Education Commons^™

Preparing To Fill The Leadership Gap: The Challenges Facing Women Leaders In Mid-Level Positions At Urban Community Colleges, Kia L. Hardy, Mitchell R. Williams, Kim Bullington, Felecia Commodore

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

Community college presidents are currently retiring at rapid rates, and this turnover in leadership is expected to continue. As these important post-secondary institutions face the loss of senior-level leaders, women in mid-career positions are preparing to fill the gap in the leadership pipeline. Although previous studies have examined the leadership challenges faced by women leaders, the focus has been on presidents and vice presidents. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the leadership experiences of women in mid-level positions - specifically deans and directors - and to identify their unique employment mobility challenges.

The purpose of this …

The Structure Of Student Engagement In Community College Student Success Programs: A Quantitative Activity Systems Analysis, Deryl K. Hatch

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Community colleges increasingly implement various student success programs, including 1st-year seminars, college skills courses, learning communities, and orientation, in an effort to boost degree completion. However, it is unclear how success programs’ curricular designs may contribute to these and associated student outcomes. Such inquiry is limited, in part, by the lack of methodological frameworks for program impact heterogeneity research. This study proposes a new conceptualization of nominally different student success programs as instances of a broader activity, which also provides a way to operationalize their curricular structures in comparable ways. Second, to briefly illustrate this approach, the study leverages matched …

An Instrumental Case Study Of Administrative Smart Practices For Fully Online Programs And Degrees, Charles V. Gregory

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore administrators’ responses to significant administrative challenges of fully online programs and degrees. The case was a single public community college located in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Plains Region. In this study Bardach’s (1994) method to identify and extrapolate smart practices used to resolve administrative challenges arising from an institution’s online and distance education programming. The concept of smart practice aims to exploit or take advantage of some latent opportunity for creating value. Organizational culture was identified to be of significant influence in identifying the value the institution placed …

Student Experiences Of The Community College Developmental Writing Classroom, Janet Kirchner

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The low success rate of students in community college developmental education classes has caused not only institutions and their instructors but also those outside of the classroom to search for alternative programs and delivery methods to improve student outcomes. As college completion rates become increasingly tied to state funding, many community colleges are re-thinking their programs, considering acceleration of coursework, learning communities, and supplemental instruction as replacements for the traditional developmental sequence. While these programs have shown success in some community colleges, much of the research is quantitative in nature and based on completion rates. The purpose of this study …

Experiences Of Community College Vocational Students Who Were Required To Begin Their Studies By Taking Remedial Courses And Successfully Attained Their Associate’S Degrees: A Phenomenological Study, Amy Margaret Morrison Goings

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Great Recession and national skills gap crisis have reframed community college efforts to shift from access-based institutions to that of persistence and completion-focused colleges. Within the post-recession context, this research examines what success looks like for today’s vocational community college student, as well as the current research on the barriers to completion. This qualitative, phenomenological study will explore the experiences of community college students who are graduating with vocational degrees and how they overcame known barriers to complete their degrees. In addition to summarizing the responses to each of the sub-questions, three primary themes emerged from the research that …

Student And Faculty Perceptions Of Technology’S Usefulness In Community College General Education Courses, William L. Moseley

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Educational institutions of all levels invest large amounts of time and resources into instructional technology, with the goal of enhancing the educational effectiveness of the learning environment. The decisions made by instructors and institutions regarding the implementation of technology are guided by perceptions of usefulness held by those who are in control. The primary objective of this mixed methods study was to examine the student and faculty perceptions of technology being used in general education courses at a community college. This study builds upon and challenges the assertions of writers such as Prensky (2001a, 2001b) and Tapscott (1998) who claim …