"The Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program today announced the 2019-2020 class of the Aspen Presidential Fellowship for Community College Excellence, a leadership program aimed at preparing the next generation of community college presidents to transform institutions to achieve higher and more equitable levels of student success, both in college and in the labor market.
The select group of 40 Aspen Presidential Fellows will embark on a 10-month fellowship beginning in July 2019. Delivered in collaboration with the Stanford Educational Leadership Initiative, the fellows will work with mentors – current and former community college presidents – who have achieved exceptional outcomes for students throughout their careers. Fellows will also learn from national experts about ways to harness data to assess student success outcomes, strategies for internal change leadership, and how to
"Lee College in Huntsville, Texas, has been involved with correctional education for more than half a century. Paul Allen, a business management professor at the college, has been part of that effort for 36 years.
And he still brings passion to his work, which he said is a “calling.” He then noted that in the U.S. there are more men of color who are incarcerated than in college.
“I find that unacceptable,” said Allen, who was briefly overcome with emotion as he accepted the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Award of Excellence in the Faculty Innovation category.
Lee College was among five community colleges honored Monday evening during the Awards of Excellence Gala at the AACC annual convention for their work in advancing access and success for students."
The role of state policy in removing barriers for underserved students to access dual enrollment opportunities
"With the heightened need to create a more educated workforce, states are using various approaches to improve postsecondary attainment rates, including policies that foster students’ transition from high school to college. Dual enrollment is perhaps the most common or well known of these transition focused policies. Dual enrollment and/or concurrent enrollment programs afford high school students the opportunity to take college-level courses and earn college and high school credit simultaneously. Such programs expose students to the academic rigor of postsecondary education and, when classes are held on a college campus, to its social demands. Credits earned are then transferable to higher education institutions and apply toward the completion of a degree and/or attainment of
"Since their inception in 1901, public two-year colleges have embraced a resolve to provide access to higher education for college-bound students, and to those who otherwise would have been denied the opportunity. In Texas, we continue to fulfill this historic mission through open admissions and affordable access to general education and workforce programs. Community colleges enroll 736,000 students in service areas spanning 249 of the state’s 254 counties.
Policymakers exploring performance-based funding could learn from the recent experiences of Texas community colleges. Student Success Points was established in 2013 as the performance-based funding system for the state’s 50 public community colleges. This contemporary funding structure is based on the premise that community colleges can simultaneously meet their historic mission to broaden access and realize measurable student
Amarillo College’s No Excuses Poverty Initiative has attracted national attention for the breadth of support it offers students.
"At Amarillo College, 55 percent of students are food-insecure, meaning they’re hungry, or at risk of hunger, compared with 43 percent of community-college students nationally, according to two studies released last year, including a detailed case study of Amarillo's No Excuses program. Both were led by Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher-education policy and sociology at Temple University and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice.
Meanwhile, 59 percent of Amarillo College’s students were housing-insecure, meaning that they’re in danger of not being able to pay their rent, mortgage, or utilities, or have to move frequently, often into crowded living quarters, to make ends meet. That’s considerably higher than the 46-percent
