League for Innovation in the Community College

NorQuest College’s Centres for Excellence Focus on Business and Industry

2012-02-06T04:02:32Z

Febuary 2012, Volume 7, Number 2

By Yuri Wuensch

With the Government of Alberta projecting a labour shortfall of 114,000 workers in the province over the next decade, workplace innovation and collaboration are becoming increasingly important, says NorQuest College's President and CEO.

"Alberta's employment landscape is continually changing," says Jodi L. Abbott. "Businesses must adapt to shifting labour demographics and many depend increasingly on immigration to effectively compete."

For solutions, more businesses are looking to NorQuest College. In particular, many businesses are enlisting the services of the College's Centres for Excellence.

The Centres for Excellence integrate education and practical solutions to support innovation in the workplace and in the classroom. This includes NorQuest's applied research findings that help industry and the communities the college serves to address challenges in the workplace and gaps in teaching and learning.

The Centres for Excellence in Intercultural Education (CEIE) and Print Media (CEPM) have quickly become nationally recognized resources for workplace solutions.

The CEIE conducts research and provides training and resources to help new Canadians integrate into Alberta workplaces and communities. The Centre collaborates with government, business, and industry to provide customized, innovative, and practical intercultural training grounded in evidence-based research.

All Weather Windows is one of many companies that have benefitted from intercultural training programs provided by the Centre for Excellence in Intercultural Education.

"Companies use our training for upgrading worker skills, boosting organizational effectiveness, and improving employee retention," says Todd Odgers, Principal of the Centre.

Odgers' team has delivered more than 90 training sessions to over 1,200 participants and 55 clients since 2009. The clients come from a broad range of sectors: energy, government, construction, engineering, finance and accounting, hospitality and tourism, and manufacturing.

The Centre fosters intercultural understanding through external training and coaching, language training program development at the college, and professional development and advocacy for government, business, and other stakeholder groups.

The Centre's English in the Workplace set of programs are gaining momentum with companies hiring newcomers to Canada.

Programs like Clear Speech, Conversation Management, and Business Writing help ensure new Canadian employees have the language and Canadian workplace culture tools and skills to effectively perform their duties. The Language of Leadership focuses on developing leadership capacity and laddering for new Canadian employees. The Centre also offers a variety of customized solutions to help leverage workplace diversity.

A key to the success of the Centre, says Odgers, is its team of training professionals and their emphasis on responsiveness. "We're small, mobile, and highly specialized."

This same holds true for the College's Centre for Excellence in Print Media.

The CEPM is a leader in providing continuing education and training opportunities for professionals in the print and graphic communications industry. The Centre helps print and graphic communications companies become more profitable by helping improve production standards and efficiency.

"We pride ourselves on being proactive so we can anticipate industry needs for new technologies in an increasingly global economy," says Josh Ramsbottom, Principal of the Centre. "We help them explore processes and techniques that can lead to higher levels of productivity and profitability."

One of the ways Ramsbottom's team helps companies is by performing productivity audits and hosting industry education workshops at the Centre. The Centre's commercial offset lab at NorQuest is the most advanced print training facility in Western Canada with today's leading software and equipment.

The CEPM is applying its expertise across Western Canada this spring thanks to a new agreement with the National Research Council Canada.

As part of the agreement, the Centre is hosting six one-day workshops focusing on lean manufacturing principles and their application in the print and graphic communication businesses. The Alberta workshops take place in Edmonton and Calgary in March. Ramsbottom says he expects the remaining workshops to take place in Vancouver, Regina, Winnipeg, and, potentially, the Northwest Territories. The project should conclude by June 2012.

As part of the program, the CEPM is providing three to four companies with the opportunity to participate in a focused three-day Lean Implementation Planning session. The CEPM is also preparing an industry white paper detailing the issues print and graphic communication firms in Western Canada are facing in an increasingly competitive market.

"Being able to help individual companies with their internal processes enables them to cut waste and maximize their technology investments. The research our Centre is involved in is unique to Canada," says Ramsbottom.

For more information on the Centre for Excellence in Intercultural Education, contact Todd Odgers at todd.odgers@norquest.ca or call 780-644-6757. To learn more about the Centre for Excellence in Print Media, contact Josh Ramsbottom at josh.ramsbottom@norquest.ca or call 780-644-6485.

Yuri Wuensch is Media Relations & Communications Advisor at NorQuest College in Alberta, Canada.

Opinions expressed in Innovation Showcase are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

Innovation in the Spotlight

2012-02-06T04:02:04Z

Join the League for Innovation in the Community College and partners, Teaching Colleges and Community (TCC) and Learning Times, for the second annual virtual Innovator Spotlight, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This event provides community college educators with a chance to collaborate, interact, and connect with the 2011 Innovation of the Year Award winners, and with opportunities for building and sustaining their own innovative community college programs.

U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter will make the conference keynote address in a program that includes over 35 interactive plenary sessions presented by some of the best and the brightest in community colleges.

Find out what Century College, Loraine Valley Community College, and Miami Dade College are doing to support the success of their new and at-risk students.
Discover how York Technical College is improving advising.
Learn about San Diego Community College’s minority male outreach program.
Check out a student-run, annual event at Henry Ford Community College that engages students in political and social discourse.
Uncover how Sinclair Community College is reinforcing the competencies of adjunct faculty.
Examine how developmental math coursework has been restructured at El Paso Community College.

Innovator Spotlight 2012 takes place on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. EST. Participants will also journey through a virtual expo hall to visit and explore the details of all award-winning presentations.

