<p> <p> From the evolution of the first colleges, residence halls have been viewed as more than a place to eat and sleep. The Oxford and Cambridge models offered residential settings where students and faculty lived, ate, and studied together (Rowe, 1981). The living-learning residential model emerged from the present day American university?s desire to practice learning as a part of living. <p> The Educational Resources Information Center defines living-learning programs as "Residential facilities of higher education institutions designed to enhance students ' educational experiences by enabling them to integrate their academic activities with their ordinary living activities "(ERIC, 1982, p. 143). Riker (1965) and Rowe (1981) created eight components that give living-learning program administrators a broad based foundation on which to build living-learning program curricula.<p> Twenty living-learning program administrators listed how their programs incorporate Riker (1965) and Rowe's (1981) components and then prioritized the curricula on these lists. A three round Delphi surveying technique was used to structure this process. In the first round of the process administrators generated lists of program curricula that exist at established programs across the country. Rounds two and three of the process were a tool for building consensus on the most heavily valued living-learning program curricula. <p> Results indicate that curricula providing opportunities for students to pursue an academic life style were most valued by the group of twenty administrators. Specific curricula that were valued include active learning experiences, student involvement and participation in programs, student accessibility to faculty, and spaces that facilitate discussion and study. <p> <P>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to understand how formative assessment interactions in developmental education reading, writing, and mathematics courses at a community college were experienced by both students and faculty members and how they were perceived to impact learning and teaching. The specific assessment technique studied involved a series of one-on-one, out-of-class Feedback Intervention (FI) interactions that focused on discussions regarding students’ strengths and weaknesses in relation to their course learning outcomes. In using a case study approach, I interviewed students and faculty members in focus group and individual settings. Using constant-comparative qualitative analysis, I examined their perceptions in order to better understand the impact student-faculty interactions had on students’ learning and faculty members’ teaching experiences. Questionnaires were also used to corroborate findings. The following research questions were used: (1) What are the contexts and learning experiences of developmental studies students? (2) How has formative assessment, specifically out-of-class interactions with their instructors, affected perceptions of their learning experiences? (3) How have these interactions affected developmental studies faculty members’ perceptions about their teaching? When I considered the overall impact of the student-faculty interactions, one overarching theme emerged: the FI interaction did have a positive impact on learning, and to a lesser degree, teaching. This theme was supported through two main findings related to learning: the interaction increased students’ motivation to learn and improved their learning strategies. In regards to teaching, the main finding was that facilitation of the FI interaction affected faculty members in that they became more learner-centered in their teaching strategies and methodologies. These findings confirmed a connective, dynamic learning process for both students and faculty members.

The purpose of this study was to understand how formative assessment interactions in developmental education reading, writing, and mathematics courses at a community college were experienced by both students and faculty members and how they were perceived to impact learning and teaching. The specific assessment technique studied involved a series of one-on-one, out-of-class Feedback Intervention (FI) interactions that focused on discussions regarding students’ strengths and weaknesses in relation to their course learning outcomes. In using a case study approach, I interviewed students and faculty members in focus group and individual settings. Using constant-comparative qualitative analysis, I examined their perceptions in order to better understand the impact student-faculty interactions had on students’ learning and faculty members’ teaching experiences. Questionnaires were also used to corroborate findings. The following research questions were used: (1) What are the contexts and learning experiences of developmental studies students? (2) How has formative assessment, specifically out-of-class interactions with their instructors, affected perceptions of their learning experiences? (3) How have these interactions affected developmental studies faculty members’ perceptions about their teaching? When I considered the overall impact of the student-faculty interactions, one overarching theme emerged: the FI interaction did have a positive impact on learning, and to a lesser degree, teaching. This theme was supported through two main findings related to learning: the interaction increased students’ motivation to learn and improved their learning strategies. In regards to teaching, the main finding was that facilitation of the FI interaction affected faculty members in that they became more learner-centered in their teaching strategies and methodologies. These findings confirmed a connective, dynamic learning process for both students and faculty members.

