The following list of programs is updated often, so keep an eye out for new links, and please send an email to the editor if you find a link to be broken or misdirected, or to suggest a program not on the list.
Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count
Advanced Technological EducationThe Lumina Foundation for Education launched this initiative to increase success for the growing number of students—particularly low-income and students of color—for whom community colleges are the first point of entry into higher education.
Center for Workforce and Economic DevelopmentThe National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program provides grants to improve and expand educational programs to prepare skilled technicians to work in the high-tech fields that drive the U.S. economy. The program is Congressionally mandated and focuses on undergraduate and secondary school education. AACC hosts an annual ATE project directors' conference and sponsors an ATE mentoring program for community colleges.
Diversity, Inclusion and EquityThe Center for Workforce and Economic Development brings together community colleges, offices of economic development, workforce boards, labor market entities, and other community organizations to improve the economic prosperity of business, workers, and communities. The Center provides technical assistance on collaborative practices, labor market analysis, and performance analysis in order to promote more integrated and interactive practices.
Health Professions Education CenterAACC promotes increased access and success for the diverse community college population by securing increased federal and private support for colleges, and provides opportunities, resources, and information to improve student success, including persistence, retention, program completion, and transfer.
International Programs & ServicesAACC's Health Professions Education Center (HPEC) focuses on supporting and broadening the community college role in the health professions workforce. HPEC represents community colleges in health professions policy-making efforts and provides support to AACC member colleges in their own efforts focused on health professions workforce at both the national and state levels.
Make It Personal: College CompletionAACC's Office of International Programs and Services assists community colleges in promoting global awareness, responsibility, intercultural understanding, and engagement among students, faculty, staff, and decision makers. It also seeks to raise the recognition of the community college role in global education among key constituencies, nationally and internationally.
MentorLinksMIPCC is a three-year demonstration program to improve student retention and success by addressing pregnancy planning and prevention and healthy relationships. Colleges are creating curriculum-based strategies, using service learning as a focus, to improve student retention and provide resources that students need to complete their college goals.
Plus 50 InitiativeMentorLinks, developed with the support of the National Science Foundation, is designed for community colleges that could benefit from technical assistance and networking opportunities to improve undergraduate education that prepares technicians in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Service LearningThe Plus 50 Initiative benchmarks and showcases the most current and innovative programs at community colleges to engage the 50+ learner. Through the initiative, community colleges create or expand campus programs to engage the 50+ population in learning, training or retraining programs, and volunteer, civic, or service activities.
Sustainability Education and Economic Development (SEED) InitiativeThe goals of AACC's Community Colleges Broadening Horizons through Service Learning initiative are to build on established foundations to integrate service learning into the institutional climate of community colleges and to increase the number, quality, and sustainability of service learning programs through an information clearinghouse, data collection and analysis, model programs, training and technical assistance, publications, and referrals. The project is supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service and its Learn and Serve America program.
Trades in Focus Community College InitiativeAn initiative of the American Association of Community Colleges and ecoAmerica, SEED aims to advance sustainability and green workforce development practices at community colleges by sharing innovative models and resources and building the capacity of community college administrators, faculty, and staff to grow the green economy. SEED was launched in the fall of 2010.
Voluntary Framework of AccountabilityTrades in Focus is a collaborative initiative between AACC and W.W. Grainger, Inc., a leading broad-line supplier of facilities-maintenance products. The program is designed to promote awareness about the importance of industrial-trade professions, to highlight the corresponding training and skills that community colleges offer, and to underscore the opportunities for good jobs that industrial skilled-trade programs provide. Trades in Focus, in tandem with Grainger’s Tools for Tomorrow scholarship program, seek to provide students with greater access to technical education and skilled trades jobs.
The Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) is the first national system of accountability specifically for community colleges and by community colleges. Leadership in the sector is defining the most appropriate metrics for gauging how well our institutions perform in serving a variety of students and purposes. The VFA will provide opportunities for colleges to benchmark their student progress and completion data against peers and to provide stakeholders with critical information on the colleges.
All program descriptions are copied directly from program websites and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the editor or other contributors to Developmental Education.org.