The Center's Mission
The Center for Community College Student Engagement, a research and service initiative of the Community College Leadership Program in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin, provides important information about effective educational practice in community colleges. The Center assists institutions and policymakers in using information to promote improvements in student learning, persistence, and attainment.
Surveys & Related Projects
The Center conducts a collection of national surveys:
- Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)
- Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE)
- Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE)
- Community College Institutional Survey (CCIS)
The Center also hosts several related initiatives:
- Initiative on Student Success
- Student Success BY THE NUMBERS Initiative
- High-Impact Practices Initiative
Quick Links
Here are some other links you might find helpful:
For more information about Center projects, select one of the tabs in the upper-left corner of the website.
The Center website will experience some down time May 21st and 22nd due to server maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Students Speak – Are We Listening? Center Releases New Book Highlighting the Student Voice
Who best can inform community college leaders' understanding of what really matters in promoting student success? Since 2002, the Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) has highlighted student voices as the best source of information about students' own experiences.
In a newly released book and companion DVD, Students Speak – Are We Listening? Starting Right in the Community College, authors Kay McClenney, CCCSE director, and Arleen Arnsparger, project manager of the Center's Initiative on Student Success, bring forth student voices to help community college leaders better understand student goals and expectations, students' sense of their own readiness for college, their concerns as they begin college, and how their college experiences shape either their success or the lack of it.
The DVD accompanying the book presents video clips from the Center's student focus groups that bring students' stories to life and will help prompt conversations about student success among college faculty, administrators, staff, and community members.
The DVD also contains a focus group toolkit college leaders can use as a guide for conducting student focus groups on your own campus.
Students Speak – Are We Listening? Starting Right in the Community College is available through the Center. For more information and to reserve copies, please contact Zach Garcia at garcia@cccse.org, 512-232-6458.
We invite you to experience community college through students' eyes and voices!
Attend the 2012 Center Workshop!
The 2012 Center Workshop, devoted this year to the collective effort of identifying and promoting high-impact educational practices in community colleges, will offer several hands-on breakout sessions offered by Center staff and college colleagues, as well as a plenary luncheon with Vincent Tinto.
Registration for the workshop is required for lunch and refreshments. Walk-in registration may be available, but seating is very limited and lunch is not guaranteed. Please review the agenda. Registration closes Wednesday, May 23.
The workshop is an annual training and networking event hosted by the Center and held concurrently with the NISOD Annual International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence.
Center Releases National Report, a First Look at Promising Practices in Community Colleges
A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for
Community College Student Success is the first in a series of reports by the Center for Community College Student Engagement
exploring 13 promising practices for strengthening community college student engagement and success.
A Matter of Degrees presents key findings from a multi-year Center initiative, Identifying and Promoting High-Impact Educational Practices in Community Colleges, and brings together survey responses from entering students, experienced students, faculty, and institutions. Data sources include results from recent Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE) and Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) administrations, the SENSE and CCSSE 2011 special-focus items on promising practices, and the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE) three-year cohort, plus preliminary findings from the newly launched Community College Institutional Survey (CCIS).
Reclaiming the American Dream: Report Calls for Significant Redesign of Community Colleges
The American Association of Community Colleges recently released a report entitled Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation's Future — A Report from the 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges. The report examines significant challenges facing community colleges and calls for dramatic changes, outlining seven specific recommendations for reimagining the institutions and the systems within which they work. Kay M. McClenney, Director of the Center for the Community College Student Engagement, serves as co-chair of the Commission.
Articles:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Wall Street Journal
Inside Higher Ed
Community College Times
Community College Week