Andrews, K., & Wooten, B. (2005). Closing the gap: Helping students identify the skills employers want. NACE Journal, 65(4), 41-44.

Kennesaw State University in Georgia has addressed the gap between how colleges prepare students and the skills expected of new graduates by employers through two specific programs. These initiatives are the Online Career Portfolio (OLCP) program and the Center for Student Leadership's Leaders IN Kennesaw (LINK) program. The OLCP allows students to analyze their college and work experiences online to determine the skills that they have acquired, while LINK is a multi-tiered student leadership development program aimed at developing ethical leadership knowledge and skills, promoting student success, and enhancing the holistic development of students.

Bailey, T.R., Jenkins, D., & Leinbach, D.T. (2005). Is student success labeled institutional failure? Student goals and graduation rates in the accountability debate at community colleges. CCRC Working Paper No. 1, October 2005. New York: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center.

Community college graduation rates are low. Yet community colleges are open-door institutions serving many students with academic, economic, and personal characteristics that can make college completion a challenge. And many community college students do not enter with the goal of earning a degree. While individual students may feel that their experience at a community college is a success, unless it culminates in a credential or transfer to a four-year institution the enrollment is counted as a failure for the college. This working paper tackles these issues in the debate on whether graduation rates are a fair and valid measure of community college effectiveness. We indicate how these rates can be useful as a relative measure and as a guide for institution improvement, and suggest other ways of measuring student and institutional success.

Blumenthal, A.J. (2002). English as a second language at the community college: An exploration of context and concerns. New Directions for Community Colleges, 117, 45-53.

This chapter explores five concerns central to community college English as a second language (ESL) programs: the diversity within the community college ESL population, the place of ESL within the institution, employment and training issues for ESL instructors, "Generation 1.5," and financial and funding concerns.

Bragg, D.D. (2001). Opportunities and challenges for the new vocationalism in American community colleges. New Directions for Community Colleges, 115, 5-15.

This is part of a special issue on the new vocationalism in community colleges. The new vocationalism is playing an important role in community colleges. It emphasizes career clusters or pathways in fields that are integral to the new economy, takes into account that understanding the changing nature of work is important for understanding the need to enhance the vocational curriculum, is deeply rooted in an effort to better integrate vocational education in K-16 education and economic and social structures, means that more students can benefit from vocational education, encourages constructivist theories, learner-centered and project-based instructional approaches, and active teaching strategies. Initiatives that highlight reform in vocational education are tech prep, work-based learning, articulated vocational education and applied baccalaureate degree programs, certification, and contract and customized training. Other aspects of the new vocationalism are discussed.

Crosby, O. (2002). Associate degree: Two years to a career or a jump start to a bachelor's degree. Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 46(4), 2-13.

Associate degrees open doors for millions of Americans looking for careers or advanced academic study. An associate degree is a college degree awarded after the completion of about 20 classes that either prepares students for a career following graduation or allows them to transfer into a bachelor's degree program. The writer discusses types of degrees, associate degree careers, choosing a career, choosing a school, and how to prepare for an associate degree. A table lists the 2001 earnings of full-time workers aged 16 and older by the highest level of educational attainment.

Grubb, W., & Lazerson, M. (2005). Vocationalism in higher education: The triumph of the education gospel. The Journal of Higher Education, 76(1), 1-24.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a widely circulated Education Gospel achieved worldwide influence. Communicating the good word about education, the Gospel's essential vision describes: The Knowledge Revolution (or the Information Society, or the Communications Revolution, or the High-Tech revolution) has changed the nature of work, shifting away from occupations rooted in industrial production to occupations associated with knowledge and information. This transformation increased the skills required for new occupations and updated the three R's; driving work skills in the direction of "higher-order" skills including communications skills, problem solving, and reasoning the "skills of the twenty-first century".

King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2007). Lost and found possible selves: Goals, development, and well-being. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 14(1), 27-37.

How do the goals we once cherished but can no longer pursue relate to maturity? The authors asked adults who have experienced challenging life transitions to describe the life goals they once sought but no longer do and those goals that motivate their lives now. The authors examined how adults' views of their lost and found goals relate to maturity. In this article, they share some of the results of these studies with a special eye toward understanding the role of possible selves in adult development, the tradeoffs that might characterize maturity, and the issues facing adults who have the opportunity to grow through important challenging life experiences.

Lohman, E.M. (2005). The effectiveness of occupational-technical certificate programs: Assessing student career goals. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 29(5), 339-355.

A study investigated an alternative method of evaluating the effectiveness of occupational-technical community college courses. Data were obtained from 98 individuals who failed to complete occupational-technical courses at an urban community college. Findings revealed that the effectiveness of community-colleges' occupational-technical certificate programs can be evaluated by means other than counting numbers of certificates awarded. In this instance, evaluation of effectiveness was based on whether courses fulfilled the goals of students and institutions by providing them with entry-level skills into the workforce or the ability to advance in their careers.

Lucas, M., & Hunt, P. (2002). Career exploration of academically dismissed students: A developmental view. College Student Retention Research, Theory & Practice, 3(4), 319-333.

This study was undertaken to investigate identity, self-esteem, and career development of 164 academically dismissed college students. The results showed that these students needed career information, but that they did not view a systematic exploration of career opportunities as useful. Degree of identity development correlated positively with career development variables for upper class level students, but not for the first year students. Suggestions are presented regarding support for this population.

McCormick, L. (2003). Coping with workfare: The experience of New York City's community colleges. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. 27(6), 531-547.

This article examines the extent to which urban community colleges are able to develop new programs for welfare recipients under welfare reform. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (PRWOS) grants states flexibility in determining the mix of education/training and workfare activities they will allow. Some states support education along with recipients' search for jobs. Others, like New York, emphasize workfare, rather than education. According to a survey and case studies of New York City's community colleges, I find that although the policy environment has dampened new programming for welfare recipients among these institutions, some exemplary programs have emerged. In these programs, staff has been successful serving welfare recipients through three mechanisms: staff activism, alternate pedagogies, and flexible organizational structures that house related non-credit-bearing workforce development activities.

Nauta, M.M., Kahn, J.H., & Angell, J.W. (2002). Identifying the antecedent in the relation between career interests and self-efficacy: Is it one, the other, or both? Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49(3), 290-301.

Social-cognitive career theory (R.W. Lent, S.D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994) postulates that changes in self-efficacy precede changes in interests, but the cross-sectional nature of most research has precluded the examination of temporal precedence in the relation between these variables. The authors assessed college students' career interests and self-efficacy at three separate times over the course of an academic year and examined the temporal nature of the relationship using a cross-lagged panel design. Structural equation modeling with observed variables generally revealed a reciprocal relationship between the two constructs over time, but the temporal precedence was inconsistent across time periods. The authors discuss these results in the context of A. Bandura's (1986) self-efficacy theory and provide recommendations for theory refinement and career counseling practice.

Parson, S.L. (2001). Using quality school principles to provide excellence in adult education. International Journal of Reality Therapy, XXI(1), 27-31.

This article is about a study skills class taught at a college with the stated mission of providing education that prepares students with skills to meet the job market needs of Indiana. This paper describes experiences related to diversity issues, a subject that affects both the classroom and the work world of today. The argument is made for the use of Quality School concepts as a basis for an adult learning paradigm that can be applied in practical ways to prepare the student to excel in and out of the classroom.