Fiscal and operational autonomy in California community colleges

The guided pathways reform movement promises to redesign community colleges to improve student achievement by restructuring students' journeys through an institution. As colleges implement these reforms, they must engage an overworked faculty fatigued by change initiatives that have been implemented with varying degrees of faculty participation and success. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the alignment between the strategies used to implement guided pathways-based organizational change and faculty engagement in guided pathways reform initiatives within the organizational culture of two California community colleges with the goal to understand the role of organizational culture in transformational change and identify best practices in faculty engagement. This study was guided by an overarching research question and two subquestions. The overarching research question was: How has the alignment of organizational change strategies and the organizational culture of two California community colleges selected to participate in the national implementation of guided pathways influenced faculty participation in the reforms and the success of the implementation? The subquestions were: 1. How have the community colleges involved their faculty members in the organizational change initiative? 2. How have the community colleges' organizational strategies to implement guided pathways-based change aligned with their organizational cultures? Data were collected using one-on-one, semi-structured interviews, artifact analysis, and observations. The findings derived from analysis of the two cases included: (a) the design of the implementation had a significant impact on the process, (b) cultural factors at each site strongly impacted the implementation, (c) resistance to change emerged at each campus, (d) centering of the student experience was crucial to advancing implementation, and (e) building and sustaining momentum was important for each college. The study found that both cases utilized implementation strategies for guided pathways that were congruent with their organizational cultures and encouraged faculty participation. The study confirmed that transformational change such as guided pathways that seeks to reform community colleges requires significant faculty participation and leadership to have any chance of success. Keywords: guided pathways, community college, organizational culture, organizational change, faculty

This study provides a detailed description of revenue and expenditure patterns of the United States community college by state and by institutional type (rural-, suburban-serving, and urban-serving) for each five-year period from 1980-81 to 2000-01. The Katsinas, Lacey, and Hardy classification schema for community colleges is used to analyze data from the National Center for Education Statistics' Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS) and Higher Education General Information Surveys (HEGIS). Further analysis clusters states into the following groupings: states with/without substantial local funding, large "mega-states" versus all other states (employing the methodology developed by Grapevine at Illinois State University), and the structure of state coordination (as developed by Tollefson and others in their studies of state community college systems). The analysis showed wide differences in the various funding patterns for community colleges as related to revenue streams. As late as 1980-91, 16 states contributed 60% or more of the total budgets for their community colleges; by 2000-01, no state did so. By college type, rural-serving community colleges saw the greatest net negative change in their operating budget margins, from 3.2% to 0.4%, although it should be noted that every one of the community college types also experienced a significant decline in this margin. By type of governance, the statewide coordinating board type experienced the sharpest decrease in the percent of total revenue from state appropriations; revenue fell 18.6%. Yet this governance type, which includes California's community colleges, was the only one to benefit from a positive change in the net margin ratio over the 20-year period covered by this study. States with local funding saw a 2.9% increase in the percent of total revenues from tuition and fees, compared to the 5.9% increase in those states that did not have some form of local funding. State-by-state analyses are included in the appendices.

Many conceptual models have been applied in the investigation of college retention of nursing students. We tested a model that specifies four general constructs as predictors of student success in nursing education-dispositional factors, career value factors, situational factors, and institutional factors. The purpose of this article is to describe predictors of nursing students' success, specifically: (a) What factors predict success of nursing students graduating from community colleges in California? and (b) What factors predict success of nursing students graduating on time from community colleges in California? The study design was correlational and descriptive in nature, with a convenience sample of six intervention colleges and six matched-pair control colleges. Results of the logistic regressions indicated on-time and any-time graduations were predicted by higher grade point averages in prenursing and science. Higher prenursing grades are positive predictors of graduation; improvements in performance prior to commencing nursing education should improve student success.