This full day, virtual event costs $75 for individuals, potentially making this the most cost-effective professional development experience available. Group rates and college rates are also available, and all participants will have access to session recordings for six months after the close of the online conference.

If you have any questions, please contact us at league@learningtimes.net.

Creative Commons CEO to Keynote Innovations Conference

2012-02-06T04:02:26Z

Catherine M. Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons and long-time advocate of open educational resources (OER), will provide the opening keynote address at the Innovations Conference to be held March 4-7, 2012, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cathy’s career is dedicated to openness and particularly to leveraging possibilities at the boundaries of formal and informal learning to equalize educational opportunity. A recent quote from Cathy sums up her thoughts on the importance of OER in higher education:

I think that by putting some of the spectacular professors, and putting their approaches and pedagogical instructional strategies that they use with their students in front of the world, it sets a new benchmark for all of us to learn from…. And I think that’s actually one of the incredible powers of [Creative Commons]. (qtd. in Yang, 2010)

As the Director of the OER Initiative at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, she managed investments totaling more than $100 million to harness the efficiently and effectiveness of knowledge sharing worldwide. At the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Cathy spearheaded work in the areas of transparency and technology as a Senior Partner and the Vice President of Innovation and Open Networks. With the extended Carnegie team she launched a continuous performance improvement system to create alternative mathematics pathways for community college students.

Cathy has been instrumental in supporting many young organizations and currently sits on the Startl board and the Peer-2-Peer University board. She also serves on the advisory committee for MIT OpenCourseWare and the University of the People. She earned her Ph.D. in the economics of education from Stanford University and a B.A. in mathematics from Boston College.

To learn more about the Innovations Conference and to register, visit www.league.org/i2012. To receive the special conference room rate at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, make your reservation by February 10.

Resource
Yang, J. (2010, March 30). As Colleges Make Courses Available Free Online, Others Cash In. The New York Times. Retrieved January 24, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/education/31iht-riedopen.html?pagewanted=all.

How Transdisciplinarity Will Help Workers Thrive in a Complex World

2012-02-06T04:02:17Z

By James M. Fraleigh

If anything can be said of the future, it’s that it will become exponentially more complex on all levels. On the global scale, issues such as climate change, dwindling energy supplies, and public health crises will require teamwork across disciplines to pool talent and find solutions. Even those not engaged in such high-level work will have to manage growing amounts of seemingly unrelated information, as 21st-century jobs cease to be single-function tasks and require workers to integrate and interpret data from outside their immediate experience.

The ability to understand and integrate concepts across multiple disciplines has been called transdisciplinarity. As a product of our data-driven computational world and the need for workers to anticipate multiple careers over longer lives, it’s one of 10 key workforce proficiencies described in Future Work Skills 2020, a report by the Institute for the Future for Apollo Research Institute: http://apolloresearchinstitute.com/node/52.

Transdisciplinary thinking has the potential to foster innovative solutions that go beyond simple problem solving. When experts from two or more fields join forces to brainstorm a challenging problem, the results can be unexpected, and even beautiful. For instance, to solve an engineering problem in a new building, an architect might consult a biologist to understand how bone structures support an animal’s weight or guide a bird’s flight, then collaborate with a materials engineer to craft a striking, but safe, infrastructure. Transdisciplinary teams will use theoretical thinking and disparate skill sets to make the mental leaps that take ideas from sketches to marketplace.

Individual workers will also need to become conversant in disciplines that lie outside their degree program or work experience as they plan for a long, multi-employer career. They will become “T-shaped workers”: people who possess deep knowledge in one field, but are also familiar with a broad, lateral sweep of other disciplines that complement their primary proficiency. If you hum a few bars of one of those disciplines, a T-shaped worker’s curiosity and knack for cultivating multiple talents will help him or her finish the tune.

Higher education institutions, long oriented toward preparing students for careers via a single-major paradigm, are slowly beginning to provide transdisciplinary programs. Intercollegiate partnerships and interdepartmental programs in which instructors from multiple fields share experience and solutions over a single course of study are appearing in response to the need for well-rounded workers.

Equally important to transdisciplinary development is the habit of lifelong learning. People are remaining productive over longer life spans, and careers will lengthen to match. Open-minded, curious workers who absorb and meld experiences from multiple careers will find themselves better able to handle the cognitive demands of future jobs and will have less trouble finding new employment as transdisciplinary competency becomes a highly sought-after trait.

Learn more at www.apolloresearchinstitute.com.

James M. Fraleigh writes on a wide range of topics for Apollo Research Institute.

Innovative Educators Announces February Webinars

2012-02-06T04:02:57Z

Innovative Educators offers webinars on a wide array of topics. Plan now to participate in the February webinars!
February 2012
February 8
Moving A Classroom-Based Course To Online Or Hybrid


February 9
Developing An Effective Peer Mentoring Program Supporting First-Generation College Students


February 10
Identifying And Managing Asperger's In The Classroom


February 14
Universal Design Within Student Affairs: Proactive Design For Inclusion And Engagement


February 15
The Top Ten Most Successful Recruitment Strategies


February 15
Reflective Judgment: Teaching Students To Think Critically In A Time Of Information Overload


February 16
Online Student Retention: Assessing Why Students Stay And Why They Leave

February 22
How To Design Effective Multiple Choice Tests That Assess Student Learning


February 23 Flexible Date Webinar
Managing Disruptive Classroom Behavior


February 23 Flexible Date Webinar
Understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: How To Improve The Academic Success Of Student Veterans On Your Campus