Coping with stress is essential for a CEO to remain effective as a leader of a community college. The mastery of self-development techniques for CEOs, visualization techniques for CEOs, and techniques which teach the CEOs to master Building Allies are essential tools for CEOs to provide vision and direction for community college. In the mid-1990s, California was going through an economic crisis. The tax base was significantly reduced resulting in the reduction of allocated funds for the local communities. The reduction of public funds limited the availability of social and health services, and community college programs. The economic disruption ultimately lead to employee layoffs, business closures and home foreclosures. (Wady, 1998) The unstable economic environment created many challenges for Chief Executive Officers (CEO)s at the California community colleges that led to stress for the CEOs Several researchers have examined how these changes have affected the CEOs in the types of stress produced, and more importantly, how the CEOs cope with this stress. In 1998, Dr. Gwendolyn Wady conducted a study on the coping skills of California Community College administrators. "The purpose of Wady's study was to identify and describe the administrative stresses and coping strategies utilized by administrators in the California Community College System to manage the job pressures associated with the execution of their official job functions. The administrative job leaders had to occupy a position of Executive, Managerial, and administrative category and must be a member of the Association of California Community College Administrators The outcome from the data indicated that there were significantly differences between coping strategies utilized by community college administrators. There were no significant differences in the selection of coping strategies in relation to personal background (age, years of experience, etc.) Successful administrators tended to use a variety of coping strategies to reduce stress dependent on their personality and type of job pressure."(Wady, p.7, 1998) The findings in Wady's study clearly indicated that the coping approach most selected by the majority of the community college administrators were strategies in the problem-solving category and the least beneficial stress-reducing techniques were postponing the activity. Wady concluded the study with a recommendation that the study be replicated in other states. This current study is designed to examine how community college CEOs in Texas are experiencing stresses, with the added problems caused by the economic crisis and a drastic increase in enrollment. During the past four or five decades, community colleges have experienced expediential growth (Hagedorn, 2010). They are often viewed as a stepping-stone to the fouryear College or university for those students who required an institution closer to home or for other reasons. Now community colleges are seen as a way to enhance skills, learn new skills, and better prepare for the future during severe economic times (Kolesnikova, 2009). Due to dramatic increases in unemployment and the need for retraining new job skills, community colleges are being overwhelmed with new students who are taxing the basic services of these institutions. Administrators are facing problems such as; overcrowded classes, community college faculty are being required to teach extra classes, and students not getting the courses offered to them in a timely fashion, delaying the completion of degrees. (Inside Higher Ed). / text

<p> Although the number of community college Latina/o students is steadily growing, their completion and transfer rates lag behind other groups. Because the majority of Latina/o students begin their postsecondary education in community colleges only to transfer at very low rates, the long-storied promise of community colleges serving as "democracy's colleges" is more rhetoric than reality. Drawing upon Stanton-Salazar's (2004, 2011) work on the potential roles that institutional agents can play in working against the forces of educational stratification by lending their social capital to minority students, the purpose of this convergent mixed methods research was to examine the differences Latina/o and White potential transfer students report about the ways that faculty have facilitated or impeded their negotiation of the transfer process and the roles institutional agents filled in facilitating students' transfer progress.</p><p> The study followed a convergent mixed methods design, whereby 233 potential students completed an original survey concerning their interactions with faculty, and 14 potential transfer students participated in semi-structured interviews concerning their interactions with faculty while negotiating the transfer process. Analysis of the quantitative data collected through the survey revealed that students are generally pleased with their interactions with HCC faculty; and furthermore that Latina/o students rate their interactions with faculty more highly than White students do. From the qualitative data collected through the interviews eight themes emerged, including the importance of community colleges, social capital, developing goals, accepting responsibility for one's decisions, and caring faculty. Three convergences arose from combining the findings of the two separate modes of inquiry: (a) students are generally pleased with HCC faculty; (b) the importance of caring faculty; and (c) faculty serving institutional agents for students.</p><p> After the interpretations of these findings were discussed, as well as their implications for policy, theory, practice, and future research, three recommendations for action were offered.</p>

<p> The relationship between intercollegiate athletics and academic achievement has been conflicted in the literature that largely focuses on sizable universities participating in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. However, a dearth of literature illustrates this relationship at the community college level. This study sought to investigate the changes in access to community college athletics surrounding the "Great Recession," as well as whether participation in intercollegiate athletics can predict academic success. Results indicated that access was indeed reduced following the Great Recession based on the number of sports offered and participants, moreover, institutional setting (rural, suburban and urban) did appear to play a role in these changes.</p><p> Academic achievement findings indicated that student-athletes entered community college far less prepared for college level work, yet achieved basic skills success at far greater rates than their comparison group peer. However, results from binary logistic regression analyses indicated that participation in intercollegiate athletics may reduce the likelihood of completing several academic success measures. Additionally, differences were also noted based on gender and ethnicity, lending to the narrative that student-athletes, as a whole, should not be studied as one homogeneous group.</p>

