Community Colleges in 29 States to Pilot New Accountability System

/PRNewswire/ -- The nation's community colleges are taking a major step forward in redefining what "success" means for their institutions with the naming this week of 40 pilot colleges to test drive a new Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA), a national system designed to provide accurate data, operational transparency, and the ability for colleges to benchmark student progress and completion data against peer institutions.

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), in collaboration with the Association of Community College Trustees and the College Board, is developing the VFA, with funding from Lumina Foundation for Education and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The pilot colleges include 37 institutions, two state-wide systems and one multi-college district in 29 states. (Complete list follows.) Starting in mid-January 2011, the VFA pilot colleges will test a series of custom metrics that community college professionals developed over the last several months. The project fills what community college advocates have seen as a void in measures appropriate to the unique two-year college mission.

"Many traditional measures of institutional effectiveness don't work well for community colleges," said Walter G. Bumphus, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). "For example, most are pegged to full-time students, and the majority of community college students attend part-time. Our overarching goal is to develop measures appropriate to our mission that clearly tell students and policy makers how we're doing."

VFA pilot colleges will work from a draft technical manual developed by four VFA working groups, a technical committee, and a national steering committee made up of veteran research experts and educators from within the college community. (See link to VFA website for a list of participants.) Project leaders are developing the VFA in stages so that they can release and test core measures for which there is broad consensus on technical definitions and available data. Additional measures will be proposed as the participants report outcomes and assess how well they gauge institutional effectiveness.

"Pilot testing is a critical part of developing the VFA," said Kent Phillippe, AACC's associate vice president of research and student success and director of the VFA initiative. "We want to learn from the pilots the utility of the measures and feasibility of reporting this data for all types of community colleges."

Late in January, AACC will make available all the resources provided to the pilots so that any institution will be able to calculate the proposed VFA measures, understand the pilot testing process and learn more about the VFA. Added to the pilot testing, AACC will develop mock-ups for what could be built as the VFA data collection and display tool, and share the preliminary designs during the AACC annual meeting and via virtual meetings in the second half of 2011.

Pending outcomes of the pilot testing, reaction to the VFA among AACC member institutions and future funding, a full-scale roll-out to the nation's close to 1,200 community, junior and technical colleges could take place starting in 2012.

"The Obama administration and others are focused on greater numbers of student completions and demonstrable measures for how we gauge student success. VFA is the community college response that says, 'We accept that challenge,'" Bumphus added.

Pilot colleges are: Baltimore City Community College (Baltimore, MD), Bevill State Community College (Jasper, AL), Bunker Hill Community College (Boston, MA), Burlington County College (Pemberton, NJ), Central Community College (Grand Island, NE), College of Lake County (Grayslake, IL), College of Western Idaho (Nampa, ID), Community College of Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA), Dallas County Community College District (Dallas, TX), DeKalb Technical College (Clarkston, GA), Flathead Valley Community College (Kalispell, MT), Fox Valley Technical College (Appleton, WI), Genesee Community College (Batavia, NY), Greenville Technical College (Greenville, SC), Hudson County Community College (Jersey City, NJ), Independence Community College (Independence, KS), Jackson Community College (Jackson, MI), Kentucky Community and Technical College System (Versailles, KY), Lane Community College (Eugene, OR), Louisiana Community and Technical College System (Baton Rouge, LA), Mid-Plains Community College (North Platte, NE), Milwaukee Area Technical College (Milwaukee, WI), Montgomery College (Rockville, MD), Montgomery County Community College (Blue Bell, PA),Norwalk Community College (Norwalk, CT), Oklahoma City Community College (Oklahoma City, OK), Parkland College (Champaign, IL), Passaic County Community College (Paterson, NJ), Pima County Community College District (Tucson, AZ), Pitt Community College (Winterville, NC), Raritan Valley Community College (Somerville, NJ), Renton Technical College (Renton, WA), Rochester Community and Technical College (Rochester, MN), Salt Lake Community College (Salt Lake City, UT), Tidewater Community College (Norfolk, VA), Waubonsee Community College (Sugar Grove, IL), Wenatchee Valley College (Wenatchee, WA), Western Iowa Tech Community College (Sioux City, IA), Western Nebraska Community College (Scottsbluff, NE), and Western Wyoming Community College (Rock Springs, WY).

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Georgia State named to Presidential Honor Roll for Community Service

Georgia State University students, faculty and staff spent 59,040 hours serving the community through various projects during the 2007-2008 school year.

For their exemplary service, Georgia State was honored on Feb. 10 with a place on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.