February 28 Flexible Date Webinar
Exceptional Front-Line Customer Service In Higher Ed


February 28
Virtual Mentors: An Innovative Approach To Increasing Online Student Success & Retention

MiCTA Seeks Input in Development of E-911 RFP

2012-02-06T04:02:38Z

MiCTA is developing an E-911 RFP on behalf of its members. The RFP seeks vendors to enter into a MiCTA Master Service Agreement to sell Enhanced 911 telephony equipment and solutions to MiCTA members at significant discounts. The need for enhanced 911 solutions has come to the forefront, especially for organizations that operate multiline telephone systems or have a large number of buildings in a campus environment. If you would like to participate in the development or evaluation of this RFP, please contact Tim von Hoff at micta@mictatech.org.

Georgian College Leads the Way in Health-Care Education With Sadlon Centre for Health and Wellness

2012-02-06T04:02:35Z

The Sadlon Centre for Health and Wellness at the Georgian College Barrie Campus is thriving. Now that the doors have opened to students and the public, state-of-the-art laboratories, study areas, and community health clinics are buzzing with activity as Georgian helps prepare Simcoe County’s future health-care providers.

The largest expansion in Georgian history, the Sadlon Centre for Health and Wellness spans 172,000 square feet and houses all Health and Wellness programs at the Barrie Campus, along with six community health clinics: Oral Health, Massage Therapy, Georgian College Optical, and in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Georgian Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic. Two additional clinics will open in January, the Spa and Esthetics Clinic and the Harmonize for Speech, Hearing, and Language Clinic.

Students are gaining hands-on experience in the community health clinics, getting them a step ahead as they prepare to start their careers in health care.

Third-year Massage Therapy student Joline McAneney knows what a positive impact her time in the new Massage Therapy Clinic will have on her future career.

“The hands-on experience that I get in the clinic is absolutely key for my career,” says McAneney. “It’s amazing to be able to apply the skills we learn in class to a real clinical scenario.”

McAneney dreams of working in a health-care facility and eventually owning her own massage business.

“I already have up to five appointments per week with clients, which is great,” adds McAneney.

In addition to providing hands-on clinical experience for students, Georgian is blazing a new trail by partnering with the Barrie Family Health Team and introducing electronic medical records software training into the curriculum. Students will become accustomed to using a program called Accuro® through Optimed Software Corporation. It will be taught in the classroom and used in the community health clinics. This program is already being used by many health-care institutions in the Simcoe County region, so students in programs such as Massage Therapy, Dental Hygiene and Office Administration–Medical will already be well versed in the program before entering the health-care workforce.

“Georgian College is the first college in Ontario to partner with a nurse practitioner-led clinic and the Barrie Community Family Health Team, which represents many family health teams,” says Cassandra Thompson, Dean, School of Health and Wellness. “This is truly an interprofessional initiative, which really supports the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s vision to bring together different health-care providers to coordinate the highest possible quality of care for patients in our communities.”

Many community members in the Barrie area and beyond are already benefiting from the care provided by students and health-care professionals in the community health clinics. Kerry Pinkerton has been a client of the Oral Health Clinic, originally located at the Orillia Campus, for more than a year.

“I like coming to the Oral Health Clinic for my dental care,” says Pinkerton. “It’s a bright, comfortable atmosphere and the students are great. I know they need the experience, so I’m happy to help provide them with that.”

It’s also very affordable for those who may not have access to health benefits.

“I don’t know where I would receive my dental care if not for the Oral Health Clinic at Georgian,” says Pinkerton. “It’s a great price for the services I receive.”

The centre’s $62.5-million price tag was funded by federal and provincial contributions from the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, as well as municipal, corporate, and individual donors to the college’s Power of Education campaign. The new building will eventually enable enrollment in Health and Wellness programs to double, allowing 3,000 students to be accepted into these programs.

Two of Georgian’s newest programs in the School of Health and Wellness are Esthetician and Pharmacy Technician. An additional program being introduced for fall 2012 is Occupational Therapy Assistant/Physiotherapy Assistant. These new programs join existing programs such as Opticianry, Paramedic, Personal Support Worker, Practical Nursing, and many others.

For more information about the Sadlon Centre for Health and Wellness, community health clinics, or Health and Wellness programs at Georgian College, please visit choosegeorgian.ca/healthandwellness.

Toward Understanding the Underrepresentation of African-American Faculty in Community Colleges

2012-02-06T04:02:23Z

February 2012, Volume 25, Number 2

by Tara Carter

Community colleges enroll a significant number of African-American students, but the majority of these students do not have an opportunity to learn from African-American professors—a group that is underrepresented in community colleges. To better understand this underrepresentation, I interviewed African-American community college faculty members using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the conceptual framework. CRT is used by legal and educational scholars intent on “organizing, activism, and service who look to challenge social inequality” because it present[s] the untold stories of prejudice and how privilege has affected people of color (Yosso, Parker, Solorzano, & Lynn, 2004).

As a tool to fight for social justice, CRT challenges scholars to “ask not only about whom is the research but also for whom is the research, with the focus on identifying who is capable to act and demonstrate agency” (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 267). As a conceptual framework, CRT accepts that race does matter and is appropriate when looking at the issues of privilege and institutional racism in higher education. I aligned my findings with emergent themes in the literature and used the themes to construct the narratives that emerged from 60-to-90-minute interviews with 12 African-American community college faculty members.

