Urban Community College Research Articles

Building and Patching a Pipeline: Establishing Viable Pathways from 2-Year Institutions to Graduate School for Aspiring Mental Health Professionals

Students at 2-year colleges who wish to enter the mental health professions, particularly students of color in urban community college environments, often lack opportunities for internships and experience-building programming relevant to their field. Some programs targeting such students do exist, but little research has been performed on these models. In addition, while pipeline programs in 2-year college settings often focus on successful transitions to senior colleges, many students in such programs also seek to eventually enter graduate school. The purpose of this case study is to bridge this research gap by focusing on a community college-based peer support and psychoeducational outreach program in the northeastern United States, serving as a career development internship for aspiring mental health professionals. Qualitative data in the form of student participant feedback was analyzed to determine the impact of the program on their experiences later in their educational careers. Results from this qualitative analysis indicate the substantial importance of such a program to the successful academic progress of its student participants, providing insights into how pipeline programs can accommodate student preparation and support, not only toward successful senior college transition, but also specific to graduate school program entry.

Pedagogical and Institutional Responses to Student Precarity Illuminated by COVID-19

Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: This paper seeks to understand the withdrawal patterns of students enrolled in an urban community college during the COVID-19 outbreak, by focusing on what students voiced about what made college-going so challenging for them from spring 2020 to fall 2021. What was revealed about their decisions to withdraw offers some important considerations for those who work with first-generation, economically and academically fragile college students throughout the higher education landscape. To contextualize our findings, we draw on some of the writings of educators who have shaped our own pedagogical practices. Research Design: We interviewed 14 students on Zoom—some in small focus groups and others one-on-one—who had withdrawn from at least one course up to an entire semester. Conclusions or Recommendations: Our findings suggest that we take stock of the pre-existing precarities of many students that have been illuminated, carefully balancing what students have voiced about what they need with the very real structural constraints that make “good teaching” difficult to sustain. A salient theme, one that we had not expected, is what students expressed about what good teaching is to them and how much it mattered. This raises not only important pedagogical questions but also structural ones. How do our institutions create the conditions (or not) for good teaching, as defined by students?

Teaching Sociology of the Arts at an Urban Community College During the Pandemic: Reflections on Structure, Agency, and Community Engagement

This conversation outlines an undergraduate research project that I designed and implemented during the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021 in an online Sociology of the Arts class at Queensborough Community College in New York City. The project involves original student research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on three community-based arts organizations and the communities they serve. To showcase the problems and possibilities that emerged in assigning the project, I engage the contrasting and complementary lenses of Pierre Bourdieu’s structurally based theories of culture, capital, and social reproduction on the one hand and the pedagogical strategies that emerge from humanistic sociology on the other. The conversation concludes with reflections on issues faced by educators committed to teaching an interdisciplinary and humanistic sociology at the community college level and the ways experiential learning strategies can help students develop community connections and agency through the arts.

Infusing Quantitative Reasoning Skills into a Differential Equation Class in an Urban Public Community College

This research centers on implementing Quantitative Reasoning (QR) within a differential equations course at an urban public community college. As a participant in the Numeracy Infusion for College Educators (NICE) faculty development program, I sought to integrate QR skills into my curriculum. Students in the course were introduced to QR goals using real-world data sets, particularly those related to population growth, which aim to enhance their understanding, sharpen their problem-solving abilities, and cultivate a positive perspective on the real-world relevance of mathematics. Preliminary findings indicate varied levels of QR skill development among students. These results underscore the potential benefits of infusing QR into mathematics courses and provide insights for educators looking to adopt similar strategies in their teaching.

Awareness and Perception of Plant-Based Diets at an Urban Community College

ABSTRACT Despite well-documented health and environmental benefits of consuming minimally processed plant-based foods, research on how to educate and promote a plant-based diet (PBD) for diverse community college students is lacking. Understanding awareness and perception of a PBD is important prior to the creation of dietary interventions. A survey including a food frequency questionnaire and novel scales to gauge awareness and perception of PBDs was developed and implemented. Results demonstrated students were generally aware of PBD and its key components, recognized associated health benefits, had a positive perception of a PBD, yet few were actively adherent and demonstrated confusion with PBD terms.

