This collection brings together insightful chapters which explore diverse student success initiatives and programs in response to challenges faced by community colleges. Each chapter of the collection magnifies a specific aspect of student affairs to illustrate how dedicated departments and practitioners have effectively supported student success via select projects or initiatives. Readers will gain a deeper insight into the contemporary applications, practices, and impacts of agendas such as the assessment of student affairs and services, student success programming, Guided Pathways, and The Completion Agenda. By demonstrating the meaningful involvement of student affairs practitioners in fulfilling institutional missions and visions, this collection contributes to an overarching dialogue about promoting community college student success. This collection will be of interest to researchers, academics, graduates, and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education administration, educational leadership, adult education, and lifelong learning.

This collection brings together insightful chapters which explore diverse student success initiatives and programs in response to challenges faced by community colleges. Each chapter of the collection magnifies a specific aspect of student affairs to illustrate how dedicated departments and practitioners have effectively supported student success via select projects or initiatives. Readers will gain a deeper insight into the contemporary applications, practices, and impacts of agendas such as the assessment of student affairs and services, student success programming, Guided Pathways, and The Completion Agenda. By demonstrating the meaningful involvement of student affairs practitioners in fulfilling institutional missions and visions, this collection contributes to an overarching dialogue about promoting community college student success. This collection will be of interest to researchers, academics, graduates, and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education administration, educational leadership, adult education, and lifelong learning.

Prepares readers to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse college student population This is a timely and comprehensive overview of key theories of student development that illustrates their application across a range of student services with diverse student populations. It is distinguished by its focus on nontraditional student populations including adults changing careers, parents, veterans, and international students. The book examines relevant theories of cognitive, ethical, moral, and personality development and theories of identity development in terms of ethnicity, gender, and ability. Also covered are theories relevant to disability issues, LGBT identity issues, and to choice of career and major/degree. Unique to the text is information on how theories can be applied, beyond understanding individual students, to student groups and to guide the coordination of student affairs services across the campus. Engaging case vignettes immerse readers in diverse perspectives and demonstrate the application of theory to a wide range of student types and issues. The book covers the history and development of each theory along with its strengths and limitations. Also included are useful suggestions on how to best assist students with current challenges. Reflective questions concluding each chapter help students to reinforce information. An insightful text for courses in college student development in relevant graduate programs and for student affairs professionals who wish to enhance their abilities, this book reflects the realities of contemporary college student life and student affairs practices. Key Features: Applies student development theories primarily to non-traditional college students Presents chapter-opening/closing examples reflecting student diversity Explores the strengths and limitations of each theory Describes how theories can be applied in varied student affairs settings and in broader contexts of student affairs Includes instructor’s resources

Academic and Student Affairs in Collaboration provides a comprehensive and evidenced-based understanding of the partnerships necessary to achieve an institutional culture devoted to student success. Chapter authors explore how to design, implement, and assess collaborative efforts between student and academic affairs in support of increased student success. This book provides best practices for fostering and enhancing campus dialogue, career development pathways, academic support services, and other important initiatives to increase retention and learning outcomes, improve motivation and goal attainment, and enhance institutional accountability. This book is a must-read for scholars, faculty, leaders, and practitioners in Student Affairs and Higher Education interested in achieving student success at their universities and colleges.

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.

In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year—nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America’s Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase their rates of student success, if they are willing to rethink the ways in which they organize programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a cafeteria-style model in which students pick courses from a bewildering array of choices, with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of “guided pathways”—clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students’ choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost. Distilling a wealth of data amassed from the Community College Research Center (Teachers College, Columbia University), Redesigning America’s Community Colleges offers a fundamental redesign of the way two-year colleges operate, stressing the integration of services and instruction into more clearly structured programs of study that support every student’s goals.

This book makes the case for assessment of student learning as a vehicle for equity in higher education. The book proceeds through a framework of “why, what, how, and now what.” The opening chapters present the case for infusing equity into assessment, arguing that assessment professionals can and should be activists in advancing equity, given the historic and systemic use of assessment as an impediment to the educational access and attainment of historically marginalized populations. The “what” chapters offer definitions of emerging terms, discuss the narratives of equity in evidence of student learning, present models and approaches to promoting equity, and explore the relationship between knowledge systems and assessment practice. The “how” chapters begin by progressively moving from the classroom to the program, then beyond the program level to share examples from student affairs. Subsequent chapters address the problem of equitable access to STEM fields; culturally responsive practices within the context of community colleges; the ongoing work of culturally situated assessment practices in Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and the role of technology-enabled assessment as a possible tool for equitable assessment. The final two chapters in the book address the “now what”, providing a way for assessment professional to develop individual awareness within their practice as a next step in the equity journey, and a conceptual framework to anchor equity in their work.

Young people are told that college is a place where they will “find themselves” by engaging with diversity and making friendships that will last a lifetime. This vision of an inclusive, diverse social experience is a fundamental part of the image colleges sell potential students. But what really happens when students arrive on campus and enter this new social world? The Cost of Inclusion delves into this rich moment to explore the ways students seek out a sense of belonging and the sacrifices they make to fit in. Blake R. Silver spent a year immersed in student life at a large public university. He trained with the Cardio Club, hung out with the Learning Community, and hosted service events with the Volunteer Collective. Through these day-to-day interactions, he witnessed how students sought belonging and built their social worlds on campus. Over time, Silver realized that these students only achieved inclusion at significant cost. To fit in among new peers, they clung to or were pushed into raced and gendered cultural assumptions about behavior, becoming “the cool guy,” “the nice girl,” “the funny one,” “the leader,” “the intellectual,” or “the mom of the group.” Instead of developing dynamic identities, they crafted and adhered to a cookie-cutter self, one that was rigid and two-dimensional. Silver found that these students were ill-prepared for the challenges of a diverse college campus, and that they had little guidance from their university on how to navigate the trials of social engagement or the pressures to conform. While colleges are focused on increasing the diversity of their enrolled student body, Silver’s findings show that they need to take a hard look at how they are failing to support inclusion once students arrive on campus.