,
950-C Hopkins Road - Williamsville, New York - 14221 - (716) 688-5484
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