“It’s a big honor to be recognized for our services,” said Lovell Lemons, director of Georgia State’s Office of Civic Engagement. “Hopefully, this recognition will inspire others to want to be involved and make a difference.”

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service learning and civic engagement.

In total, 635 schools across the nation were recognized. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of factors including the scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

Roughly 20 percent of Georgia State students, faculty and staff participated in many community service projects last year, including the Colonial Athletic Association Blood Challenge and Hands on Atlanta Day. Georgia State also shined in its service to youth in disadvantaged circumstances through programs like JumpStart, After-School All-Stars Atlanta, Upward Bound and the DREAMS Institute.

“College students represent an enormous pool of idealism and energy to help tackle some of our toughest challenges,” said Stephen Goldsmith, vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the Honor Roll.

The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is presented during the annual conference of the American Council on Education. A full list of schools honored is available at www.nationalservice.gov/honorroll.

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Emory Receives Presidential Award for Community Service

Emory University has been honored with the 2008 Presidential Award for General Community Service -- the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. Emory is one of only three colleges and universities to earn this annual distinction from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

"We are humbled and energized by this recognition of our efforts," says Emory University President James W. Wagner. "Receiving this honor affirms Emory as a destination university for students who seek an education beyond the traditional classroom setting. We know that bright young scholars want to make a difference today, and trust that in the future they will continue to be drawn to educational settings like Emory. In turn, Emory is committed to providing our students with a world class education and the sense of responsibility to become scholar-citizens addressing opportunities to improve the human condition in myriad ways."

Emory -- one of the first schools to receive the Carnegie Foundation's "Engaged Institution" designation -- has made major investments in recent years to better prepare students to be engaged scholars with the critical thinking, hands-on experience and ethical leadership development to make a difference in the world.

The Presidential Award for General Community Service recognizes "the breadth and quality of an institution’s community service, service learning and civic engagement programs.” Three other colleges and universities received recognition for individual programs. View a full list of the 2008 Honor Roll, which includes several Atlanta-area schools.

Doing Well by Doing Good

In 2008, Emory students completed nearly 150,000 hours of service with more than 200 community partners on projects related to poverty, homelessness, chronic disease, medical services and environmental conservation throughout Atlanta and beyond.

Emory's Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP) helps coordinate these efforts and is establishing a continuum of engaged scholarship and service for all students. A capstone program is the yearlong Community Building and Social Change Fellowship, a national model for advanced service learning.

"Emory has made a significant commitment to enhance community-engaged scholarship, learning and service as part of its strategic plan. We are delighted that the vision, aspirations and initial successes of that effort along with Emory's longstanding tradition of civic engagement have earned the university this national recognition," says Michael Rich, OUCP co-founder and director.

In particular at Emory, students at all levels, from undergraduates to graduate students in law, medicine, humanities and theology, engage in service and research that provides direct and tangible benefits to metro Atlanta communities, Rich says.

Highlights of Emory's engaged scholarship and service in 2008, compiled by OUCP, include:

A full third of all students across Emory’s nine schools took part in academic service learning, including law students who provided 26,076 hours of pro bono work for local clinics and agencies.

More than 80 percent of Emory seniors reported serving as volunteers while in college.
In metro-Atlanta and statewide, Emory programs, mentors and tutors enrich the learning of K-12 students in more than 120 public schools, with a particular emphasis on science education.

Emory's outreach also includes hundreds of new immigrants now on the path to U.S. citizenship thanks to students who devoted 2,500 hours coaching English language learners of all ages.
Ninety-two percent of Oxford College students engage in community service, contributing nearly 10,000 hours of service in just one year.

Nearly all students in nursing and theology are required to complete community-based service work as part of their degree program.

National Trends Point to More Service

Recent studies have underlined the importance of service learning and volunteering to college students. In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave more than 297 million hours of volunteer service, according to the corporation’s Volunteering in America 2007 study. Using Independent Sector’s estimates of the value of volunteer time, college student volunteering was worth more than $5.6 billion last year. The U.S. Department of Education found a growing service-learning trend, with more schools offering service learning as part of their curriculum.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. The corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. For more information, visit www.nationalservice.gov.

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Carnegie Foundation Selects Mercer for its National Community Engagement Designation

Mercer University has earned national recognition from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for its commitment to community engagement, the foundation announced today.

Mercer is the only college in Georgia, and one of just 119 in the United States, to be selected by the foundation for its 2008 Community Engagement Classification. Mercer joins 76 other institutions identified in the 2006 selection process, including Emory University and Spelman College, the only other Georgia institutions to achieve the classification to date.