Summary of Findings

Three themes that emerged from the study are (1) marginalization; (2) the definition of “minority”; and (3) institutional and attitudinal barriers. Although the themes overlap, each is distinctive.

Marginalization. Ten of the 12 African-American community college professors interviewed for this study revealed that they feel marginalized on their campuses, with 11 of the participants reporting that they have very little interaction with colleagues outside of routine conversations about textbooks, course objectives, and other teacher-related issues. One participant shared, “My primary day with colleagues involved meetings to discuss student issues and stuff like that.” Another stated, “With faculty, what I’ve learned is that there is just a way that you keep it surface because if you talk really about anything authentic, it creates a level of, uh, animosity that I’ve never experienced before.”

Defining “Minority.” There is also a belief among interview participants, also reflected in the literature, that African Americans have lost ground in the struggle for inclusion because the term “minority” has grown to encompass too many non-white groups. One participant reflected on his beliefs about important considerations in defining what it means to diversify faculty:

I’m talking about one of those third-generation ex-slaves, third-generation welfare kids who made it against all odds, against the low funding in the schools, against the gang violence. He survived and didn’t get killed, you know he made it enough, that far, to go to Chicago State because that was the only school he could really go to and get away with it, and he pulled it off.

Institutional and Attitudinal Barriers. All interview participants agreed that institutional and attitudinal barriers contribute to their underrepresentation. One professor shared that she felt intimidated during the interview and was grateful she could rely on previous interview experiences that helped her perform at an acceptable level. Two participants reported that their mentors were not helpful in any significant way throughout their tenure at the college. As one explained, “I was assigned a mentor during the new faculty seminar and she, I think, did the best she could but it wasn’t a system that was organized enough for her to be effectively mentoring me.”

Findings from this project affirm reports in the literature regarding institutional and attitudinal barriers for African-American faculty, and include:

Institutional racism comes in the form of a lack of sincerity by college administrators toward diversity issues.
A “chilly” (Turner, Meyers, and Creswell, 1999) institutional climate can be damaging to the efforts to increase minority faculty presence on campuses, especially when systems are not in place to deal effectively with majority faculty who consciously or subconsciously create a hostile work environment for minority professors.
The search process is flawed, with literature indicating that faculty search committee members should be trained in cultural sensitivity as a way for them to identify and understand the roles of cultural and racial identity, and to assist them in handling personal biases and prejudice.

Advice From Interview Participants

The interview participants offered a number of suggestions for community colleges working to eliminate institutional and attitudinal barriers that inhibit recruitment and retention of African-American faculty.

Develop a clearer definition of “minority” when defining diversity, so that it can be operationalized. Explicitly state this definition before college leaders implement strategies designed to increase the numbers of minority faculty.
Perfect the faculty mentoring program (provide training), which includes helping the African-American faculty member transition to both the on-campus and off-campus communities.
Increase starting salaries and offer other types of financial incentives to attract and retain African-American instructors. Allocate funds to create and implement diversity initiatives. Failure to do so leads to questions about your commitment to increasing faculty diversity on your campus.
Establish a link between the mission statement of the school and faculty, staff, and administrative evaluations to help ensure that everyone is abiding by the college’s diversity statement.
Change or adopt recruitment practices. Send college representatives to conferences that draw significant minority participants as a way of establishing a positive identity in the minds of potential faculty candidates. The more positive a potential applicant’s contact with an institution is, the more likely the college will be able to recruit, hire, and retain African-American faculty.
Create a campus culture that embraces people so that African-American professors, once on campus, are inclined to stay.

The 12 African-American faculty members’ commitment to teaching far outweighs the attitudinal and structural barriers they face in the workplace. However, it should be noted, as Stanley, Porter, Simpson, and Ouellett (2003) pointed out, “It is unproductive…to generalize these findings across all institutions—or even across all African-American faculty” (p. 174). Increasing the representation of African Americans as professors in American community colleges signals a positive, more inclusive shift in the current professorial culture. Implementing strategies that will increase the representation of African-American faculty will be a positive step toward correcting the “systematic discrimination and deprivation” (Allen, Epps, Guillory, Suh, & Bonous-Hammarth, 2000, p. 126) experienced by minority faculty in higher education, a step that can only strengthen the quality of the American educational system.

References

Allen, W.R., Epps, E.G., Guillory, E.A., Suh, S.A., & Bonous-Hammarth, M. (2000). The black academic: Faculty status among African Americans in U.S. higher education. The Journal of Negro Education, 69 (1/2), 112-127.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2000). Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 257-277).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Stanley, C. A., Porter, M.E., Simpson, N.J., & Ouellett, M.L. (2003). A case study of the teaching experiences of African American faculty at two predominately White research universities. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 14(1), 151-178.

Turner, C.S.V., Myers, S. L. & Creswell, J. W. (1999). Exploring underrepresentation: The case of faculty of color in the Midwest. Journal of Higher Education, 70(1), 27(3).

Yosso, T.J., Parker, L., Solórzano, D.G., & Lynn, M. (2004). From Jim Crow to affirmative action and back again: A critical race discussion of racialized rationales and access to higher education. Review of Research in Education, 28, 1-25.

Tara Carter is Dean of Arts, Communications, and Social Sciences at Kishwaukee College in Illinois. This article is derived from findings of her doctoral dissertation study; for more information about the study, please contact the author.

