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The majority of health behavior research involving college students in the United States has focused on 4-year college students. Two-year or community college students have been less studied, although a significant proportion of U.S. undergraduates, primarily those from disadvantaged socioeconomic and/or racial/ethnic background, are enrolled in community colleges. Thus, there is a need to enhance health behavior and health promotion research among community college students. This study systematically reviewed 42 published, peer-reviewed health behavior studies conducted among U.S. community college students in order to determine the current state of research in the area with regard to behaviors studied, research designs used, recruitment and data collection strategies practiced, rates of student participation, and characteristics of the participants represented. Findings identified the methodological limitations of current research and suggested optimal recruitment and data collection methods suitable for various research needs. Findings are discussed in the context of enhancing health behavior research among U.S. community college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the narration of developmental disability through interviews between participants, researchers, and members of community organizations serving the disabled population, in the context of university-community collaborations. These kinds of collaborations are extremely important for researching vulnerable or hard-to-reach populations, which often face lower levels of physical, mental, and social well-being as a consequence of shame, stigma, or discrimination. Community collaboration can thus be invaluable for reaching members of marginalized populations, who may be difficult to locate or otherwise avoid contact with outsiders, because it provides members of a research team with local knowledge of a population, a means of accessing possible participants, and legitimation for the project. I suggest, however, that although the researcher's externality may initially invite skepticism toward the investigation from participants, it can also benefit them by providing a forum for catharsis. Based on a pilot study I conducted with a community advocacy organization for the disabled, I note that some participants expressed an appreciation for being able to discuss certain emotions and experiences during interviews with an outsider who was not involved as a caseworker. I conclude that the presence of a trusted community advocate and a researcher at an interview affects a participant's narrative by providing a safe space for participants to voice their stories to outsiders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the life histories of two "nontraditional" college students—Demetrius and Christine—as a means to explore the concept of "outsiderness" and its impact on undergraduate student success. Through multiple interviews and observations conducted over the course of a full year, the article first outlines the life circumstances that compelled both students to leave formal education during adolescence. Then, the article details how Demetrius and Christine managed to return to college despite formidable personal and financial challenges. Although both students demonstrate tremendous promise in their college-level coursework, they are wary of their own college readiness, primarily due to their "nontraditional" educational trajectories and a lack of clarity about instructors' expectations. Hence, the article concludes by considering the forms of support that might help similar nontraditional students succeed in first-year coursework, and eventually graduate from college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing trend in New Zealand/Aotearoa for health research involving Māori (the indigenous people) to be conducted in partnership with Māori communities, iwi (tribes), hapū (sub-tribes) and whānau (extended families). Achieving excellence in indigenous health research which meets the standards both of the indigenous communities who partner in the research and the standards set by the academy, is often a complex and demanding objective. In this paper two Health Research Council Māori Postdoctoral Fellows explore the various challenges and tensions they have faced as researchers committed to undertaking excellent indigenous research in community-based settings, while at the same time growing their professional careers as academic researchers. The paper begins by briefly introducing the researchers and summarising the critical success factors they have shared in their respective academic journeys and the values they hold that have led to their involvement in community-based research. Two case studies of engagement in community-based research are then presented to illustrate the types of challenges faced by indigenous researchers who work both with communities and within university settings. The first case study is an iwi-based health and social services research centre while the second involves growing a research culture within an urban Māori community setting. The concept of indigenous research excellence is explored with particular reference to excellence as described by the communities themselves and to the criteria for excellence used by the Health Research Council of New Zealand to assess Māori health research proposals. The authors argue that while tensions do exist in trying to meet differing standards of excellence, managing the interface between these differing standards is a crucial activity undertaken by indigenous academic health researchers. The paper concludes by outlining the lessons and implications for the academy and the community of attempting to meet a set of dual aims, noting that while both aims can be realised, this requires researchers to skilfully balance their obligations to career and to