“Strong community engagement has long been a Mercer University hallmark,” said President William D. Underwood. “Robust service-learning programs, a culture of volunteerism and major institutional investments in the neighborhoods surrounding our campuses have all contributed to this designation by the Carnegie Foundation. This kind of national recognition is further validation of the institution’s commitment to community engagement.”

The foundation invited colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement to apply for the classification, previously developed and offered in 2006 as part of an extensive restructuring of The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Unlike the Foundation’s other classifications that rely only on national data, this is an “elective” classification – institutions elected to participate by submitting extensive documentation describing the nature and scope of their engagement with the community. This approach enabled the foundation to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities.

This year, 147 institutions applied to document community engagement. Applications were reviewed by an expert advisory team and 119 were successfully classified as community engaged institutions. Mercer was one of only 51 private colleges and universities in the United States to achieve the designation.

“I have long known and taken pride in the commitment to service and community outreach exhibited by Mercer faculty and staff, but even I was surprised by the depth and broad scale of service-learning and community engagement revealed through the process of preparing our Carnegie application,” said Dr. Mary Alice Morgan, co-chair of the application committee and senior vice provost for service-learning. “This designation truly testifies to the ethics of community engagement that are a distinctive part of the Mercer mission and ethos.”

"Mercer has a long tradition of community engagement and learning based on that engagement and is proud to join the ranks of other fine institutions in this new classification, including Duke University, Tulane University and Emory,” said Dr. Peter Brown, chair of the application committee and senior vice provost. “With this national recognition, we will be able to more closely measure our progress and impact, as we pursue our goals of increased community engagement under the University’s 10-year strategic plan.”

In addition to its decades-long commitment to service-learning, which engages students in community service as part of their coursework, Mercer has a long history of partnering with organizations throughout the communities it serves to leverage University resources to advance those communities. Mercer’s partnerships with dozens of agencies and organizations bring in millions of dollars in grant funding to help the community, engage students in service-learning and aid in community-focused faculty research.

Because of those commitments, the foundation selected Mercer for the highest category, “Curricular Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships,” a combination of the two other categories within the classification. In Georgia, only Emory University shares this designation. According to the foundation, to be categorized in curricular engagement, schools must engage in teaching, learning and scholarship that addresses community needs, deepens students’ learning, enhances community well-being and enriches the scholarship of the institution. The outreach and partnerships category describes two different but related approaches to community engagement. The first focuses on the application and provision of institutional resources for community use with benefits to both campus and community. The latter focuses on collaborative interactions with community and related scholarship for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration and application of knowledge, information and resources. Twenty-one schools were selected in only one category, including Spelman College, which is in the curricular engagement category.

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Georgia Southern University Students Spend Winter Break Serving Community

Sixteen Georgia Southern University students will spend the first days of their winter break revitalizing historical sites in Liberty County.

The Winter Break Service-Learning Trip is an opportunity for students to give of themselves during this holiday season. Students will work at five sites this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday doing light construction and maintenance while learning about the historical significance of each location. The students will serve at the following Liberty County locations:

Geechee Kunda Cultural Center: This is a museum created to preserve an African-based culture that still exists in coastal Georgia.
Dorchester Academy: The academy was once a school for freed slaves and a retreat for Martin Luther King, Jr. It now serves as an African-American history museum.
Fort Morris: This American Revolutionary fort now serves as a museum.
Seabrook Village: This living history museum provides re-enactments of post-Civil War life in coastal Georgia.
LeConte-Woodmanston Botanical Garden: This nature preserve was founded by the LeConte family.

This trip is sponsored by Georgia Southern University’s Office of Student Leadership and Civic Engagement which provides students opportunities to volunteer and serve the community in a variety of ways.

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Volunteers Needed to Participate in Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program

The Georgia Center for Child Advocacy in collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina is looking for 130 adults who work with children and youth from schools, faith-based organizations or youth-serving organizations to help evaluate “Stewards of Children,” a child sexual abuse prevention training program for adults. This could include anyone who works with children in a variety of capacities including youth groups and little league sports teams. This 3-year, multi-site, federally-funded study will determine the effectiveness of the instructor-led and online versions of the training program.

Participants should live or work within I-285 and be between the ages of 18-65. The study will take anywhere from 1 to 3 ½ hours, and CEU credits are available. Participants will receive the actual training and materials at no cost. Compensation is provided to participants. To learn more about how to participate, call Nedra Manners, Study Site Coordinator for GCCA, at 770-942-2391 or email her at nedra.manners@innerharbour.net.