Opinions expressed in Leadership Abstracts are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

Addressing Adjunct Faculty Needs at Anne Arundel Community College

2012-02-06T03:02:13Z

February 2012, Volume 15, Number 2

By LaTanya K. Eggleston, A. Lawrie Gardner, Lisa M. Starkey, and Trish Casey-Whiteman

Through Anne Arundel Community College’s (AACC) shared governance of faculty and administrative and professional staff, a faculty group supported by the manager of Institutional Professional Development comprises the Part-Time Faculty Affairs Committee (PTFA) . This committee monitors factors impacting the welfare of our adjunct faculty. With its membership of both full-time and adjunct faculty, it also gives our adjunct colleagues a voice.

Annual committee goals are centered on the “one college” concept that promotes inclusion of all faculty classifications: full-time tenured, term, and adjunct faculty. The committee’s specific goals include enhancing communication between the college and adjunct faculty, providing professional development opportunities for adjunct faculty, and recognizing professional service of adjunct faculty. From 2009 through spring 2011, the main thrust of the committee’s actions was to develop and administer a survey to all adjunct faculty members to gain feedback related to their satisfaction levels.

The idea of the AACC Part-Time/Adjunct Faculty Survey grew out of the committee’s vision to develop a document that would provide college leadership with feedback from adjunct faculty to determine the current adjunct climate. This, in turn, would allow the college to develop a baseline from which to evaluate and change, if necessary, operations relating to adjunct faculty. In addition, survey results would be used to develop action items related to the broad goals of the PTFA.

The purpose of the survey was to collect data to help leadership and the PTFA make improvements to support the three goals. The committee also sought to optimize adjunct faculty response to the survey. The committee and the administration wanted results of the survey to be presented in a format useful for future decision-making.

Cross Collaboration

The entire survey process, from development through final results analysis, was performed in a collaborative manner. The development of the survey involved members of the PTFA; the Council of Instructional Deans (COID); the Vice President for Learning; the Office of Planning, Research, and Institutional Assessment (PRIA); and the Institutional Professional Development Office. COID and the Vice President for Learning endorsed the survey project and provided an approval mechanism for the final survey. The PTFA collaborated with full-time and adjunct faculty members to develop questions and a survey format. PRIA was instrumental in finalizing the actual online survey administration by initially piloting the survey to various PTFA members and then administering the final survey to all adjunct faculty members.

Survey Findings

All adjunct faculty members working at AACC in the spring 2011 term, approximately 1,100, were asked to participate in the AACC Part Time/Adjunct Faculty Survey. The data collection period was 10 weeks and the survey response rate 51 percent. Highlights of the survey are outlined below.

In general

Fifty-six percent of respondents taught credit courses in the last two years; 28 percent taught non-credit courses (continuing education and contract training); and 13 percent percent taught both.
Factors motivating respondents to continue teaching at AACC included personal fulfillment (87 percent), enjoyment of teaching (89 percent), and enthusiasm for teaching the subject matter (46 percent).
Respondents rated their satisfaction with all aspects of their job and teaching at AACC as indicated in the chart below. Significantly, 90 percent of respondents selected “very satisfied” or “satisfied.”

In the area of communication

Sixty-eight percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that AACC effectively communicates major collegewide initiatives to adjunct faculty.
Seventy-one percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that they can find information quickly using college resources.

In the areas of professional development and recognition

Over half of respondents indicate that current professional development opportunities are sufficient for their learning needs.
Sixty-eight percent agree or strongly agree that they feel recognized and appreciated within their department.
Thirty-two percent of respondents would value recognition for their length of service at AACC; 42 percent were neutral on this issue; 26 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Responses to Open-ended Questions

The survey included two prompts with open-ended responses, one focused on improving teaching and learning, and the other focused on benefits and working conditions. The first of these items asked respondents to “provide any additional comments that you wish to contribute to our efforts to improve teaching and learning and the adjunct faculty experience at AACC.” Of 71 responses to this question, over 40 percent communicated complete satisfaction with the teaching and learning experience at AACC. About 14 percent articulated a desire to participate more with college and department committees, to be more involved with department planning, and to have more information about departmental issues. Since this survey, one department has moved forward with developing a mentorship program to enhance inclusion of both full-time and part-time colleagues.

The second item asked, “What (if any) additional benefits or enhancements to working conditions would make teaching at AACC more attractive and rewarding to you?” Not surprisingly, the major area of interest for benefits or enhancements was compensation. Of the 243 responses to this question, 32 responses specifically addressed improvements in salary and offered ways to increase salary based on such factors as time in service, length of contracts, and educational background. Twenty-seven responses included a request for medical benefits, particularly related to health care, dental care, and prescription drugs. Six respondents included requests for a retirement plan or opportunity, and 16 responses related to reimbursement for various professional development and continuing education opportunities. Interestingly, 12 respondents suggested that compensation should also cover costs for preparation time, late-canceled classes to recover preparation time, and similar issues. Tuition waivers for dependents (n=9) and for other state schools (n=5) were mentioned as possible enhancements.

Adjunct faculty also mentioned specific services that are important to them, including greater access to adjunct faculty offices for the use of storage and computers (n=15) and deficits in the classroom, such as poor lighting, too much noise, and insufficient white board space (n=13). Fourteen respondents requested an increased class load, and six mentioned possible access to full-time opportunities. Responses also include a range of requests for support services, such as staff help, full-time faculty members’ assistance, ANGEL/Blackboard training, and special project opportunities.

Although the survey generated more than 250 comments, including some with multiple elements, the responses fall into typical categories. The comments are thoughtful, reasonable, and continue to demonstrate the adjunct faculty commitment to student success.