Latinx students comprise the largest population within the California Community College (CCC) system, but experience disproportionately lower retention rates. This dissertation used a phenomenological qualitative design and testimonios collected from Latinx general counselors to explore factors influencing Latinx student retention. Sixteen tenured Latinx general counselors from ten Northern California Hispanic-serving community colleges served as participants. Guided by two research questions, the study explored counselors’ perspectives on the factors influencing Latinx community college students’ retention and the counseling strategies, services, and resources that General Counseling Departments should provide to support Latinx student retention. Grounded in Latinx Critical Race Theory, the study integrated a community cultural wealth and servingness framework to generate a comprehensive call to action. Findings are organized across four levels—individual counselors, general counseling departments, institutions, and systemic structures—offering actionable recommendations to transform counseling practices and advance Latinx student success. This work contributes to the field of transformative educational leadership by demonstrating how intentional, culturally responsive counseling can improve retention outcomes for Latinx students in the California Community College System. This system consists of a majority of Hispanic-serving institutions.

This narrative testimonio qualitative study aimed to analyze how ten Latina leaders draw on their community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) to inform their leadership for educational equity in California community colleges to give voice to, acknowledge, and validate Latinas’ experiences in the field of equity leadership. The knowledge attained from these lived experiences adds to the understanding that Latina leadership is crucial in addressing equity issues at California community colleges. Latinas who participated in this study have an array of skills they developed throughout their lived experiences assisting them in leading community colleges toward more equitized spaces. The participant Latina leaders acknowledged representation matters: they relate to the students’ experiences and backgrounds; therefore, they understand the students’ needs, which engenders their commitment to meet those needs and serve in an equitable manner. Ultimately, they lay the foundation for others to lead; Latinas are strong advocates for students, employees, and themselves; Latinas lead equitably by nurturing their authentic self which starts by honoring their family roots, promote their own culture and language, vindicate physical appearance, and embrace cultural skills and characteristics as strengths; lastly, Latinas lead equitably by building relationships inside and outside of their institutions. They build relationships locally with other colleges’ Latino organizations; they join state organizations such as CCCOLEGAS to connect with other Latinos at other community colleges; and lastly, they look for professional support from national organizations such as NCCHC to find professional support for advancement into higher leadership positions.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the perceptions of chancellors and college presidents regarding the "Vision for Success" of the California Community College system and its impact on student outcomes within their communities. An additional purpose of this study was to identify the challenges that effects the "Vision for Success" and its impact within their communities. The methodology of this study is a qualitative design to explore the information-rich stories of chancellors and college presidents with a semi-structured interview technique to collect data from all of the participants. The data collection and analysis resulted in three major findings: 1) The "Vision for Success" is needed to address existing equity gaps for students of color, 2) There is a need for academic, financial, and social supports to close the achievement gap for underserved students in California community colleges, and 3) California Community College Chancellors and Presidents must examine their structural and cultural practices and policies to address the challenges of implementation of the "Vision for Success" to meet the needs of its student body. The participants agreed that the "Vision for Success" is a north star that addresses equity gaps for students of color within the California community college. The "Vision for Success" provides funding for California Community Colleges to provide students with academic, financial, and social services that are needed for student success. The participants also indicated the "Vision for Success" is a document that chancellors and college presidents must utilize to examine the cultural and structural practices within their organizations to ensure successful outcomes for students of color. Recommendations for future research includes investigating the perceptions of faculty, staff, and students regarding the effectiveness of the "Vision for Success" as it relates to Guided Pathways and the outcomes for students of color.

