Iowa Lakes Community College Books

Boost student success by reversing your perspective on college readiness The national conversation asking "Are students college-ready?" concentrates on numerous factors that are beyond higher education's control. Becoming a Student-Ready College flips the college readiness conversation to provide a new perspective on creating institutional value and facilitating student success. Instead of focusing on student preparedness for college (or lack thereof), this book asks the more pragmatic question of what are colleges and universities doing to prepare for the students who are entering their institutions? What must change in an institution's policies, practices, and culture in order to be student-ready? Clear and concise, this book is packed with insightful discussion and practical strategies for achieving your ambitious student success goals. These ideas for redesigning practices and policies provide more than food for thought--they offer a real-world framework for real institutional change. You'll learn: How educators can acknowledge their own biases and assumptions about underserved students in order to allow for change New ways to advance student learning and success How to develop and value student assets and social capital Strategies and approaches for creating a new student-focused culture of leadership at every level To truly become student-ready, educators must make difficult decisions, face the pressures of accountability, and address their preconceived notions about student success head-on. Becoming a Student-Ready College provides a reality check based on today's higher education environment.

Complete the Agenda in Higher Education: Challenge Beliefs about Student Success is a bold call to action to do more than just improve college completion rates. This book is for community college board members, administrators, faculty and staff who also want to: (1) foster beliefs that will enable students to finish what they start; (2) empower students to overcome daily challenges and real adversity; and (3) transform human potential into achievement, for a lifetime. Courageous educators, foundations, associations and researchers made community colleges better than we were a decade ago. Completion rates have improved somewhat as a result, but too many students still do not finish because the Completion Agenda is incomplete. This book describes compelling reasons why a shift from a "completion-only-mindset" to the Beliefs Agenda (completion with GRIT) is critical for the future of America. It provides practical implementation methods, offers engaging teaching tactics, and proposes sensible strategies.

Develop an entrepreneurial culture with the best practices discussed inside this resource. Declining public resources, coupled with the demand that we do more with less, make it more of an imperative that entrepreneurism, flexibility, and adaptability thrive in the community college environment. Seeing how other community colleges have brought entrepreneurship and creativity to life in their programs and services will inspire your own ideas for increasing revenue and reducing costs. You will also discover how strong leaders can become collaborators, facilitators, consensus makers, and incentive providers.

The demand to innovate has become a rallying cry for leaders eager to push their institutions in new directions, but the very idea can set off a wave of skepticism and backlash. Since the 2000s, and especially in the wake of the Great Recession, innovation is now a currency of its own, a standard by which institutions and presidents are judged and even ranked. But the concept of innovating can be tricky to define, let alone put into action: meaningful change doesn’t come from using buzzwords, adopting new technology, or chasing silver bullets.

Higher education is filled with talk of innovation these days. But what does true academic innovation look like? And how can trustees, presidents, provosts, deans, and other administrators foster it on campus?

This Chronicle collection points the way. It includes case studies of efforts by private and public colleges to rethink traditional teaching; bold ideas to revamp the core curriculum and research enterprise; and a profile of Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University, a leader considered to be one of the most innovative – and controversial – today.

For the last decade and a half, many colleges have catered to millennials, but they are no longer the traditional undergraduates. Gen Z has arrived on campuses just as four-year residential institutions, in particular, are competing for a declining number of high-school graduates. Planning for this transition means rethinking strategies and priorities to create an effective educational experience for Gen Z.

Very few people rise to leadership positions without facing challenges, but the changes roiling academe today seem more complex and frequent than in previous decades. There are plenty of reasons why a college leader might need to have a tough conversation with faculty members, students, administration, or other key groups on campus. Any leader who hasn’t yet faced an existential crisis on his or her campus most likely will.

Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how--and why--disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges, and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors--and their coffers--to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they've arrived on campus. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This bracing and necessary book documents how university policies and cultures can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why these policies hit some students harder than others. Despite their lofty aspirations, top colleges hedge their bets by recruiting their new diversity largely from the same old sources, admitting scores of lower-income black, Latino, and white undergraduates from elite private high schools like Exeter and Andover. These students approach campus life very differently from students who attended local, and typically troubled, public high schools and are often left to flounder on their own. Drawing on interviews with dozens of undergraduates at one of America's most famous colleges and on his own experiences as one of the privileged poor, Jack describes the lives poor students bring with them and shows how powerfully background affects their chances of success. If we truly want our top colleges to be engines of opportunity, university policies and campus cultures will have to change. Jack provides concrete advice to help schools reduce these hidden disadvantages--advice we cannot afford to ignore.

American higher education is often understood as a vehicle for social advancement. However, the institutions at which students enroll differ widely from one another. Some enjoy tremendous endowment savings and/or collect resources via research, which then offsets the funds that students contribute. Other institutions rely heavily on student tuition payments. These schools may struggle to remain solvent, and their students often bear the lion's share of educational costs. Unequal Higher Education identifies and explains the sources of stratification that differentiate colleges and universities in the United States. Barrett J. Taylor and Brendan Cantwell use quantitative analysis to map the contours of this system. They then explain the mechanisms that sustain it and illustrate the ways in which rising institutional inequality has limited individual opportunity, especially for students of color and low-income individuals. 

"Indelible and extraordinary."--Tara Westover, author ofEducated: A Memoir,New York Times Book Review ANew York Times Book Review Editors' Choice The best-selling author of How Children Succeed returns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States Does college still work? Is the system designed just to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young Americans seeking to improve their station in life? The Years That Matter Most tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officialsscrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates. With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility,The Years That Matter Most will change the way you think--not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.  

Information on 1.5 million scholarships, grants, and prizes is easily accessible in this revised directory with more than 300 new listings that feature awards indexed by career goal, major, academics, public service, talent, athletics, religion, ethnicity, and more. Each entry contains all the necessary information for students and parents to complete the application process, including eligibility requirements, how to obtain an application, how to get more information about each award,sponsor website listings, award amounts, and key deadlines. With scholarships for high school, college, graduate, and adult students, this guide also includes tips on how to conduct the most effective search, how to write a winning application, and how to avoid scams.

The decision of whether to go to college, or where, is hampered by poor information and inadequate understanding of the financial risk involved. Adding to the confusion, the same degree can cost dramatically different amounts for different people. A barrage of advertising offers new degrees designed to lead to specific jobs, but we see no information on whether graduates ever get those jobs. Mix in a frenzied applications process, and pressure from politicians for "relevant" programs, and there is an urgent need to separate myth from reality. Peter Cappelli, an acclaimed expert in employment trends, the workforce, and education, provides hard evidence that counters conventional wisdom and helps us make cost-effective choices. Among the issues Cappelli analyzes are: *What is the real link between a college degree and a job that enables you to pay off the cost of college, especially in a market that is in constant change? *Why it may be a mistake to pursue degrees that will land you the hottest jobs because what is hot today is unlikely to be so by the time you graduate. *Why the most expensive colleges may actually be the cheapest because of their ability to graduate students on time. *How parents and students can find out what different colleges actually deliver to students and whether it is something that employers really want. College is the biggest expense for many families, larger even than the cost of the family home, and one that can bankrupt students and their parents if it works out poorly. Peter Cappelli offers vital insight for parents and students to make decisions that both make sense financially and provide the foundation that will help students make their way in the world.