MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

August 2020
Posted by Stephanie Morris
Somewhere in the United States today, six-year-old Shelby musters enough courage to report physical abuse to a school counselor. The counselor, who has good intentions but is not well trained in best practices for responding to child maltreatment, calls Shelby’s parents to talk about the allegations. The parents promptly deny the child’s assertions and explain away Shelby’s bruises as a fall down the stairs. No investigation is initiated and Shelby, disheartened after working up the nerve to ask for help, will never tell anyone else about this incident or those still to come. If an investigati...
July 2020
Posted by Marjorie Rawhouser and Pam Nussbaumer
Research suggests that student success, or first-year experience, classes are beneficial to new college students. A 2013 study by the Community College Research Center showed initial gains in credits earned and first-year retention (Karp and Stacey, 2013), although the same report found mixed results for long-term gains. Klinkenberg (2013) found higher rates of academic progress and persistence for students who completed a first-year experience course compared with those who did not enroll or did not successfully complete the course. A study at a Tennessee community college found higher fall-t...
June 2020
Posted by Margaret Anderson
Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) was quick to modify college operations in response to the COVID­­–19 pandemic to ensure both academic continuity and the safety of students, faculty, and staff. With the closure of all facilities, hundreds of credit courses were converted from face-to-face to online or alternative delivery formats—an enormous undertaking and a collaborative effort by individuals across the college that was accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Since March 25, every student has been attending classes remotely through a computer or device. Justin Starr, A...
May 2020
Posted by Sara Mastellone
STEM teachers often lament the fact that their students struggle to read content for understanding, write in the vocabulary of STEM fields, and present their ideas well orally (RWP). In fall 2015, the STEM faculty at Bergen Community College identified RWP as the focus of its professional development initiative under a nationally funded STEM grant. At the beginning of this endeavor, a colleague provided a link to a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics article titled “Anticipation Guides: Reading for Mathematics Understanding” (Adams, Pegg, & Case, 2015). Based on insights gleaned fr...
April 2020
Posted by Turina Bakken
Digital badges, or micro-credentials, are portable, verifiable, data rich, digital representations of attained knowledge and skills that provide evidence of specific, tangible skills: cognitive, soft, and technical. Digital badges align training with the needs of the workforce, and provide Madison College the opportunity to award meaningful and recognized credentials that go beyond the traditional boundaries of our degrees. They also empower individuals to take their learning achievements with them, wherever they go, allowing the earner to own their knowledge. Madison College has been issuing...
March 2020
Posted by Jeff Duggan
The Arapahoe Community College (ACC) Sturm Collaboration Campus hosted a panel discussion and facility tour with education, industry, government, and community leaders on January 21, 2020, in Castle Rock, Colorado, to showcase ACC’s dynamic work-based learning programs and postsecondary certificates connecting industry and education. Apprenticeships in the fields of health care, manufacturing, and automotive service technology were highlighted, and several current and former ACC students were on hand to speak about their career-focused educational experience. Attendees included U.S. Department...
February 2020
Posted by Dawn Zimmer
Leadership at Mesa Community College (MCC) and Mesa Public Schools (MPS) worked together to strategize methods to increase persistence and college attendance for high school students, with an emphasis on populations facing the most challenges. The resulting Mesa Community College High School Advisor Program creates a one-stop enrollment experience and is increasing the number of Mesa public high school students enrolling at the college. Through the partnership, an MCC college advisor is embedded in each of the six MPS high schools to recruit students, provide seamless transition to MCC, increa...
January 2020
Posted by Margaret Anderson
Students in the Radiation Therapy Technology program at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) are training on equipment just like that used at leading teaching hospitals around the world. In fall 2018, the college acquired a Virtual Environment in Radiotherapy Training (VERT) system that enables students to practice direct hands-on skills in a radiation-free virtual setting without risk to the patient. The virtual simulator replicates the controls of a linear accelerator, which delivers targeted doses of radiation to cancer patients, bringing the level of training typically used in...
December 2019
Posted by Dawn Zimmer
Students at Mesa Community College receive hands-on learning experiences each semester with two days of simulated emergency medical scenarios. MCC’s Immersive Total Patient Management Experience (ITPME) is a multi-college, cross-disciplinary educational event exposing entry-level EMT, paramedic, nursing, psychology, and theatre/film arts students to potential real-life emergency scenarios and training. In addition to providing workforce experience training, the event encourages a larger dialogue among educators about the nature of innovative collaboration to create the most comprehensive stude...
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November 2019
Posted by Rafael D. Alvarez
How can a first-generation Latina, a community college dropout, become a rising scholar in physics at UC Berkeley and a researcher at Switzerland’s CERN Laboratory? How can a first‑generation African American male, a university and community college dropout, become a UC Davis graduate in electrical engineering? How can a first-generation Latino, who commuted daily across the San Diego-Tijuana border to attend college, become a Georgia Tech graduate and a NASA Aerospace Engineer? What transforms the lives of students in the San Diego City College Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (S...