This is a qualitative study of three urban community colleges and their respective communities which examines how local stakeholders influence strategic decisions made by college leaders. The subject colleges are located in the same governing district and thus have commonalities in mission as well as bureaucratic procedures that provide a normative structure. Beyond this shared legal and bureaucratic framework, the colleges operate with a high degree of autonomy. It is this operational freedom coupled with community dissimilarities that are analyzed in this investigation, through answering the following questions: In what ways do community stakeholders influence strategic decisions at their local community college? How do college leaders define their respective service communities? Which community stakeholder groups are identified as influential and how are these influences defined? What boundary-spanning relationships exist as avenues for community influence? How is community input/feedback utilized? A common assumption in the literature about community colleges is that these institutions operationalize a comprehensive mission within the context of their local constituencies. The implication is that colleges are connected to their service communities and thus are subject to community influences. However, it is not clear in what ways these connections and local influences are manifested in college behavior; how do we know that such connections exist? if they do exist, what kind of connections are they? and in what ways do they influence college operations? Most of the literature on community colleges describes or explains the institutional role in a wide context or in generalities. While these perspectives provide valuable insight into community colleges on a broad level, there is much to be learned from examining the community college in a local context. This research fills a void in the literature about community colleges by focusing on local influences and presents a clearer understanding of the dynamic between a community college and its service community. The research centers around a conception of a community college as an open system, interdependently related to its external environment. It draws from key works by authors who propound views that organizational behaviors are controlled, constrained, or otherwise shaped by external influences. Findings are interpreted using the theoretical lenses of resource dependency, power and power-dependence relationships, and the concept of stakeholder influence in strategic management. The analysis provides a descriptive explanation and conception of the relationships between the subject community colleges and their respective communities, as well as comparing findings with the commonly held assumption that programming and services are driven by community needs.

Institutions of higher education, including community colleges are subject to increased pressure to reduce their costs. The purpose of this study is to determine what factors relate to community college costs, to determine if community colleges experience economies of scale, and how both costs and economies of scale are related to the 2005 Carnegie classifications.The data used in this study was derived from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Post Secondary Data System (IPEDS). Data was selected for odd years from the 1987 through 2003 data sets. Average cost-per-student FTE acted as the dependent variable for the study for a quadratic cost function. A total of 15 independent variables were examined including: six variables related to services provided by the institution; four variables representing the outputs of community colleges; and five variables representing the inputs. Dummy variables were created for the Carnegie classifications. A series of fixed effects and ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were run to examine the relationship between the independent variables and average cost-per-student FTE. The existence of economies of scale was examined as was how these relationships are influenced by Carnegie classification.The relationship between institutional characteristics and costs was found to vary based on Carnegie classification. Further, the choice of data and regression selected (fixed effects or OLS) also impacted the results. Results indicated a range of from two to ten significant variables based on Carnegie classification, data and regression type. The institutional size associated with the lowest average cost-per-student FTE was found to be related to Carnegie classification. The point at which institutions cease to experience economies of scale ranged from 6,445 to 47,346 with the medium rural institution classification being associated with lowest values. In all but one instance, the point at which institutions cease experiencing economies of scale is higher than the largest institution in the classification. This implies that all institutions are capable of growing while still experiencing a decreasing average-cost-per-student FTE. In terms of average-cost-per-student FTE, branch campuses of four-year institutions have the lowest average-cost-per-student while urban-multi-campus institutions have the highest average-cost-per-student FTE.

A qualitative study of faculty work and technology was used to identify four areas of change to community college faculty work structures; specifically, time, work space, classroom teaching and faculty service work. By examining the policies, programs, and technology initiatives as negotiated by faculty members---their work, their interactions with students, other faculty, administrators, and the local community this writer argues that technology has destabilized the nature of faculty work and the structures once associated with faculty responsibilities. This ethnography relies heavily on the theories of Rhoades, Burris, Perlow, and Vallas to examine how technology has changed the daily work of the community college faculty member.Using the ethnographic approach to qualitative research, the data for this study comes from meetings, formal and informal exchanges, writings, and promotional material handed to faculty over a two year periods. The participant/observer approach utilized in this study allows for insight into the complicated relationships between policies and practices, and formal and informal interactions between various campus groups. This particular campus site struggled with the new policies governing informational and educational technology decisions in a setting that promoted a high degree of faculty input and participation. The information gathered in this study points to the destabilizing nature of technology on faculty work.