community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The community college is both important and controversial. It now enrolls 36 percent of all students in college. But there is much debate over whether it aids or hinders its students' socioeconomic attainment. This paper aims to measure the community college `s effects and to explain how those effects are produced. In the first section, I critically synthesize research comparing the effects of community colleges and the effects of other postsecondary institutions on educational attainment and economic success. I conclude that baccalaureate aspirants entering community colleges attain less educationally and economically than comparable students entering four-year colleges. But community-college entrants seeking only subbaccalaureate vocational training seem to get more education than if they had entered a four-year college. However, the research allows no conclusion on which type of institution best promotes the economic success of subbaccalaureate aspirants. In the second section of the paper, I develop a model of the factors that impede the educational attainment of community-college entrants who aspire to a baccalaureate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures of political involvement, perceptions of political cleavages, and political beliefs are developed from interviews conducted in 1962 with formal leaders and voters in four middle-sized Wisconsin cities. Leaders and voters are divided into those with some college education and those with less than college. The relative effect of holding a leadership position versus having some college education upon political attitudes and behavior is the key problem of the paper. Both leadership and education are found to be independently related to all attitudes and behavior analyzed. Leadership is more important than education with regard to the "quantity" of political involvement; education is more important than leadership with regard to the "quality" or "direction" of political beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study on the effect of college proximity upon rates of college attendance among over 20,000 high school graduates of 1966 in the states of Illinois and North Carolina. Results of multivariate dummy-variable regression analyses question both the assumption that college proximity per se is an important factor in college-going, and the often stated belief that the establishment of public junior colleges will help to equalize educational opportunity by providing higher educational access to able children of low status families. In both Illinois and North Carolina, only persons of lower ability appeared to gain in attendance when living in a community with a public junior college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on various research papers related to business management. "Faculty Based Advising: An Important Factor in Community College Retention," states that community college students are an at-risk group because of their lack of preparation and lack of a firm connection to the institution. The data provided in this paper revealed a stronger sense of connection to the institution by the Arts and Humanities students than by the general student population and a higher rate of retention than exhibited in previous semesters. The paper entitled "Faculty and Administrative Support for Strategic Planning: A Comparison of Two- and Four-Year Institutions," examines faculty and administrator support for strategic planning activities at two-year and four-year colleges and universities. Another paper explores the overlooked influence of campus environment in community college attrition. After decades of focusing primarily on student-based measures of attrition, the article proposes that the influence of the community college environment might be key to understanding student attrition.

It is clear that there is a wide range of arguments that reflect varying degrees of disaffection with the university worldwide. A great deal of understandable effort is directed at the impact of gtobalisation, especially the way it is making universities engage in academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). The alternative arguments emphasise democratic internal governance and external community service driven by the goals of social equity, democratic values, and concern for the public good. Currie and Subotsky (2000) referring to the South African situation, caution that without exploring the basis upon which reconstructive community development can be institutionally operationatised, the twin goals of global and redistributive development will remain unsolved. They point out the over-investment in accounting for the new organisational and epistemological features of the 'market' university, policy and academic debates that are silent on the corresponding features of the reconstructive development function of higher education, especially in light of the widening disparity between conventional academic practices and societal needs. This paper argues that the depth of that chasm between universities and society reveals stories of death, humiliation, denigration, racism, and epistemological disenfranchisement. The new social contract to be contemplated should take into account the factor of amnesia and the concomitant factor of the relevance of historical memory. Community engagement, reconstituted in the twenty-first century, should be capable of leading the countries of the Third World into new conceptual and methodological beginnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DEMONSTRATING PERSISTENCE and resilience, increasing numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander early childhood teachers are gaining university qualifications. This paper explores factors that support and constrain these students on the path to their degrees. Investigated through a cycle of interviews and focus groups, otherwise perceived as