Two-year colleges are experimenting with supplemental instructors, databases to aid local businesses, e-portfolios to help students focus on their work, life skills for the disabled, and efforts to improve faculty diversity.
Waell Y. Abed (above, center), a "supplemental instructor" at Tidewater Community College, leads small-group study sessions for students from classes that have high failure rates. (Photograph by Tom Cogill)

Fund raising is now high on the agenda for many community colleges.

Community colleges are waking up to the potential of alumni donations and contacts.

Short, flexible study-abroad packages help two-year-college students in challenging circumstances.

Honors programs provide rich educations at affordable prices.

Internships offer a path to community-college careers.

Data on who the chief executives are and how they go about their jobs.

Commentary

Kent A. Farnsworth outlines four lessons that community colleges can learn from their for-profit competitors.
(Illustration by Jon Krause)

Community colleges are often considered far removed from controversies over academic freedom. But that, says Ann H. Franke, is a misconception.

An administrator and an adjunct faculty member describe the differences community colleges made in their lives.

• LINDA LUJAN: "I wanted to give something back."
• THOMAS M. O'CONNOR: Finding "the opportunity to turn my life around."

Donald C. Summers wonders why community colleges have been so slow to get their fund raising in gear.

Richard A. Donovan bemoans how unstable living situations can undermine the work of talented students.

Too many community-college Web sites are mazes rather than informative gateways for prospective students and their parents, says Clifford Adelman.

Joseph R. Ferrari offers tips on how faculty members at community colleges can move to four-year institutions, and why those baccalaureate colleges should welcome them.

You do community-college students no favor by underestimating them, says T. Allen Culpepper.

Bob Blaisdell loves getting to know his students through their writing.

Three community-college presidents describe how students' need for remediation has affected their campuses.

Community colleges are primed to train first responders for crises. So where's the Homeland Security support for such programs?

Four-year institutions don't have a monopoly on ambitious arts programs.

What community-college presidents earn

Views and characteristics of community-college professors

Commentary

If community colleges open access to everyone, asks George B. Vaughan, are they satisfactory to anyone?

Community colleges aren't high schools, and they aren't strip malls. So why, Gail O. Mellow wonders, do they look like them?

Up-to-date training of trustees on ethics and best practices is a worthwhile investment, says Narcisa A. Polonio.

Dual enrollment for high-school students doesn't serve them, their high school, or their community college well, says Carol P. Dougan.

Community colleges need to examine where they're getting in the way of their students' success, write Vanessa Smith Morest and Thomas Bailey.

Higher-ed systems should better coordinate transfers between two-and four-year institutions, says Deborah M. DiCroce.

Whether they're into spelunking or Renaissance music, professors incorporate outside interests into their teaching.

Baccalaureate programs undermine community colleges' mission, says Judith S. Eaton.

Community colleges should teach students equality, the dignity of work, and the importance of education, writes Sandra Schroeder. Treating adjunct faculty members better would be a mighty good start.

Bob Blaisdell takes attendance -- and takes offense that he's required to.

Research and community-college teaching are not incompatible, says Howard Tinberg.

The identity and stature of America's 1,200 community and technical colleges are in flux.

With state support diminishing, many two-year colleges are striving to diversify their sources of income. Includes tables on salaries of chief executives of the largest community colleges; a sampling of capital campaigns; and selected federal grants to the colleges.

Commentary

Diversity and innovation must be priorities in filling presidential vacancies, says George B. Vaughan.

Equity, access, balanced academic and occupational offerings, and teaching are keys to the future, write W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson.

Community colleges hate to blow their own horn -- but they should anyway, says Rob Jenkins.

M. Garrett Bauman marvels at the students who transcend chaos, poverty, and violence to better themselves.

Textbooks and classrooms can be the vehicles from fear and deference to confidence and assertiveness, writes Roland Merullo.

Two-year colleges' merits are evident in four-year colleges' complaints, says Robert M. Kahn.

In her search for a fourth teaching job, Dana A. Zimbleman gets to the interview stage, but then falters.

• Arthur Levine: Choosing among competing agendas
• Robert G. Templin Jr.: Meeting the needs of a changing society
• Christine McPhail: Staying focused on suitable missions
• John E. Roueche: More students and less money
• Henry D. Shannon: Hiring employees -- and motivating them
• Bruce Omundson: Fragmentation, Isolation, and divisiveness

By the Numbers: Data on community colleges