October 2019
Posted by Margaret Anderson
The Community College of Allegheny County’s South Campus held a ribbon cutting ceremony in April 2019 to celebrate the opening of its new Film Center. Local dignitaries, administrators, faculty, staff, and students were in attendance to share in the festivities and view the space, which has been transformed to house the campus’s highly successful Film Technician program. Launched at South Campus in the spring of 2017, CCAC’s Film Technician program is designed to address the shortage of qualified film crew members in the Pittsburgh region. The program focuses on the technical aspects of the fi...
September 2019
Posted by Tyler Perrino
Chandler-Gilbert Community College’s (CGCC) Food and Green Waste Recycling Project is a collaborative grant-funded effort that offers cross-disciplinary and experiential student learning through the launch of an innovative solution for food and green waste recycling needs. The project evolved from a passionate idea inspired by student projects showcased during CGCC’s Sustainability Day in 2017 to a campuswide initiative in the span of just one year. In 2019, CGCC won the Maricopa Community Colleges Innovation of the Year Award for this project. Experiential, Cross-Disciplinary Efforts Campuswi...
August 2019
Posted by Annette Flores
Made possible through a new partnership between the Maricopa County Community College District and GED Testing Service, Rio Salado College students can now use their GED scores to demonstrate college readiness and college-level skills. The GED College Ready and College Ready + Credit scores are based on recommendations from the American Council on Education (ACE) Credit Program, the same program that backs CLEP and other advanced placement testing college credit recommendations. As is the case with these other programs, students may be eligible to receive college credit for courses aligned wit...
July 2019
Posted by Dawn Zimmer
Students in the Mesa Community College (MCC) Everyone Can Code iOS Apple App Development program decided that a joint project was a perfect opportunity to put their knowledge to use. The outcome? The Resource Information Services for Everyone (RISE) app. The development team of faculty and nine students from advanced and introductory classes were assigned roles that highlighted their skills. The team researched the existing app market, developed a plan, and began developing a proof of concept. Initially, the app contained helpful markers for on-campus resources such as registration, advisement...
June 2019
Posted by John McCommon
The Cyber Defense Program at Jackson State Community College is the only community college program in Tennessee to be certified as a National Center of Academic Excellence by the U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security. The designation puts Jackson State among an elite group of institutions across the country offering computer information technology courses that meet rigorous federal standards and setting graduating students apart from others, said Dr. Tom Pigg, Jackson State's Dean of Health Sciences and Computer Information Technology. "It is very unique that we've...
May 2019
Posted by Jeff Duggan
Several years ago, Arapahoe Community College’s Library and Learning Commons developed an Open Educational Resources (OER) Research Guide to expand access to learning materials. The ever-evolving wealth of resources and information includes textbooks, images and photos, videos, journal articles, and open courses. OER are high-quality teaching, learning and research resources that permit free use—or repurposing—and are legally available to students for free, or at a very low cost. OER offer opportunities for systemic change in teaching and learning content by engaging educators and students in...
April 2019
Posted by Angela Garcia Falconetti and Madison Fantozzi
The need for qualified educators continues to grow locally, statewide, and across the country. Nationally, nearly 100,000 teaching positions were filled by individuals not fully qualified to teach as school districts headed into the 2017-2018 academic year, according to the Learning Policy Institute (2017). Polk County Public Schools started classes in August 2018 with nearly 100 teacher vacancies. As Polk County’s only public postsecondary institution offering state-approved teacher education preparation programs, Polk State College partnered with Polk County Public Schools to create the Esta...
March 2019
Posted by Aims Communications
The Aims Community College Agricultural Sciences and Technology program received the Outstanding Postsecondary Agriculture Program Award at the National Association of Agriculture Educators (NAAE) Convention in San Antonio, Texas. Aims was one of six programs nationwide to receive the award. The Aims program was nominated for the award by a local high school, then went on to the national level to compete against other two- and four-year programs as well as adult education programs (e.g., Young Farmers) in the region. The Agricultural Sciences and Technology program’s exemplary faculty and staf...
February 2019
Posted by Rebecca C. Bell
Last year, Midland College (MC) began a successful partnership with the Midland Independent School District (MISD) to prepare high school students for college and careers. As a result of this collaboration, three transformative academies—Petroleum Academy; Health Sciences Academy; and Business, Management, and Information Technology Academy—are now offered to high school students. The College & Career Academies provide high school students with opportunities to learn valuable technological and academic skills. These academies are specifically designed to meet the current and future needs o...
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January 2019
Posted by Joana Santillana
Adding to the long list of accolades it has received in its over 70 years of service, Laredo College is honored to have been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security jointly sponsor the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) program. The goal of the program is to reduce vulnerability in our national information infrastructure by promoting higher education and research in cyber defense and producing professionals w...

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