taking time to chat and yarn, the data speaks through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. Graduates from a cohort-specific three-year degree program, and several of their colleagues from an earlier program, share their reflections. The importance of family, community and infrastructure support is apparent, as well as recognition of complexities of 'both ways' learning (Hughes, Fleet & Nicholls, 2003) and cultural boundary crossing (Giroux, 2005). Highlighting salient factors is critical in efforts to create and maintain conditions in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders can gain university qualifications and extend their professional contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Midwest Central University¹ has a population of 3,500 students, predominantly working class and 95 percent White. The racial composition of the university suggests, and rightly so, that the students have minimal contact with Asians, Blacks, Hispanics/La tin Os, Indians, Middle -Easterners, and people of mixed race, even though there is a predominantly black community about two miles from the campus. Given the lack of opportunities for cross -racial inter- action among the student body, unless there is some intervention built into the curricula, students can complete their studies at the college with their limited ideological views on race and members of the aforementioned racial groups intact If we have any hope of attaining a fair and just society, this cycle must be interrupted in the classroom. In this paper, I describe methods that I have used in my teaching and discuss my classroom experiences in an effort to provide some ideas for catalyzing white students to critically examine their own stance on race as well as their particular posftion of privilege in the racial hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are increasingly faced with central city decline; anchored by their assets—primarily real estate—and, sometimes, institutional missions, many have felt threatened by neighborhood deterioration. In response, several universities have intervened in neighborhood decline over the last two decades, initiating revitalization and physical improvement strategies. Since 1996, the University of Pennsylvania has been a leader in this work, investing in the West Philadelphia Initiatives (WPI) to address safety, vacancy, and disinvestment concerns. This study utilizes Census data to evaluate changes in the character of University City between 1990 and 2010. Analysis suggests that, contrary to popular belief, the neighborhood improved but did not gentrify. The story, however, does not end there. While the neighborhood did not gentrify as a whole, the portion served by the Penn-sponsored public K-8 school experienced drastic change. As the blocks inside the school’s catchment grew wealthier, more homogeneous, and more educated, these upward trends masked continued socioeconomic decline in the remainder of the neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the importance of grit and resilience in the success of college students and the role of supportive communities in promoting individual success. Topics include how individual grit and resilience can help in surpassing adversity, trauma, and tragedy, the negative and positive effect of gritty behavior, and the need for students to be gritty and resilience to succeed in life.

The East Rogers Park Neighborhood History Project, a community-based initiative, represented an effort to build upon community engagement with its history and to sensitize students to the fact that the locality was not just there for their consumption and use but rather represented an opportunity for engaged learning that diminished barriers between the community and the students. It encouraged local residents to think more broadly about their world and to appreciate its ties to the larger metropolitan community. It introduced students to reflective practice, a centerpiece of public history training. And, it provided an opportunity to nurture an appreciation for stewardship among the students, as they not only drew from but gave back to the community. As a collaborative project, it highlights some of the opportunities and challenges that attend the more recent enthusiasm for engaged learning and civic engagement. While this project did not involve all elements of the community, the pedagogical approach utilized in this initiative and the issues relating to community-based projects raised by it can inform current discussions about engaged learning and scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Personal identity formation represents a core developmental challenge for adolescents and young adults. Because much of the identity literature focuses on college students, it is necessary to conduct a detailed inquiry into the ways in which specific commitment and exploration processes develop over time for college students and for employed individuals. Two samples (456 college students and 318 employed individuals) were used to identify identity status trajectories over time and to examine external correlates of these trajectories (i.e. depressive symptoms, self-esteem, identity centrality, community integration, and sense of adulthood). Similar identity trajectories emerged in both college students and employed individuals. Four of these trajectories corresponded to Marcia's identity statuses. In addition, apart from the 'classical' or troubled diffusion trajectory, a carefree diffusion trajectory was also obtained. Whereas individuals on an identity-achieved pathway fared best in terms of the outcome measures, individuals in the troubled diffusion trajectory fared worst in terms of self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and community integration over time. