Committee on Measures of Student Success -- New National Group to Focus on Two-Year Colleges' Graduation and Completion Rates

The newly created Committee on Measures of Student Success (CMSS), created under the Higher Education Opportunity Act, will develop recommendations for two-year degree-granting institutions of higher education to comply with the law's graduation and completion rate disclosure requirements. The committee will also develop recommendations regarding additional or alternate measures of student success.
http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=786

Ready Or Not? Recent Innovations In Higher Education

READY...
Ivy Tech Community College will be offering a new one year associate degree program for high performing students from low income families.  They hope to improve graduation rates by providing a more cost effective approach to higher education for highly motivated students with strong G.P.A.s.  Four year schools are similarly offering three year degree programs with the same idea in mind.
http://www.citytowninfo.com/career-and-education-news/articles/new-degree-programs-at-community-colleges-10050601

OR NOT...
National Public Radio (NPR) reported a story from York College, Pennsylvania about the underpreparedness of recent college graduates. The school is developing new curriculum to help students be ready with the interpersonal skills and social behaviors expected in employment settings.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127230009&ft=1&f=1001

Center for Global Advancement Of Community Colleges (CGACC), A New Organization To Promote Community Colleges And International Education

The Center for Global Advancement of Community Colleges (CGACC) is dedicated to increasing global knowledge and understanding of U.S. community colleges, bridging cultures through awareness, serving as a resource, advancing institutional internationalization efforts, and partnering with national and international entities to expand and enhance educational opportunities.
http://cgacc.org/

Community Colleges Pledge To Keep Access And Opportunity While Improving Completion Rates, Despite Budget Cuts

Government and foundation leaders push agenda to improve completion rates, but budget cuts are eroding the very programs the experts say are vital.  The American Association of Community Colleges and other leading education and policy organizations signed what they deemed “a call to action” – a commitment to improve student completion rates by 50 percent over the next decade.  Read about it in an article from Inside HigherEd:   http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/17/completion

Problem Classroom Situations--Suggested Strategies, Responses

Today, the last day of the 2010 Spring Term at Brookdale Community College, the Teaching and Learning Center hosted its TLC Roundtable with a discussion of current classroom issues. The special guests were Robert Quinones, Director of Student Life and Activities and Christopher Jeune, Student Judicial Affairs.  The following articles were shared during this session:

"Reducing Incivility in the University/College Classroom" by Patrick J. Morrissette, Brandon University, in The International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning
http://www.ucalgary.ca/iejll/morrissette

"Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom" by Lee Warren, Derok Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard University
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58474/hotmoments.html

Higher Education in New Jersey and the State Budget Crisis

New Jersey college administrators fear devasting effects as a result of State funding cuts.
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/pdf/state/nj-college-presidents-call-christies-higher-education-cuts-devastating.pdf

Helping Students Complete Their Programs Of Study

At the American Association of Community Colleges conference, six national associations focused on community colleges are planning a joint statement  pledging a "unified effort" to increase completion rates.  Read the article about this movement from Inside HigherEd:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/19/completion

U.S News and World Report's Latest Issue On Higher Education

The May 2010 issue of U. S. News & World Report has articles about student loans, careers for tomorrow and their school rankings. To see their report about online education with links to other sections:  http://www.usnews.com/sections/education/online-education/index.html

Helping Students Become "Career Ready"

As reported in Inside HigherEd, a new paper just released by the Association for Career and Technical Education describes the three essential areas of preparedness needed for today's college graduates.  Academic skills, employability skills and technical skills, which all work together for success in the workplace. 
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/14/definition
and
http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/Publications_and_Online_Media/files/Career_Readiness_Paper.pdf

Students Who Are Iraq/Afghanistan War Veterans, What Do We Need To Know?

The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the psychological life of our students who are recent combat veterans.  As the article reminds us, "We in the teaching profession, on campuses where the military/civilian gap still yawns far too wide, have an obligation to help our students understand what soldiers go through and what our responsibility as citizens is to those whom we send to war. We owe soldiers not just public respect, but private respect. One way to give that respect is by understanding, empathically, the moral weight of war that they carry."
http://chronicle.com/article/Soldiers-Moral-Wounds/64987/#top

The Comprehensive College Baccalaureate Association

The Comprehensive College Baccalaureate Association, (formerly the Community College Baccalaureate Association) strives to promote better access to the baccalaureate degree on community college campuses, and to serve as a resource for information on various models for accomplishing this purpose.  Their newsletter is available via email delivery.
http://www.accbd.org/

Struggle To Save N.J. Stars Makes National Headlines

The Chronicle of Higher Education has the following story about N.J. Stars:
http://chronicle.com/article/New-Jersey-Community-Colleges/64971/

Report About New Students And Success Just Released

Survey of Entering Student Engagement, or SENSE, provides six benchmarks for community colleges that are trying to improve students' habits during the critical first three weeks of class.
http://www.ccsse.org/sense/resources/publications/SENSE_Benchmarking_and_Benchmarks_3-29-10.pdf

