Enhancing Performance: A Best Practices Guide for Innovations in Community Colleges is a collection of essays from community college leaders across the country addressing challenges facing todays community colleges and providing practical, successful solutions their institutions have implemented. Some of the essays address foundational issues, including the role of innovation, strategic enrollment management, and campus safety strategies on the future of community colleges. In the essays, leaders suggest ways campuses can create opportunities for intentional student-faculty connections, provide revitalized advising services, and support the needs of marginalized student populations. The essays also address the role of community colleges in promoting civic engagement, responding to community crises, and addressing critical need. Each essay challenges us to delve deeper into the issues and find workable solutions. The essay authors are community college leaders who are alumni, faculty, or advisory board members in the doctoral program in Community College Leadership (DCCL Program) at Ferris State University (Michigan).

Sandra J. Balkema, PhD, is the dissertation director for the Doctorate in Community College Leadership (DCCL) program at Ferris State University. In this role, she supports the graduate students throughout their dissertation journeys, from identifying research topics and approaches and selecting a dissertation chair and mentor, to defense and subsequent publishing of the final dissertation.

Roberta C. Teahen, PhD, is the director for the Doctorate in Community College Leadership (DCCL) program at Ferris State University and serves as a faculty member and dissertation advisor. Teahen has served in multiple faculty and leadership roles at a community college and at Ferris State University, where she was most recently associate provost. She is a long-time champion of community colleges and takes special pride in mentoring others and encouraging innovation and excellence in higher education.

Introduction: Leadership Matters!

Roberta C. Teahen

SECTION I. CREATING AGILE INSTITUTIONS

Chapter 1: Innovation and the 21st Century Community College

Paige M. Niehaus

Chapter 2: The Power of Connection

Joianne L. Smith and Ruth Williams

Chapter 3: Strategic Enrollment Management: SEM and the Art of Enrollment Maintenance

Daniel Herbst

Chapter 4: Could Your Campus Be Safer? Comprehensive Support and Safety Strategies that Work

Cheryl M. Hagen

SECTION II. MEETING STUDENTS NEEDS

Chapter 5: Fearless Leaders: Improving Student Persistence through Advising Transformation

Kris Hoffhines

Chapter 6: Institutional Responsiveness to African American Male College Students (AAMCS): Are Minority Male Initiatives Working?

Michael A. Couch II and Tina L. Hummons

Chapter 7: Cracking the Barriers for African American and Latinx Students in STEM Education

Abdel-Moaty M. Fayek

Chapter 8: College Students in Poverty: Examples of Collaborative Efforts and Interventions

Armando Burciaga and Saundra Kay King

SECTION III: ENGAGING STUDENTS AND FACULTY IN LEARNING

Chapter 9: Thinking Civically: Delta College Champions Community Engagement

Kimberly M. Klein

Chapter 10: Persistence and Completion: Solutions for the Classroom

Carmen Allen

Chapter 11: Emulating Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA): A Model to Sustain Student Learning Outcomes Assessment

Bruce Moses

SECTION IV: RESPONDING TO CHANGING NEEDS

Chapter 12: Innovation in Challenging Times: Community College Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Brenda Sipe

Chapter 13: Student Success During COVID-19: A Case Study from Eastern Iowa Community Colleges

Naomi DeWinter

Chapter 14: Creating Institutions of Excellence

Lori Sundberg

Chapter 15: The Beliefs Agenda: An Extraordinary New Paradigm for College Completion

Lee Ann Nutt

Afterword

Sandra J. Balkema

Appendix

About the Authors and Editors