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored whether community college websites are a useful medium for providing knowledge relevant to degree completion. Ten community students used one of three community college websites to answer 10 questions about occupational degree programs. A facilitator asked participants to think aloud while using the website to answer these questions; their responses were video-recorded and coded in terms of correctness of answers and types of usability problems encountered. The findings suggest that participants frequently encountered problems with finding and understanding information needed to understand degree selection and completion. The content analysis of these problems yields several suggestions for improving the usability of community college websites for answering common questions about degree completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a growing body of research on people’s views of community policing, there have been a very few cross-national studies, especially concerning nonwestern countries. In order to compare and contrast students’ views on community policing partnerships, 274 Nigerian and 484 U.S. college students were surveyed. Ordinary least squares regression analysis of the data revealed that the majority of respondents supported a partnership between the community and the police, with the Nigerian students reporting slightly higher levels of support than their U.S. counterparts. Both attachment to conventional society and general confidence in the police were positively related to students’ support for community policing partnerships in both nations. A belief that the police should be civil, a perception that the police were effective, and support for community oversight of the police were significant predictors of support for community policing partnerships among the U.S. students but not the Nigerian students. A perception that crime was a problem, a view that the public should support the police, and academic level had nonsignificant associations with community policing partnership support for both groups of students. Gender had a significant relationship with support for community policing partnerships among the Nigerian students (men were higher in their support), while age had a positive association among the U.S. students. Punitive orientation had a significant negative association with attitudes toward community policing among the U.S. students but was not a significant predictor among the Nigerian students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As one of the oldest community–university partnership programs in the United States, the University of Illinois’s East St Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) has evolved in an ongoing effort to balance stakeholders’ needs, broadly defined to include community partners as well as the university and its involved faculty, students, and staff. While ESLARP’s mission has remained consistent – briefly stated ‘matching needs and opportunities in the community with resources and opportunities on campus for teaching, research and service for social justice’ – what constitutes action research within this partnership has been broadly framed and has evolved due to circumstances on campus and in the community. Based on analysis of projects over the 23-year period and the personal reflections of two participants, this article seeks to reflect on the evolution through what we see as three phases – Neighborhoods First, Technical Assistance, and Engaged Research – in order to gain insights into the negotiations required to sustain a university–community partnership program. Refraining from judgment as to what model might be better, we reflect on the change in five core area: community organizing, direct assistance, popular education, mode of research, and the university’s core teaching mission. We acknowledge the different but important contributions of each phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Protestant Reformation swept across Central Europe in the early-sixteenth century, leaving cities divided into Evangelical and Catholic camps as some instituted reforms and others remained loyal to the Roman Church. In offering a new explanation of the Reformation, we develop a theory that identifies ideologically mobilized students as bridge actors—that is, agents of religious contention who helped concatenate incidents of local insurgency into a loosely organized Evangelical movement by bridging structural holes. Building on existing literature, we offer a novel way to measure the influence of contending religious movements through university enrollments; we propose that the institution of reform can be partially explained by the varying degree of exposure that cities had to Evangelical activist and Catholic loyalist university students. Based on statistical analysis of a novel dataset comprising cities in the Holy Roman Empire with a population of 2,000 or more from 1523 to 1545, we find support for the role of university students as bridge actors linking critical communities at universities to arenas of urban contention. The greater a city’s exposure to heterodox ideology through city-to-university ties, the greater its odds of instituting the Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Assessment of the Branch Out alternative break program at the College of William and Mary provides valuable evidence of the positive impact of sending our students out into the world to serve their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research ethics committee (REC) oversight of studies conducted through the community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach. The Protecting the Hood Against Tobacco (PHAT) study is cited which involved human subjects and the problems between PHAT researchers and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) REC on the issue of community versus the individual. It is concluded that open dialogue can help researchers and RECs in meeting challenges and improving collaboration on CBPR research.