Moving Forward

The Part Time/Adjunct Faculty Survey was the first step in improving communications, a PTFA priority goal, between the college and our adjunct faculty who teach almost 50 percent of the credit classes and all of the continuing education courses offered at AACC. In addition, the administration, with the help of the PTFA, has devised a plan of service recognition for adjunct faculty, another PTFA goal. The first recognition ceremony was held at the spring 2011 Academic Forum of all full time faculty, administrators, and instructional staff, an event which was well received. After the award ceremony, the vice presidents hosted a reception to further recognize the work of the adjunct faculty. Finally, survey outcomes have informed the administration of professional development opportunities requested by adjunct faculty. This allows for budget planning in the office of the Vice President for Learning. As a result, adjunct faculty members have opportunities to participate in various professional development activities, thus meeting the third PTFA goal. These opportunities include:

Workshops offered through the college’s Institutional Professional Development and Adjunct Faculty Development office;
Collegewide convocations, conferences, and summer institutes;
Departmental orientations for new adjunct faculty;
Tuition waiver for AACC courses; and
Sponsorship for attendance at the Maryland Consortium for Adjunct Faculty Professional Development (MCAPD) conference.

As a result of PTFA efforts and survey responses, the committee can now focus on targeted areas of improvement for the adjunct faculty in our college community. The committee has been assured that the college administration plans to use this information as a point of departure to further develop opportunities for our adjunct colleagues. These gains have strengthened the college; we have learned that our institutional strength depends upon the strength of all its valuable contributors, especially that of our adjunct faculty.

For additional information, please contact Lisa Starkey at lmstarkey@aacc.edu.

LaTanya K. Eggleston is a member of the Communications Faculty; A. Lawrie Gardner is a member of the Business and Public Administration Faculty and serves as department chair; Lisa M. Starkey is a member of the Computer Technology Adjunct Faculty and manager of the Office of Institutional Professional Development; and Trish Casey-Whiteman is Associate Vice President for Learning at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.

Opinions express in Learning Abstracts are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

iStream Sneak Peek - February 2012

2012-02-03T02:02:49Z

Conference Presentations all in one place!
With iStream’s Conference Presentations, you now have immediate access to keynote and special session video’s and PowerPoint presentations from the League’s international conferences—all in one place. View and share ground-breaking ideas presented by community college and higher ed experts. In addition, the Thoughtful Topics area includes archived video’s with learning guides to support cross-discipline and departmental discussions, and presentations.

From Innovations 2011
Global Skills for College Completion: An Update From the Road (link here: http://www.scctv.net/league-dl/ppt/INV2011/S397.pptx)

Find out here how you and your entire institution can have 24/7 access to this and over 200,000 additional community college focused resources and tools found in iStream.

Making Connections

2012-01-26T01:01:34Z

January 2012

In 1988, Terry O’Banion, then president of the League for Innovation, launched Leadership Abstracts as a “forum for the exchange of ideas and practical advice and for the discussion of issues of concern to the leadership of community colleges.” Since then, the League’s flagship monthly publication has been joined by Learning Abstracts, with its focus on learning as a whole-college endeavor; Innovation Showcase, which features innovation and community connections; and League Connections, our monthly newsletter. This month, we're revamping the presentation of these four publications, combining their distribution into the single League Connections and using them to strengthen connections with and among our members, partners, and colleagues around the world.

Throughout its history, the League for Innovation has used its publications to connect community college educators and administrators with effective and promising innovations. For many readers, however, it has been a one-way conversation. We’re changing that, and we invite you to join the conversation not only by submitting articles about innovative practices and programs at your college, but also by commenting on articles written by others—perhaps asking questions or sharing your experience with a similar effort, issue, or challenge—and expanding the conversation through social media and the League’s presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Each month, League Connections will continue to connect you with successful community college programs and practices through features in Member Spotlight, Leadership Abstracts, Learning Abstracts, and Innovation Showcase. This month, we invited Terry O’Banion to launch the 25th year of Leadership Abstracts by addressing a major issue in community colleges today, and he responded with a thoughtful look at “Change and the Completion Agenda.” Issues related to student success and completion are at the forefront of other features this month, with articles about successful programs supporting minority males at Community College of Philadelphia (Innovation Showcase), workforce development partnerships at J. F. Drake State Technical College (Member Spotlight), and campus civility at St. Louis Community College (Learning Abstracts).

Our redesigned newsletter will continue to bring you the latest information about League projects, conferences, activities, and other opportunities, but we’ve added a few new elements as well. One feature, the Quick Poll, will ask for your opinions or experiences around a specific topic and, we hope, spark conversations at your institution. In this month’s poll, we ask about your college’s programs in Public Health Education. To learn more about a new task force engaged in the important work of examining all areas of education in public health, be sure to attend the Innovations Conference forum, Framing the Future: Redefining Education for Public Health, led by task-force chair Donna J. Petersen, Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida. You can find out more about this and many other professional development offerings at the Innovations Conference (March 4-7, 2012, in Philadelphia) by visiting www.league.org/i2012.

We’ve also added a video clip from our rich collection of conference presentations and interviews with community college professionals. This month’s clip features David Thornburg’s telling observations on classroom design and its impact on learning. For more on this topic, see Michael Schoop’s, From Classrooms to Learning Spaces: Teaching by Design (The Cross Papers, Number 10).