The Scoop About Online Writing Classes

A recent article in Inside HighEd tells about the work of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, who are developing "best practices" guidelines for online writing classes.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/19/writing

State Budget's Dramatic Cuts-- N.J. Stars Program Eliminated For New Students Next Year

Here, from the 2011 Budget In Brief, is the bad news for New Jersey community colleges and their students:

Community Colleges
Operating support for county colleges is reduced by $14.3 million. This level will support the amounts required to maintain New Jersey’s eligibility for federal stimulus funding for higher education. Community colleges will continue to receive funds from the Supplemental Workforce Fund for Basic Skills to offset the cost of remedial courses provided by the institutions.

Tuition Assistance
State assistance is provided to college students through a myriad of aid and scholarship programs. The
largest of these, the Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program, is a need-based entitlement program that supports
tuition costs for needy New Jersey students who attend New Jersey colleges and universities. For fiscal 2011, anticipated growth in the program will not be funded. Similarly, the Proposed Budget does not fund anticipated growth in the Part-Time Tuition Aid Grant program. In addition, the TAG awards for first-time recipients at Independent Institutions will be reduced to the comparable State college award level.  A slight reduction of 8.7% is proposed for the Educational Opportunity Fund. An allocation of $37.6 million will
remain available to provide higher education opportunities to students who come from low-income families in
economically distressed areas of the state.

NJ STARS I and NJ STARS II are merit-based scholarships that are awarded to high achieving students who attend a New Jersey county college and then continue at a four-year New Jersey college or university. For fiscal 2011, no incoming freshman will be accepted into the NJ STARS I program. No current STARS
scholarships will be affected by the funding reduction.

To see the complete Budget In Brief:  http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/omb/publications/11bib/BIB.pdf

Important New K-12 Education Standards Just Released

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association have just released new sets of educational standards which apply to 48 states, including New Jersey.  The Common Core State Standards Initiatives cover classrooms from kindergarten -- where children should know their numbers up to 100 -- to high school -- where students should be able to write and research texts and narratives, and be able to use the Internet to produce, publish and update their work.  To read more:


http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/groups_release_academic_standa.html
 
To see the Core College and Career Readiness Standards:
http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/index.htm

Community Colleges Expand Degree Offerings

Edison State College, a Florida community college in Fort Myers, is planning to create an independent university offering baccalaureate and graduate degrees, arguing that existing four-year institutions in the region are not helping enough of the two-year institution's low-income and minority graduates continue their educations.  To read about their efforts to expand their degree offerenings as well as similiar initiatives by other community colleges:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/09/edisonstate

School Reform Needs New Direction--Noted Educator Changes Position On K-12 Initiative

Noted educator Dr. Diane Ravitch, once a supporter of No Child Left Behind, has reversed her opinion of this federal program.  She now believes that the United States is headed in the wrong direction and should heed examples of the best schools from other countries.  In a March 3, 2010 article in the New York Times she said, "Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect.  They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects.  They do this because this is the way to ensure good education.  We're on the wrong track."  To read the full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?scp=2&sq=diane%20ravitch&st=cse

Jim Collins--An American Management Guru

Jim Collins: How to Thrive in 2009 (and Beyond)

As part of its 30th-anniversary issue, Inc. asked Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, what we might expect in the next 30 years. His answer: uncertainty, chaos, turbulence, and risk. In other words, it's not a bad time to be an entrepreneur.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/in-times-like-these-you-get-a-chance.html

Videos, audios, articles, & tools to aid in understanding and applying the ideas from Jim Collins' books and research to both business and life.
http://www.jimcollins.com/index.html

"Jim Collins on Creating Enduring Greatness", a recent article from Success Magazine:
http://www.successmagazine.com/jim-collins-on-creating-enduring-greatness/PARAMS/article/1003

Great leaders are obsessed to build something exceptional, Jim Collins says. The American management guru talks about paranoia, turbulent times and his admiration for Beethoven and Steve Jobs in this 2009 interview:
http://www.hossli.com/articles/2009/03/02/steve-jobs-is-an-industrial-beethoven/

Complete College America--An Initiative To Increase College Graduates

Signifying their intent to take the bold action necessary to increase college completion rates, 17 states (not including New Jersey) have joined with Complete College America to dramatically increase the number of young adults with a college degree or credential. The states have agreed to set degree goals, develop and implement action plans to meet those goals, and collect and report student outcome data on progression toward the goals.  Adding to the states’ commitment, several national foundations have joined forces to provide $12 million in initial funding for a new nonprofit organization, Complete College America, to work with states.Established in 2009, Complete College America supports states to implement a range of strategies that will bring needed change to improve completion. Five national foundations are providing multi-year support to Complete College America, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and Lumina Foundation for Education.

http://www.completecollege.org/