Community College Student Perceptions of Faculty-Led Office Hours

ABSTRACTThere is general agreement among faculty members that office hours are underutilized by students. However, the reasons students at a large, diverse, urban community college do not seek out extracurricular help from their faculty members are as varied as the student population itself. This study surveyed students concerning the reasons they may choose, or not choose, to attend their instructors’ office hours. Based on student feedback and input, changes to the structure of office hours, broadly applicable to faculty in other fields and at other schools, are suggested.

The urban community college: An overview

AbstractUrban community colleges have been studied primarily from a case study perspective, often highlighted by doctoral students conducting research at their institutions. Little of this scholarship, however, has been translated into the base of literature, as less than 5% of the citations in the largest search engines are focused on urban community colleges. The article begins by exploring what “urban” means, primarily using the complex and evolving definition from the US Census Bureau. Then it explores this case study research on urban community colleges' mission, organization, students, and faculty. The article concludes with a strong recommendation for identifying and making available rigorous data to guide a more systematic approach to studying urban community colleges.

Adaptive leadership in urban community colleges: Meeting new challenges through new ways of thinking

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic illuminated the need for urban community colleges to utilize an adaptive leadership approach to thrive during times of uncertainty. Adaptive leaders encourage team members to address problems through new ways of thinking to meet organizational goals. The community college sector, especially institutions in urban environments, has utilized adaptive leadership throughout its history to best meet the needs of its students. It is against this background that urban community colleges adapted to the COVID‐19 pandemic by reconceptualizing career programs to be completed in virtual spaces, hosting COVID‐19 testing and vaccination centers on campus, and ensuring that students had access to faculty and staff in a digital learning environment. In this chapter, we highlight the importance of adaptive leadership in urban community colleges and provide examples from urban community college leaders on how they utilize adaptive leadership to meet new challenges.

Urban community college pathways and partnerships: Modern workforce development, dual enrollment, and non‐degree credential programs

AbstractUrban community colleges fulfill a critical role in metropolitan areas. These institutions are often large by design, with campuses in various communities and neighborhoods so that the institution may fulfill its open access mission across a metropolitan area. This article addresses three emerging initiatives that enable the urban community college to fulfill its open‐access mission—modern workforce development, dual enrollment, and non‐degree credential programs. While these programs or initiatives may seem separately unique and even siloed, they are essential pieces of a comprehensive strategy that the modern urban community college should implement to ensure open access to a diverse population of students while simultaneously addressing critical business and industry needs. Careful design and management of these programs are essential to fulfilling the urban community college's evolving mission in modern society.

Governing towards democracy: Challenges and opportunities of trustees at urban community colleges

AbstractThe goal of this article is to enhance understanding and appreciation of the current and potential role of trustees in urban community colleges. In working to make sure students are successful, trustees face numerous challenges in implementing high‐impact policies and practices that center student success. This article establishes a node connecting an understudied topic (governance), and an understudied group (trustees), within an oft‐forgotten context (community colleges). The focus is on the influential role that urban community colleges play in serving educationally, economically, and ethnically marginalized populations and how the trustees must necessarily govern with these groups in mind.

Leadership perspectives on diverse student needs at three urban community colleges in the south

AbstractUrban community colleges provide access to postsecondary education's most diverse and underserved student populations. Students enrolled in these institutions often face academic, financial, and social challenges that shrink their odds of success. Leaders from three urban community colleges in the Southern United States shared the importance of addressing these students’ unique needs to improve student outcomes. Relationship building, reimagining institutional efforts, and seeking campus‐wide commitments were cited as ways that administrative leaders can remove both tangible and intangible barriers thwarting underserved students’ success.

Students of color experiencing barriers in the financial aid process at an urban community college: A critical race policy analysis

AbstractThe financial aid process extends beyond once a student submits the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application. Scholars have found that the financial aid process can be cumbersome, especially for minoritized students. What is unclear in the literature are the additional hurdles students encounter to obtain financial aid. I conducted interviews with community college students and financial aid staff at an urban community college to better understand these difficulties in the process. I employed critical race policy analysis and whiteness as property to contextualize how financial aid is structured to deter Students of Color from accessing financial aid benefits. The findings allude to communication issues between financial aid staff and students, and students seeking assistance with their financial aid from other campus departments.