The article discusses research on perspectives of researchers regarding collective and community co-authorship in conducting community-based participatory (CBP) indigenous research. The study conducted phone interviews with Canadian university researchers on how they conduct indigenous community research and the CBP approach. Results showed overarching themes from the analysis including requirements for shared authorship with individuals and community partners and methods of acknowledging research contributions.

Many of the democratizing opportunities provided by community colleges are diminished in the eyes of policy makers by inadequate rates of success. In particular, large proportions of students who enter community colleges do not persist for longer than a semester, complete a program, or attain a credential. This review critically examines academic and policy research in search of explanations, emphasizing what is known about challenges stemming from three levels of influence: the macro-level opportunity structure; institutional practices; and the social, economic, and academic attributes students bring to college. It provides examples of how factors operating at each level affect rates of success at key times, including the initial transition to college, the experience of remedial education, and persistence through credit-bearing coursework. The article also discusses potential and ongoing reforms that could increase rates of community college success by addressing one or more areas of influence (the macro, the institutional, or the individual). It is concluded that increasing success in the open-access, public 2-year sector requires reforms directed at multiple levels and cannot be achieved with either student- or institution-focused incentives alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Universities increasingly cast themselves as engaged institutions committed to building collaborative relationships with community-based stakeholders. Although promoted in terms of empowerment, community engagement can reproduce or accentuate problematic social relations. This qualitative case study of a campus-community partnership provides a critical analysis of community engagement. The data reveal how the ambiguities of "community," including the politics associated with defining and representing local groups, complicate these initiatives. The analysis extends existing conceptualizations of community and community engagement by (a) illustrating how a campus/community divide serves as a rich source of critique and (b) demonstrating the need to reshape community engagement around a critical understanding of community and community representation. In addition to these contributions, this study provides a set of guidelines for future community engagement efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community college leaders serve as linchpins for framing meaning on campus. The current pressures on institutions (given declining financial resources, demands for accountability, changing faculty ranks, and societal need for new knowledge) require presidents to juggle multiple priorities while presenting a cohesive message to campus constituents. This study examined how the presidents at nine community colleges communicated with college constituents and framed the meaning of those communications to help the college community make sense of ongoing change. Interviews with the presidents, as well as with key administrators, faculty members, and staff members, revealed that the presidents used emissaries to disseminate information in four distinct ways. Study findings also showed that the presidents framed the meaning of their communications through visionary framing (emphasizing future possibilities), step-by-step framing (emphasizing the immediate next steps required to achieve institutional goals), or connective framing (emphasizing dialogue and collaborative learning). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a variety of work currently going on across the country in newly created hybrid spaces to more closely connect campus courses and field experiences in university-based preservice teacher education. It is argued that the old paradigm of university-based teacher education where academic knowledge is viewed as the authoritative source of knowledge about teaching needs to change to one where there is a nonhierarchical interplay between academic, practitioner, and community expertise. It is argued that this new epistemology for teacher education will create expanded learning opportunities for prospective teachers that will better prepare them to be successful in enacting complex teaching practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Hispanic Higher Education is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using a longitudinal, state-wide dataset, this study assessed the effect of financial aid on the persistence of full-time students in associate's degree programs at the Oklahoma community colleges. Three financial-aid sources were examined: the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program (OHLAP), Pell grants, and Stafford loans. Results indicate that these forms of financial aid, alone and in combination, were predictors of persistence measured in terms of the student progressing from 1st-year status to 2nd-year status. The effect of financial aid, however, was moderated by ethnicity and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined how witnessing community violence influenced social support networks and how these networks were associated with male-to-female intimate partner violence (IPV) in ethnically diverse male college students. The authors assessed whether male social support members themselves had perpetrated IPV (male network violence) and whether female social support members had been victimized by intimates (female network victimization). The results indicated an association between community violence and male network violence; both factors were significantly associated with higher levels of IPV. Furthermore, the relationship between community violence and IPV was partially mediated by male network violence. Additionally, the results indicated a moderated relationship such that male participants who reported the highest levels of exposure to community violence and male network violence were at highest risk for IPV. However, this relationship did not hold across all ethnicities and races. The findings suggest that the mechanisms associating community violence, networks, and IPV are multifaceted and differ across ethnicity and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New England Consortium (TNEC) is a university-community partnership that since 1987 has delivered health and safety training for hazardous waste operations and emergency response (HAZWOPER) workers. Through