Community college counselors play an important role in supporting students’ decision-making as they navigate toward varied academic goals. Most community college students intend to transfer and thus must navigate the regulations and policies of two institutions, and many follow nonlinear enrollment patterns. Knowledgeable, personalized advising is an important resource for students in community colleges. Yet, counselors often juggle multiple roles, manage large counselor-to-student caseloads with limited resources, and must understand and meet the needs of a growing diverse student body. This study examines the factors that affect community college counselors’ ability to assist community college students in navigating multiple institutions at once while taking classes at a four-year university through a policy called cross-enrollment. To do so, we employed focus group interviews with 29 community college counselors from three community colleges in California. We found that institutional resources and support, cross-campus collaborations, counselors’ perception of the benefits and challenges associated with cross-enrollment, and counselors’ perception of the ideal cross-enrollment student were factors that affected counselors’ ability and willingness to facilitate cross-enrollment efforts. The findings suggest that improving the uptake of cross-enrolling is contingent on institutions improving their cross-institutional collaborations and providing community college counselors with adequate professional development and resources on the policy.

As open-access institutions serving diverse student populations, community colleges are perfect settings for broadening participation in computing efforts in higher education. The very nature of open access, however, places students with a wide variety of previous experience in the same introductory computer science classroom, intimidating the students with little programming exposure, many of whom are traditionally underrepresented in computer science. This paper reports on a pre-semester, intensive program designed to increase the computer science confidence and motivation of students with no previous programming exposure implemented at a community college in California. Framed using social cognitive career theory, results from the accompanying research project indicate preliminary success; we found the program to be well received by the majority of students, who had increased self-efficacy and interest in computer science. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Critical thinking is an important outcome of a college education. Assessment techniques that require students to demonstrate their understanding of course concepts are referred to as authentic assessment and promote the development of critical thinking. Little research exists on the types of assessment and grading practices utilized by community college instructors. This research examined the incidence and nature of various assessment practices used by community college faculty for basing the course grade. In addition, the study also examined the percentage of course grades that was based on traditional and authentic assessment and factors that may influence the use of assessment techniques. To facilitate the study, an online survey instrument was used to obtain data from faculty employed at two community colleges in California. Study results revealed that a variety of assessment practices are used by community college instructors with differences in relation to faculty status, level of academic achievement, online teaching status, and years of teaching experience. In addition, findings indicate that faculty primarily use authentic assessment in basing the course grade as compared to objective or traditional assessment—suggesting that they are using assessment techniques that promote critical thinking. A significant finding was that part-time faculty emphasize objective exams, attendance, and homework whereas full-time faculty emphasize research projects and learning journals. Findings suggest that professional development may be warranted for faculty by faculty status.

Faculty are major stakeholders in the California community college (CCC) system’s ability to meet three primary mission objectives: increase student access, prepare students for transfer, and remain competitive. Educational technology (ET) can play a vital role in keeping the CCCs competitive, and modern learner-centric models rely heavily on faculty using ET, but ET is expensive. With 113 CCCs operating in an era of constrained budgets, the efficient allocation of scarce ET resources remains a challenge for the CCC system. Faculty input regarding their use of educational technology (ET) is invaluable, but no published empirical research explores the present and future use of ET by the CCC faculty. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to survey CCC faculty to determine their present ET hardware and software use, and their anticipated ET use five years in the future. Survey data from 655 active CCC faculty were analyzed using t-tests at the p < .05 threshold for statistical significance. Cohen’s D was used to describe the magnitude of anticipated change from current to future ET use. Results demonstrate that CCC faculty anticipate significant increases in their use of ET hardware and software over the next five years. Results also show that 42% of faculty had never been asked about their use of ET by an influencer, indicating that faculty are underutilized stakeholders in ET planning. Combined, these findings can be utilized by CCC administrative decision makers towards meeting their mission objectives by the efficient allocation of scarce ET resources.

The California Community Colleges (CCC) Chancellor’s Office (CO) and Digital Promise collaborated to develop a new education technology (edtech) evaluation framework for the CO to identify edtech that supports the full spectrum of community college learners. This project centered authentic instructional needs by leveraging a co-design methodology that used working groups, design sessions, interviews, surveys, and pilots. This report offers a roadmap for higher education leaders ready to build edtech evaluation and procurement systems that center the needs of their learners and prioritize intentional investments in edtech interventions.

