The six American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) leadership competencies that were developed in 2003 and 2004 are broad enough to cover most situations that leaders will experience. However, there are situations in which one or more of the competencies emerge as the most important. As situations change and as new challenges emerge,…

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) has been a constant advocate for greater diversity in community college leadership. Along with other work to encourage diversity in leadership, the AACC brought together community college practitioners and scholars to develop a competency framework for community college leadership,…

The anticipated increase in chief executive officer retirements along with an identified shortage of qualified candidates to fill these vacancies has created a high level of concern throughout the community college system. To address this situation, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) board of directors approved the "Competencies…

To better understand the influence of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) competencies on practice since their formation, six community college chief executive officers (five presidents and one chancellor) were asked to reflect upon the enduring relevance of the competencies. They were also asked specifically how they acquired…

Student success in transfer from a community college to a university is dependent on several key characteristics of any articulation and transfer system: structure, policies and processes, and the accessibility of the system design. The public institutions of higher education in Arizona have designed and implemented a transfer and articulation…

In recent years, a convergence of several forces--increased legislative involvement in higher education, governmental and philanthropic pressure to increase postsecondary degree and certificate production, demands for a highly trained workforce, and fiscal belt-tightening at colleges and universities across America--has resulted in efforts to…

For more than two decades, the vision of a statewide system of student mobility has driven Ohio's articulation and transfer initiatives, which guarantee that specific courses will be applied to degrees and certificates at public two- and four-year postsecondary institutions. This chapter outlines how Ohio developed a comprehensive, guaranteed…

The previous six chapters have focused on particular aspects of the processes involved in implementing transfer associate degrees in various states. In this chapter, the authors synthesize that information by presenting an ideal state-level organizational model for implementing these degrees and describing the various constituencies involved in…

This chapter provides an annotated bibliography of articles about the effects of transfer associate degrees and related statewide transfer and articulation policies. It also provides links to transfer degree legislation in several states.

For the past 45 years, New Jersey community colleges have helped thousands of students pursue higher education to gain skills, earn college credentials, and better their lives. Today, New Jersey's 19 community colleges enroll over 400,000 students across 70 campuses, fulfilling community colleges' traditional core mission: granting access to…

How did Washington create a clear organizational structure that assigns responsibility for each aspect of transfer policy to the group that is best suited to manage it (Kisker, Wagoner, and Cohen, 2011)? In this chapter, the authors will introduce the agencies, organizations, and entities that have played a key role in gathering information,…

Transfer education centering on the liberal arts declined relatively beginning in the late 1960s with the expansion of vocational education. But the distinctions blurred as courses that matched university programs in business and health fields grew. By the 1970s more than half all associate degrees awarded were to students from occupational…

"Surprise" is a word and concept seldom associated with higher education policy or with one of its most demanding projects, the development of a statewide articulation and transfer program. Legislators who mandate articulation enterprises and officials who care for these behemoths present themselves as thoughtful managers who cherish meticulous…

In 2010, California's then-governor Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1440, called the "Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act" (Padilla, 2010), into law. This bill mandated that the state's 112 community colleges (CCCs) develop a new type of associate degree, an "associate degree for transfer," that specifically prepares a student for admission…

The effective integration of planning to include bricks, bytes, brains, and bandwidth (the 4Bs) represents an opportunity for community colleges to extend their capacity as knowledge-intensive organizations, coupling knowledge, technology, and learning. Integration is important to ensure that the interplay among organizations, agents within them,…