Community Colleges

Kathy Menasche, the senior director of Workforce and Business Development at Carroll Community College, was recently sworn in to the Maryland Advisory Commission on Manufacturing Competitiveness.

I’ve been involved in a series of initiatives lately based on improving student success rates (defined as passing and graduating), closing racial and economic gaps, and helping students from underrepresented groups find their way into the jobs of the future. These are all good and worthy endeavors, and I’m happy to work with them. As worthwhile as they are, though, they share a theme. They all focus on the lower-achieving stratum of students. They’re all about raising the floor. I haven’t seen any large-scale initiatives about raising the ceiling for the high achievers.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities and The Democracy Commitment: An American Community College Initiative (TDC) have issued a call for proposals to community colleges across the nation to join a three-year curriculum and faculty development project called "Bridging Cultures to Form a Nation: Difference, Community, and Democratic Thinking."

A comprehensive program for community college-based workforce service providers.
January 30-February 2, 2013
Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina
San Diego, CA

October 28-31, 2012
Westin Crown Center and Sheraton Crown Center
Kansas City, Missouri

Rogue Community College has an opening for a director of auxiliary services. RCC is a comprehensive, 3-campus community college in beautiful southern Oregon.

After the Virginia Tech campus shootings in 2007, the Virginia Community College System formed a task force and stages an annual summit to make sure that its 23 colleges are prepared. Read the findings here.

The California Community College Board of Governors appointed Executive Vice Chancellor Erik Skinner as acting chancellor while the search continues for a successor to Jack Scott, who is retiring at the end of this week. The Board has scheduled a special meeting on Sept. 20 to interview finalists for the post and hopes to announce the new chancellor by the end of September or sooner.

Scam artists posing as students or stealing identities from other people illegally obtained more than $770,000 in financial aid and loans via California community colleges and online schools, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Jackson Community College’s (Mich.) participation in the U.S.-Brazil Connect Internship Program has earned it a mention in a national community college publication, the Community College Times.