The purpose of this study was to identify the experience and development of academically underprepared emerging adult Latino community college students. The retention and completion of Latino college students in higher education is a serious concern for college officials and has led to the enactment of legislation by many state lawmakers across the United States. Not only has the context in which students persist evolved into a funded system based on outcomes, a new psychosocial level of development called emerging adulthood has been proposed with relatively unknown ramifications for Latino students. Using grounded theory methodology, this study has identified critical areas that can support Latino emerging adults as they persist at a California community college and who anticipate transferring to a baccalaureate degree institution. The three theoretical categories that materialized from this research, which supports Latino students in emerging adulthood in persisting at a community college, are: (a) evolving as a student, (b) self-awareness through reflection, and (c) giving back to help others. This interpretive framework suggests that Latino emerging adult students trace their identity through their concept of Community Cultural Wealth and critical consciousness to overcome oppression and succeed at a community college. This study offers three recommendations for further study and implementation. First, a socially responsive career theory can be developed from the framework suggested in this study and through critical consciousness. Second, a peer advising program should be developed at the site to provide Latino emerging adult students with the opportunity to give back and validate themselves and other students at the college. Finally, a strategic outreach initiative aimed at the parents of prospective Latino students who work in the housekeeping or caregiving industries could help and encourage their children and others in the community to pursue a degree and break the cycle of poverty present in many communities.

The students who transfer from a community college to four-year institutions constitute one source of information for evaluating a community college's transfer services. The authordescribes a survey directed at students from one California community college who transferred to four-year institutions. The 85 students who responded to the survey reported high levels of satisfaction with their academic preparation at the community college. Nevertheless, they also reported the need for more reliable information from both instructional and counseling faculty about the transfer process. The author reports demographic data gathered from the students, their ratings of orientation and adjustment experiences at the four-year institutions to which they transferred, and their academic standings at both two- and four-year institutions.

This case study examined a multi-college community college district in northern California in a primarily rural area, to understand how their practices compared to management best practices designed to improve student success, barriers that may exist in implementing best practices, and how the institution may improve its own practices. The problem stated in this research is as follows: Despite low degree completion and transfer rates, current management philosophies in California community colleges place priority on access over student success; leading to the purpose of this study: to investigate management decision-making as it relates to improving student success in community college. The research study was conducted as a qualitative case study to collect and compare data among the executives, faculty, and students regarding their views of student success. The case study method provided the opportunity for triangulation of data from multiple sources of evidence, as this study utilized document collection, field observations and notes, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups for data collection. The research methodology resulted in five distinct findings as follows: a) management decisions have been primarily budget focused and reactionary, b) leadership focus in the area of student success has been lacking, c) the institution offers a wide array of programs for at-risk populations, d) these programs are not well integrated, and e) the institution has not developed a practice of using data for decision making. Six recommendations for action emerged from the data collection and findings as follows: 1) Assess the impact of the vision statement on the outcomes to the institution; 2) Develop an institutional definition of student success and stakeholder discussions and incorporate the definition into the governance structure within the institution; 3) Develop a framework for management decision-making consistent with the Board vision statement; 4) Utilize standardized data to evaluate all programs, services, and decisions within the institution; 5) Develop a multi-year agenda for achieving student success; and 6) Develop full integration of student services programs across the institution. These findings and recommendations are significant in that there are relatively few studies on effective management practices that improve student success in California Community Colleges.

Student success has been a prevalent topic among the nation’s community colleges. Guided pathways and its four pillars are part of the community college effort to enhance student success. The California community college system is host to many preparatory athletic training programs which also serve as Sports Medicine Preparation Pathways (SMPPs). The SMPPs prepare students for successful transfer and completion of professional athletic training education programs. These pre-allied health programs were examined, and prove to be fundamental guided pathways by nature. The SMPPs can serve as examples of how other community college pre-allied health programs may improve student success using guided pathways.