two decades of the relative loss of power by the labor and environmental movements and subsequent reductions in state support for worker health and safety, this selective history of TNEC demonstrates its ability to sustain a worker health and safety movement in New England. The evolution of TNEC's partnership process and the principles and policies by which it operates have helped to resolve several critical conflicts and strengthen its working relationships. Partnership dynamics are explored within their political and economic contexts and the need of member organizations to balance fiscal solvency with political objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Sociology is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As an Assistant Professor in Community Economic and Social Development (CESD) at Algoma University College, Ontario, Canada and a member of Asopricor Holistic Association, Cundinamarca, Colombia, respectively, the authors have engaged in an ongoing dialogue regarding the inherent contradictions of forming a North—South, university—community research collaboration. For those who have engaged in and/or read about action research, the questions addressed in this article are familiar: How can we maintain respectful relations between us? How can we ensure the project respects local knowledge? How can we ensure the ownership of the new knowledge created by the project remains with the collective? How can we balance the power dynamics between ourselves, and between the organizations involved? What the article offers, is a dialogical reflection on how these challenges are being met within this particular project. It examines the development of a common set of values and beliefs that emerge as the researchers attempt to engage within the `ethical space' (Ermine, 2005) necessary for the development of a respectful collaboration. The article explores and develops a series of questions for researchers to consider as they struggle to find common ground where such an exchange, crossing cultural and power divides, can occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important challenge that community-university partnerships face is how to maintain themselves in the face of changing goals, priorities, and funding. Partnerships often form as a result of some sort of "spark:" an incident, perhaps, or the identification of a shared need or common concern. Often, external funding is sought to provide the majority of resources for the establishment of a partnership and for the implementation of the partnership's action plan. Whatever external funding is obtained is typically of short duration. The funding will not continue over time. And usually the funding comes with stipulations about allowable partnership approaches; inevitably the priorities of one funder will differ from those of another. These issues of the maintenance of partnership in the face of shifting funding and priorities are ones that confront most community-university partnerships. This article examines these issues through the lens of an environmental justice partnership that has existed for nearly a decade, has undergone many changes in who is involved, and has operated with funding from many different sources, including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those of us attempting to develop truly equal partnerships with communities and community organizations, using the method of community-based research, encounter many barriers. These barriers revolve around who sets the schedule, who determines the labor pool, who controls the product, and who gets the funding. In this article, a case study shows how those barriers exert themselves, and evaluates the success of strategies to challenge those barriers. It ends with a set of recommendations for changing university overhead policies, developing university quality control practices, refining the university RB process, institutionalizing a flash seminar structure, and training community members to control the research relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores language assessments and policies that Latino students and others from immigrant backgrounds face as they graduate from high school and attempt to enter community colleges. Focusing on California, the authors examine the assumptions that underlie these assessments and policies. They argue that the policies signal different conceptions (and misconceptions) about the nature of bilingualism and the needs of U.S.-educated language minority students pursuing academic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Turkish society has traditionally valued volunteering, it has not fully utilized the potential of such contributions. This is because the country lacks professional volunteer organizations, and limited research has evaluated Turkish volunteers. The main aims of the current study were to describe the personal characteristics of Turkey's community volunteers and to determine the influence of various motivational factors on their decision to serve in the Community Volunteer Foundation. The participants were a randomly selected sample of 175 community volunteers from different regions of Turkey. Findings showed that the average community volunteer was a 22-year-old, male college student pursuing a career in engineering, economics, or business. The most important motivational factors for volunteering were altruism, a filiation, and personal improvement (in that order). Completing an orientation course before working as a volunteer was considered useful. Recognition, by contrast, was not considered to be a vital factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines four classes of college students involved in service learning projects. Each class researched and wrote an investigative story that was published. The majority of students said they believe the projects provided them with the skills required for investigative reporting, increased their motivation to study, and enhanced their desire to make a positive difference in their community. The projects also prompted two foundations to award $150,000 in grant money to support similar work in the future. The study suggests that investigative reporting provides a viable approach for service learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides six shorter articles which focus on how educator Arthur M. Cohen influenced his students in life and in the ways in which they think about community college education. The articles are written by some of Cohen's former students. These former students are all professional scholars or college level educators. Each of the authors focused on the influence Cohen had over their lives, both during their time as a student and afterwards. Cohen's beliefs regarding community college education are mentioned in the articles.