Other features include a member benefit, this month reminding League Alliance Member institutions to submit nominees for the Terry O’Banion Student Technology Awards; a Sneak Peek at online resources available through the League's iStream; Resources from the Field, linking to reports and other resources you may have missed seeing elsewhere; and an array of special offerings and opportunities provided by the League’s Corporate Partners, including MiCTA, our generous sponsor.

Again, we invite you to connect with authors, partners, and colleagues around the world through the comments feature at the end of each article and through our social media options, and to share your college’s effective or promising innovations by submitting articles to Leadership Abstracts, Learning Abstracts, Innovation Showcase, and Member Spotlight (click on each title for submission guidelines).

Finally, the League's publications team would like to know what you think about the new League Connections design. Just use the comments feature below or send an email to me at wilson@league.org.

All the best,

Cynthia

Cynthia Wilson, Editor

Vice President, Learning and Research

League for Innovation in the Community College

Keeping Young Black Males on the Degree Track

2012-01-20T12:01:17Z

January 2012, Volume 7, Number 1

by Earni Young

Early in 2010, the College Board issued a report warning that nearly two-thirds of young black male college students fail to successfully traverse the educational pipeline. The report, titled The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color, was a call to action for colleges and universities to close the achievement gap for black males.

Community College of Philadelphia already had a potential solution in the works with its Center for Male Engagement (CME), a federally funded program focused on black male students entering their freshman year. CME opened in September 2009 with a target group of 144 black male students from 17 to 19 years old. The students were given access to support coaches, tutoring, life-skills workshops, cultural enrichment activities, and financial assistance as needed.

The strategy showed remarkable success in its first year. Of the 144 students in that 2009 cohort, 90 percent were still attending classes in 2010, more than double the normal 41 percent fall-to-fall semester rate for new black male students at the college. Black males comprised 13.7 percent of the roughly 36,000 students enrolled in 2009-2010.

The college recently received $2.9 million in federal and private grants to continue the work it started in 2009. The U.S. Department of Education's Predominantly Black Institutions program renewed its initial funding for CME with a grant of $600,000 for each of the next four years. A separate $500,000 private grant from the Open Society Foundation was used to launch Project Achieve, a program that expands CME's strategies to a target population of older, nontraditional black male students such as military veterans. "Think of Project Achieve as a subset of the Center for Male Engagement," Hirsch said. "It is building our capacity to serve more students with an organized and focused strategy."

CME and Project Achieve address a troubling issue for many black males who see asking strangers for help as a sign of weakness. "We first have to build that relationship and establish a level of trust before we can open up to talk," said support coach Kevin Covington.

The relationship building begins with Summer Enrichment Programs for black male students who have been identified as eligible candidates under the grant guidelines. These students are then tracked until they leave the college.

The Center's office is a popular haven for students like Aaron Johnson, a second-year Culinary Arts major, who stops by at least twice a day to use the computers, study, or chat with the staff. "The support coaches are like father figures," said Johnson. "You can go in there and talk to them about anything at any time."

Dean of Student Affairs Ronald Jackson said the five full-time support coaches do more than just listen. "They can be very intrusive. If they see students walking down the street and know they should be in class, they are going to call them out. There is no running from the support," Jackson said.

Jackson hopes the Center's work will lay the foundation for a national model that will help more black males succeed in college.

Although the program is designed to support black males, the Center is open to all students who need assistance, regardless of race or age.

For more information, contact Earni Young, eyoung@ccp.edu.

Opinions expressed in Innovation Showcase are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

Get a Sneak Peek at iStream’s Resources

2012-01-19T01:01:53Z

Explore what League Corporate Partner, Innovative Educators, has to offer with its wide range of webinar topics, and take a sneak peek at the Innovative Educators webinar,Identifying and Reaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Creating Success in the College Classroom.

iStream subscribers have free, limited-seating access to the entire collection of iStream resources. Subscribe to iStream today! Now offering subscriptions for individuals, community college leadership program, and university groups!

For subscription and pricing information, or to receive a complimentary trial preview of iStream, contact Cheri Jessup at jessup@league.org or 480-705-8200 x228, or visit http://www.league.org/istreamsite/info_form.cfm.

Innovator Spotlight Features a Wide Range of Sessions

2012-01-19T09:01:02Z

Innovator Spotlight 2012 provides community college professionals a chance to collaborate, interact, and connect with recent winners of the League’s Innovation of the Year Award, and offers ideas for building and sustaining their own innovative community college programs.

Each year the League honors outstanding innovations through the presentation of the Innovation of the Year Award. These innovations represent significant achievements at member colleges and the continuing renewal of the spirit of innovation and experimentation upon which the League was founded. Innovator Spotlight features these innovators and their award-winning innovations.

The second annual, one-day virtual Innovator Spotlight takes place on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. EST. In addition to sessions by Innovation of the Year award winners, Innovator Spotlight 2012 features a plenary session with a keynote by U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter; virtual roundtable sessions; multimedia poster sessions; a virtual League Corporate Partner Exhibit Hall; opportunities to network with colleagues from around the world; and participant access to taped sessions for six months.

Sessions feature presentations from award winners a wide variety of topics. For example, Innovator Spotlight registrants can find out what Century College, Loraine Valley Community College, and Miami Dade College are doing to support the success of their new and at-risk students; check out a student-run, annual event at Henry Ford Community College that engages students in political and social discourse; discover how York Technical College is improving advising; learn about San Diego Community College’s minority male outreach program; uncover how Sinclair Community College is reinforcing the competencies of adjunct faculty; and examine how developmental math coursework has been restructured at El Paso Community College. These are just a few examples of the many learning and sharing opportunities available at Innovator Spotlight.

