Past project — Conducted September 17, 2015 - April 30, 2020
The Center proudly announces its partnership in the Pathways Project. The project, funded by a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), will help community colleges design and implement structured academic and career pathways for all students. The Center joins six other leading national organizations in partnering with AACC in this important work: Achieving the Dream, Inc.; the Aspen Institute; Community College Research Center; Jobs for the Future; the National Center for Inquiry and Improvement; and Public Agenda.
The Pathways Project will feature six two-day institutes over the span of three years, during which a cohort of 30 colleges will build knowledge around designing and implementing fully scaled pathways.
The Pathways Project will also feature the administration of a 12-item special-focus module with the 2018 Survey of Entering Student Engagement (SENSE) and the administration of a 15-item additional item set with the 2019 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). By incorporating these new additional item sets into its two large-scale national surveys, the Center will produce unique and actionable data regarding guided pathways. The data collected will help colleges explore how their students are experiencing guided pathways.
The project will also include focus groups that will be conducted in spring 2018 with students and with faculty and staff at three colleges. The Center will release a national report on guided pathways in spring of 2020 based on the data collected from SENSE and CCSSE, and the report will include quotes from the focus groups. The supporting report materials will include focus group video clips on the Center's YouTube channel as well as focus group protocols that will be available on the Center's website.