Three studies examined the relationship between fertility, as indexed by day in cycle or salivary estradiol levels, and reported motives for sexual intercourse. Data from university and community samples in both cross-sectional and repeated-measures designs showed that sex-for-intimacy motives are endorsed significantly less by women who are relatively more fertile or show higher salivary estrogen levels. Sex for enhancement, self-affirmation, and partner approval also declined, although the data were less consistent. The remaining motives (coping and power) showed no consistent patterns across fertility status. Results suggest that sexual motives are rooted partly in woman's biology and are discussed in terms of plausible evolutionary mechanisms that might promote female ‘choosiness’ at midcycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community service learning offers students the opportunity to cross socially constructed and epistemological borders of power and privilege, allowing them to come into contact with groups of people who are different from themselves and to learn in different ways. Peer facilitators, undergraduate student instructional leaders who guide others through these encounters, often experience especially powerful border crossing experiences, both by virtue of their service site supervision and their seminar leadership roles. Using their own writings and interviews, we explore some of these peer facilitators' border crossing experiences in a community service learning course at a large midwestern research university. We focus on how peer facilitators encounter various issues as they guide discussion of the experiences students have at community service sites in reflective seminars. The findings suggest that such border crossing experiences can encourage peer facilitators to reflect on their own social group identity and position within the larger social structures of privilege and oppression, and on their own learning styles and engagement in the higher educational environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and critically examines the collaborative research process between an urban university's research center and its community partners. The authors link the theoretical framework of collaborative research, participatory action research, and critical pedagogy to their personal experiences involving two collaborative research projects in which they participated. The projects were designed to foster engagement of youth in civic life through social research and to raise awareness of social inequality and injustice. The authors critically examine various phases of research with a particular focus on the following challenges: recruitment and attendance issues, development, language and methods issues, and the university and funding agency-driven push for a "product." The authors point out the strengths and weaknesses of the collaborative approach and problematize issues not visible in the final research reports. Finally, strategies for enhancing the quality of the collaborative research involving youth are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of the Black Metropolis Model (BMM) of service learning are analyzed and illustrated in this article to explain how to "put the learning in service learning." There are many soup kitchens or nontransforming models of service learning where students are asked to serve needy populations but internalize and learn little about the service in their service learning. The results of a successful transforming model of service learning are presented to demonstrate how to put the learning in service learning for all students. The model integrates community institutions, residents, university faculty, staff, and undergraduate and high school students in hands-on service learning experiences that document uneven changes in the Black Metropolis of Chicago. The results reveal that the information and knowledge acquired by students transforms student knowledge as they internalize how uneven development in housing impacts community residents and their future in the original Black Metropolis of Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unusual demographic characteristics of college towns, and the social differences that exist within student populations, have led to the emergence in college communities of several distinctive types of residential districts. Using Ithaca, New York, as an example, this study examines the origins and evolution of three such districts—the Greek-housing district sometimes called "fraternity row," the student rental area often known as the student ghetto, and the faculty enclave. Together such districts help to make the American college town a unique type of urban place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The value of university-based programs of teacher education in preparing high-quality teachers is currently the focus of increasingly contentious debate among researchers, policy makers, and media experts. To a large extent, public awareness and understanding of the work of teacher education is filtered through one or another of these lenses because direct public experience with programs of teacher education is limited. The authors developed a capstone event, termed the "Public Conversation,"for their