Innovator Spotlight 2012 registration is $75 for individuals, potentially making this the most cost-effective professional development experience available. Group rates and college rates are also available for one registration fee. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.league.org/innovatorspotlight/

This unique virtual event is produced by the League for Innovation in the Community College, Teaching Colleges and Community, and Learning Times, with sponsorship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

If you have any questions, please contact us at league@learningtimes.net.

Congratulations, ELI Graduates!

2012-01-19T09:01:10Z

Congratulations to the graduates of the League for Innovation’s Executive Leadership Institute, held last month at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.

The Executive Leadership Institute (ELI) provides the opportunity for potential community college presidents, or those in transition, to analyze their abilities, reflect on their interests, refine their skills, and engage in leadership discussions with an unparalleled faculty of community college leaders. In this longstanding leadership program, aspiring community college presidents spend an intense week engaged in discussions with distinguished community college leaders who explore a wide range of topics designed to provide a solid foundation for addressing issues that challenge presidential success, and who also present personal perspectives on the rewards and costs of being a community college president.

Participants also enhance their interview skills through presidential interview simulations under the guidance of national presidential search consultants, who critique their professional résumés and applications. The recent graduating class joins a network of almost 700 ELI graduates who share resources and insights and support each others' ongoing career development.

Cathy Kemper, Vice President of Learning at Lee College in Texas, chose ELI, “because of its long-standing reputation among community college leaders as a quality experience.” She explained that she “spoke with sitting presidents who had attended ELI as well as other leaders in community college research and practice, and the recommendations for ELI were overwhelmingly positive.”

Kenneth Ray, Vice President of Student Services & Enrollment Management at Florida’s Hillsborough Community College, attended ELI on the recommendation of his college president, who is an ELI alumnus. As Ray explained, his president thought ELI “would be a great learning experience for me as I consider moving in to a college presidency someday…. He is an ELI graduate and understands how ELI would benefit and assist me with moving forward.”

The League’s Executive Leadership Institute is the first and most successful leadership education program of its kind. Forty-three percent of ELI graduates and as many as 70 percent of some graduating classes have accepted presidential appointments.

Ray noted that, “Although the entire experience was valuable, what impressed me the most was the sense of camaraderie shared by the faculty and the participants involved during the week. The faculty were ELI graduates and understood the concerns of the participants. The faculty spoke to those concerns and gave cogent advice about pursuing a presidency as well as beginning and sustaining the position. This was a tremendously worthwhile and great experience.”

Kemper described two aspects of ELI she found “particularly valuable”: “First, the reflective activities were extremely helpful in assessing my readiness and leadership style. These allowed me to see myself from the perspective of a board of trustees. Second, the mock presidential interview gave me invaluable experience. I treasure the support and encouragement from ELI faculty and fellow participants and know that it continues to be available.”

ELI is sponsored by the League for Innovation in the Community College in cooperation with The University of Texas at Austin and the American Association of Community Colleges. For more information, visit http://www.league.org/eli/index.cfm.

Members of the graduating class include:

Sherry R. Allison, President, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, New Mexico

Shirley A. Armstrong, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Albany Technical College, Georgia

Juan Avalos, Vice President for Student Services, Saddleback College, California

Jack N. Bagwell, Associate Vice President/Interim Vice President of Development, York Technical College, South Carolina

Rodney A. Barker, Dean of Business and Information Systems, Mt. Hood Community College, Oregon

Chad M. Brown, Vice President for Academic Services and Workforce Development, Zane State College, Ohio

Elmer A. Bugg, Dean, Workforce Development and Corporate Relations, Los Angeles Southwest College, California

Melissa D. Denardo, Vice President of Learning and Student Success/Provost, Community College of Beaver County, Pennsylvania

Sandra A. Fowler-Hill, Vice President of Instruction and Student Services, Everett Community College, Washington

Michael D. Hay, President–Interim, Mt. Hood Community College, Oregon

Jessica H. Howard, Vice President of Academic Affairs, San Antonio College, Texas

Cathy S. Kemper, Vice President of Learning, Lee College, Texas

Kimberly W. Krull, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Cloud County Community College, Kansas

Trevor A. Kubatzke, Vice President of Student and Educational Services, Delta College, Michigan

Angela Latham, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Triton College, Illinois

Suzanne L. Miles, Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor for the College and President of the Downtown Campus, Pima Community College, Arizona

Deborah L. Norris, Vice President, Workforce Development & Corporate Services, Sinclair Community College, Ohio

Kenneth Ray, Vice President of Student Services & Enrollment Management. Hillsborough Community College, Florida

Christina Royal, Associate Vice President, eLearning & Innovation, Cuyahoga Community College, Ohio

Birgitte Ryslinge, Dean of Instruction, Portland Community College, Oregon

Craig R. Smith, Vice President of Institutional Development & Research, Fort Peck Community College, Montana

Joianne L. Smith, Vice President for Student Affairs, Oakton Community College, Illinois

Vernon C. Smith, Vice President, Academic Affairs, Rio Salado College, Arizona

Robert Spohr, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Montcalm Community College, Michigan

Denise Swett, Acting Vice President, Student Development & Instruction and Associate Vice President, Middlefield & Community Programs, Foothill College, California

Matthew D. Thompson, Executive Dean of Student Services & Executive Director of Institutional Advancement, Southwestern Community College, Iowa