​Summer 2014: That’s the target for the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) to have a game plan to implement its recommendations to help an additional 5 million students attain a credential by 2020.

At the association’s board of directors summer retreat last week, AACC President and CEO Walter Bumphus outlined his strategy to develop an “action plan” that community colleges can follow to implement the recommendations of AACC’s 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community College, which issued its report and recommendations in April.

About nine working groups—or “implementation teams”—each focused on one of seven broad recommendation areas (there will be some overlap) will meet to draft ways to help community colleges adapt the recommendations. They will discuss barriers as well as promising practices. (The working group on workforce and economic development already held its first meeting in late July.)

The teams will then forward their reports to a steering committee, which will draft its own report to Bumphus. He would use it as a blueprint for AACC’s plan.

A thorough approach

Similar to how he developed the association’s 21st-Century Initiative, which began with an AACC listening tour at colleges across the country, followed by a blue-ribbon 21st-Century Commission that used feedback from the tour, heard from other experts and debated what colleges will need over the next decade to help students succeed.

Those two initial phases took a little over two years, which was critical in order to hear from member colleges and other stakeholders. Bumphus said he wants to take the same methodical approach in drafting a strategic plan.

“We want to be able to demonstrate that we will move the needle forward at community colleges,” he said at the AACC retreat.

Matching up

AACC board members supported the approach, noting that the 21st-Century recommendations represent a major paradigm shift in how community colleges will deliver education and training.

How is your college using the 21st-Century report?A growing number of college presidents are using the 21st-Century report to frame discussions with their trustees about their colleges’ short- and long-term strategic plans. They are using the report to see how their institutions align with its seven recommendations, which range from dramatically improving college readiness and closing the workforce skills gap, to refocusing the college mission and targeting investments strategically to create new incentives.

In many cases, colleges are already ahead on several of the recommendations, but it’s more of a piecemeal approach rather than a comprehensive plan, according to board members.

At the retreat, leaders from several community colleges and other organizations detailed promising practices at their institutions that align with the 21st-Century recommendations. Rod Risley, executive director of Phi Theta Kappa, noted how his organization is encouraging students to earn degrees and other credentials through campus-wide pledges. Colleges in some states, such as Nebraska and New York, are planning statewide events to drum up awareness among students, faculty, businesses and other community stakeholders about the importance of college completion.

Photos from the AACC board of directors retreat

Rey Garcia, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, outlined a statewide initiative in Texas to revamp developmental math. (One of the AACC recommendations is to double the number of students who complete developmental education programs and progress to successful completion of related freshman-level courses.)

All 50 community college districts in Texas are participating, with the strategy being to innovate on scale rather than in using a pilot-project approach, he said.

Garcia added that various stakeholders are providing ideas to improve developmental math, including faculty. In fact, 148 math instructors—representing all the community colleges in the state— participated in the first meeting and offered recommendations to college presidents, he said.

Securing support from faculty was a topic of discussion during much of the AACC retreat. Board members noted that it is critical to include faculty input for AACC’s overall strategic plan, as well for individual college plans.

Promising practice

The board also heard from college presidents who provided an overview of what they are doing on their campuses that could serve as national models. Kenneth Ender, AACC board member and president of Harper College in Illinois, noted his college determined what its specific number of student completions would be to help reach the national 2020 goal. For Harper, it’s 10,604 more graduates by decade’s end. The number is so central to the college’s mission that the figure is prominent on the college website, along with a link to a page that shows the college’s progression toward its goal. (So far, Harper is ahead of its annual targets.) 

Reaching such goals will require leaders to think innovatively about reaching students. At Harper, about a third of new degrees are awarded to students who were a few credits short of a degree, but for various reasons they dropped out, Ender said. The college has been seeking those students out to encourage them to finish their credentials.

In addition, Harper has dropped its $60 graduation fee, which Ender said was a barrier for some students to complete paperwork to receive their degree.