graduate-level, Teacher Education Program as a means of introducing graduates to the community and engaging a variety of community members in substantive dialogue around significant and enduring issues related to teaching and learning in the public schools. This article reports on impacts of the Public Conversation on community members, public school professionals, and university faculty, who participated as critical friends in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article states that research on community colleges has been conducted for many decades, and for just as many years it has been ignored by community college practitioners. For purposes of this article, researchers include university professors, graduate students, and state and federal agency staff. The practitioners are community college staff, faculty, and administrators. The influence of distance from the object of study, as it relates to community college research and practice, can be illustrated graphically by reference to a map. A reason why practitioners and researchers ignore each other is that research in the universities and research and practice in the community colleges stem from different demands and expectations. University researchers formulate research questions, erect hypotheses, conduct literature reviews, describe their methods, analyze data, display findings, and conclude their reports with theoretical discussions and suggestions for further research. For community college practitioners to attend to research conducted in the university, the divide between research and practice must be bridged.

The article focuses on a national study of community college education conducted by researcher R.H. McCabe. According to the study, 41% of entering community college students and 29% of all entering college students are underprepared in at least one of the basic skills of reading, writing, and math. Since the 1980s, colleges have increasingly required placement testing to determine college readiness and offered or required developmental or remedial education for students placing below college level. College readiness involves prediction. Placement tests and other standardized measures are often used to predict students' readiness for college. Developmental education courses at community colleges help to provide underprepared students with math, reading and English, and study skills to succeed in college. Student behaviors and characteristics such as personality factors have been explored and attributed to the success of underprepared learners. In addition to recognized academic skills, participants in this study indicated that skills in time-management, the ability to apply oneself and focus on a goal, and skills for advocating for oneself as a learner are essential for college readiness.

The article presents a study related to a postmodern community college undergoing renewal. The postmodern community college is a site of expanding missions, chaotic environmental turbulence, and increasing heterogeneity both within the publics served and among organizational members. The chief purpose of the present study was to chart various institutional discourses relating to the climate at a rural community college undergoing organizational renewal. The researcher hypothesized that members of various subsystems within the institution would differ in the ways they make meaning of the signs and symbols of organizational climate. First, a valid understanding of climate within a postmodern reality may require a shift in how researchers assess and define organizational climate. Second, higher education leaders who seek to understand post-modern organization must acknowledge diversity where it exists, particularly when it engenders divergent ways of making sense of leadership behaviors and symbolic actions.

For most of their history, two separate, but related, after-school education pro- grams operated independently, coordinated by separate teams of university and community partners. When the existence of the programs was threatened, a community-university coalition formed in an effort to sustain them. This coincided with the university-community teams' joint response to a reorientation of the statewide university system `s policies on affirmative action. This article uses Cuban's framework of sustainability and cultural-historical activity theory to analyze a process of communication, collaboration, creativity, and continuing that resulted in sustaining the two programs as well as the expansion and development of multiple new programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As severe social problems persist, analysts from various sectors suggest that policies and programs should increase their sensitivity and effectiveness through collaborations among universities, communities, and political officials. A model of collaboration is presented, and the nature and importance of such collaborations are examined. The benefits, challenges, and roles of the three collaboration partners (university, community, and government) and the three stages of the collaboration process (initiation, deliberation, and implementation) are discussed in the context of a real-world application. Recommendations for future applications are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]