Carrie B. Kisker

Creating and Sustaining Community College—University Transfer Partnerships

This qualitative study of a community college—university partnership employs network embeddedness theory to examine the processes involved in creating and sustaining partnerships to enhance transfer and baccalaureate attainment. In particular, this article describes the challenges inherent in partnership management and governance, the importance of involving faculty in transfer-partnership programs and activities, and the utility of community college—university transfer partnerships in the future. Findings have clear implications for research and practice.

Integrating High School and the Community College: Previous Efforts and Current Possibilities.

This article explores three incarnations of the idea to integrate high school and the community college—Leonard Koos’s 6-4-4 plan of public school organization, Middle College High School, and the early college high school initiative. The author discusses rationales for integrating high school and the first 2 years of college, as well as possible reasons why the 6-4-4 plan and middle college high schools were not as widely implemented as their founders may have envisioned. The article concludes with a look to the future and identifies policy changes that must occur if early colleges are to become a significant and successful pathway from high school both to and through college

UCLA Community College Review: Community College Partnerships with the Private Sector-Organizational Contexts and Models for Successful Collaboration

Community college partnerships with the private sector have grown in significance in the past 15 years due to state budget shortfalls, evolving labor requirements, the need to provide a cutting-edge curriculum, and a desire to respond to local educational needs. This article discusses the essential elements for creating and maintaining mutually beneficial partnerships, and it describes several successful types and models of community college partnerships with local businesses and industry. The article concludes with a discussion of the benefits and challenges associated with community college partnerships with the private sector.

Community College Honors and Developmental Faculty: Characteristics, Practices, and Implications for Access and Educational Equity

This study explores the demographic, personal, and professional characteristics of honors and developmental faculty in community colleges. The authors uncover significant racial and ethnic patterns and arrive at a preliminary typology of those who teach at the upper and lower margins of the two-year college curriculum.

Answering the Call for Accountability: An Activity and Cost Analysis Case Study.

This article summarizes the findings of a case study on the creation and application of an activity-based cost accounting model that links community college salary expenditures to mission-critical practices within academic divisions of a southern California community college. Although initially applied as a financial management tool in private enterprise, higher education scholars have recently explored the relevance of activity-based costing (ABC) procedures as a means of responding to demands for increased fiscal accountability and efficiency in postsecondary institutions. This case study builds upon previous higher education cost-accounting scholarship by situating the research in the community college sector and by incorporating management and classified staff in the activity and cost analyses. The research design and findings described in this article illustrate the utility of activity-based costing procedures as a means of identifying what it costs a community college to perform a variety of institutional activities. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for practice and strategies for integrating activity-based cost accounting into existing assessment, evaluation, and strategic planning initiatives.

The Community Colleges’ Role in Developing Students’ Civic Outcomes Results of a National Pilot

Objective: Ideally, community colleges both democratize opportunity and develop in students the civic skills necessary to meaningfully participate in a democratic society. This national pilot study examines the individual and institutional factors associated with greater civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge among students after at least 1 year of community college attendance. Method: Using survey data obtained from both community college students and administrators via a new civic outcomes survey and institutional questionnaire, this research utilizes both descriptive and multivariate statistics to identify associations between individual and institutional characteristics and behaviors leading to greater civic outcomes. Results: Holding students’ incoming characteristics and pre-college behaviors constant, this study shows that community college students’ academic and extracurricular behaviors, as well as institutions’ intentionality toward civic engagement, are associated with higher levels of civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge. Contributions: Results of this study indicate that by making visible and measurable commitments to civic learning and democratic engagement on campus, and by creating opportunities for students to interact with one another, wrestle with thorny social or political issues, and engage in their communities, colleges can help create informed citizens who are skilled in democratic practices and committed to lifelong engagement. For community colleges, this is especially important, given their large population of students from groups historically marginalized in the nation’s education and political systems and their mission to both democratize opportunity and do the work of democracy.

What We Can Learn from the Sixth Edition of "The American Community College": CSCC Awards Luncheon Address.

This speech, given at the 2014 Council for the Study of Community Colleges annual Awards Luncheon, describes three of the major changes in the sixth edition of The American Community College. The speech also describes what those changes can tell us about the directions in which our colleges are moving and the ways in which community college scholars can continue to reflect and shape practice.