Social movements and activism: Reexamining scholarship to center the urban community college

AbstractIn this article, the authors focus on the intersection of the study of activism and the urban community college. Leveraging the Actors, Contexts, Tactics, and Strategies (ACTS) Framework, the authors (re)examine activism scholarship that illuminates similarities and differences between 2‐ and 4‐year institutions. Ultimately, the article concludes with implications for practice and future research that can deepen and sustain the position of community colleges as contributors to the rich legacy of urban activism.

How long will it take? Commuting time and differential access to an urban community college

AbstractIn this chapter, we examine how spatial access, the extent to which individuals must traverse space or time to reach a community college, varies by time of day across socio‐demographic groups. We specifically measure spatial access as the time required to travel to a community college by public transit, a common mode of transportation for many urban residents. Our findings revealed substantive variation in travel times between socio‐demographic groups suggesting varying levels of spatial access. They also highlight how public transit infrastructure, residential patterns, and community college locations interact to influence how long students must travel to access postsecondary opportunities.

New Directions for Community Colleges: Understanding the complexities and roles of urban community colleges

New Directions for Community Colleges: Understanding the complexities and roles of urban community colleges

The resiliency of urban community college students: Implications for practice

AbstractCommunity colleges are vital sources of educational and economic opportunities in urban areas. This chapter provides readers with a review of the research on students served by these institutions. While the experiences of this population are similar in many ways to those of community college students across the country, the influence of their urban environment makes their lived experiences quite distinct. This chapter highlights that although a great deal of emphasis in the literature has been placed on the economic, educational, personal, and social struggles faced by urban community college students, resiliency is also a prominent positive characteristic of this population. The chapter concludes with recommendations for evidence‐based strategies that affirm these students’ cultural capital and are proven to be effective approaches to enhancing the resiliency and success of urban community college students.

Book Review: The impacts of green space on student experience at an urban community college: An exploration of wellbeing, belonging, and scholarly identity, Naidoo, V.

Book Review: <i>The impacts of green space on student experience at an urban community college: An exploration of wellbeing, belonging, and scholarly identity</i>, Naidoo, V.

“We’re Not All Chemists in Here – We’re Just Trying to Get to the Next Level”: Examining Out-of-School Literacies, Identity, and Disciplinary Literacy

ABSTRACT College science courses pose complex challenges to students. Textbooks are dense and laden with textbook features that may be confusing to students unfamiliar with science texts. Courses are especially challenging because they presuppose a certain degree of disciplinary literacy, or understanding of the knowledge and practices possessed by those who create that knowledge within a specific discipline. This study explores how students’ disciplinary literacy in the sciences is negotiated by students’ prior experiences, background knowledge, and science identities. Analyses of interviews from four students enrolled in an introductory chemistry course in an urban community college reveal that neither knowledge nor identity presuppose one another, instead coexisting in the dynamic and complex process of disciplinary literacy development.

From the bottom up: Marginalised students’ narratives of constitutionalism at an urban community college in the United States

From the bottom up: Marginalised students’ narratives of constitutionalism at an urban community college in the United States

Transforming developmental education at community colleges through equity‐minded leadership

AbstractThe corequisite support model is a promising developmental education reform effort that is helping students transition into college‐level coursework more quickly. The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on the critical leadership that has enhanced student success in corequisite courses and hold promise in enhancing equity within developmental education. The findings presented in this chapter are based on data from a multi‐year, mixed‐methods research project conducted at Urban Community College (UCC, a pseudonym) in Texas. We utilize equity‐mindedness as a framework for understanding and operationalizing critical leadership at the community college. We focused not on students’ academic abilities, but what faculty and administrative leaders are actively doing to support students in corequisite courses. We specifically draw attention to the exceptional leadership practices of faculty as instructors and administrators who are effective at facilitating success among racially minoritized students and students from low‐income families who are placed in developmental education.