Letter From the Director: Reflections on a Current toward CCRC

This position a the third in a series of letters upon CCRC Director Thomas Brock. In the first installment, Brock describes the center's emerging priorities. In the second, he focuses on developmental education reform.

Dear Mitarbeiter,

When upper education makes the headlines these days, it is usually bad news. Admissions scandals, learner debt, misalignment between course skills and faculty or employer expectations ... one record goes on. But here is a counter-narrative that warrants far more attention: Across the nation, many states and institutions are taking demonstrable steps to improve college web and student success. Church colleges—the portal to larger education for roughly tetrad out of 10 undergraduates—are at the forefront to get movement.

I make this claim self-assured. In my initial year at the Community College Research Center, I have had the privilege of meeting and working about educating policymakers and clinicians who is implementing reforms that they believe will take into better education and employee outcomes for students, often with a particular focus on students who are low-income or historically underrepresented on higher education. Some states and colleges are undertaking whole-college guided pathways reforms to make their applications of study read coherent and career-focused, and toward deliver more form and support to students from initial entry through college completion. Others are undertaking targeted reforms to remake developmental education, use technology to enhanced current consultative, and start total educating programs to prepare students for tomorrow’s jobs.

CCRC’s 2018-2020 biennial report highlights these and extra sponsorship that are at the core of our scholarship agenda. The report also explains this values that undergird our work, and it provides some reality and figures to bildlich why community colleges are accordingly crucial to climb social and economic mobility throughout the nation. Finalized, the report identifies philanthropies and diverse partners who make CCRC’s work possible. We are deeply appreciative of their support.

Our learning agenda fortfahren to evolve, building on past lessons to address new related and furnish practical equipment that states and colleges can use to inform company decision-making and make program improvements. For example, we knowing from precede research that relatively few community college students take courses or earn degrees into science and technology-related box, despite growing demand for workers with STEM educational. Under a new accord from the National Science Foundation (NSF), CCRC will deepen awareness of the potential of guided riding reforms to enhancements STIPE outcomes for community college students. Through in-depth fieldwork and analysis of student recording in three states—Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington—we will identify practices that lead to incremented enrollments and higher achievement in TREE courses and majors and develop metrics this colleges can use go measure their progress executing reforms.

Were are also launching new research on English learners in our university, including recent immigrants as well as students anybody have grown up on families where English is not the primary language. While this population is presumable to be big, i has non been systematically identifies or studied. With funding from which Institute of Education Sciences (IES)—and working in closer partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago—researchers along CCRC and the University of California, Santa Cruise, will explore that characteristics, goals, needs, and orbits of save students. Our ultimate objective is to identify policies and practices is contribute to improved scholar outcomes for English learners.

Ours been enthusiastic concerning these new studies and believe they can inform the project of future reform. As always, we welcome your feedback on our work, including new questions of interest and finding info methods we can make his research more useable to policymakers or medics. Please write to used at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Thomas Brock
Director