THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE TRAINING AND EDUCATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND CORRECTIONS PERSONNEL: A CURRICULUM FOR THE 21st CENTURY

Community colleges are in a unique position to meet the education and training needs of law enforcement and corrections personnel for the next century. The nature of the community college allows the proper blend of vocational and formal education in the design of a common curriculum to meet the needs of law enforcement. Location and cost also become factors as agencies attempt to stretch their training budgets. The community colleges have the flexibility and the resources to meet the needs of law enforcement for a practical, affordable, quality, and achievable education for employees in pre‐service, academy, and in‐service status.     

BETTER COLLEGE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS: THE ROLE OF THE STATE TWO‐YEAR COLLEGE AGENCY

Prospective two‐year college students often lack adequate information on the range of educational alternatives available to them. Increasingly, state level agencies are playing a role in responding to that need. This article reports on a. national study of state two‐year college agencies to determine the extent and comprehensiveness of the postsecondary educational information they provide to students. Results indicate that most states have information they send to prospective students, but it varies widely in quality and often overlooks information students say they want to know. States with model information are identified.     

MENTORING BY THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROFESSOR: ONE ROLE AMONG MANY

The process of mentorship in relationship to the community college professor and the potential to improve and enhance the teaching and learning process is explored in this article. This article suggests that not all community college professors are psychological or intellectually disposed to being or becoming a good mentor. It is put forth that mentoring is a subrole of the community college professor. A framework for understanding the “complete mentor” process, as developed by Cohen (1993) Cohen, N. H. 1993. The development and validation of the principles of adult mentoring scale for faculty mentoring in higher education Philadelphia, PA Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Temple University [Google Scholar], is presented. Implications for practice are offered in a manner that connects the community college professor as mentor with enhancing the instructional process through the nurturing teaching perspective.     

THE WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TECHNOLOGY CONSORTIUM: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Community college presidents face an uphill struggle in preparing their institutions for the rapidly changing technological learning environment. Visionary presidents in rural community colleges are presented with yet another challenge: that of finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. This article describes how presidents of 12 rural community colleges in the mountains of western North Carolina formed a technology consortium to collaboratively address critical technology issues. Integral steps in the joint venture were a combined assessment and planning process authorized by the presidents, formation of the Western North Carolina Technology Consortium, and an e-commerce project designed to meet the needs of small busi-nesses and entrepreneurs in the region. Lessons learned and implications for practice are presented for community college presidents seeking ways to collaborate.     

A Two-Stage Approach to Synthesizing Covariance Matrices in Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling

A great obstacle for wider use of structural equation modeling (SEM) has been the difficulty in handling categorical variables. Two data sets with known structure between 2 related binary outcomes and 4 independent binary variables were generated. Four SEM strategies and resulting apparent validity were tested: robust maximum likelihood (ML), tetrachoric correlation matrix input followed by SEM ML analysis, SEM ML estimation for the sum of squares and cross-products (SSCP) matrix input obtained by the log-linear model that treated all variables as dependent, and asymptotic distribution-free (ADF) SEM estimation. SEM based on the SSCP matrix obtained by the log-linear model and SEM using robust ML estimation correctly identified the structural relation between the variables. SEM using ADF added an extra parameter. SEM based on tetrachoric correlation input did not specify the data generating process correctly. Apparent validity was similar for all models presented. Data transformation used in log-linear modeling can serve as an input for SEM.     

Learning Together: A Family-Centered Literacy Program

ABSTRACT

Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, North Carolina serves a rapidly growing Hispanic population through its Family-Centered Literacy Program. The Hispanic population in the region has been increasing at a staggering rate of 50% per year, most of which is in-migration. These newcomers frequently face challenges adjusting to their jobs, schools, and living environment. The Family-Centered Literacy Program is teaching new skills to new residents to minimize the “culture shock”, and to make community immersion a less difficult process. The program offers evening classes 2 nights a week for parents and their children. Parents attend classes in basic and conversational English and General Education Development (GED) preparation; school-age children receive tutoring and help with homework; and preschool children learn from fluency-building games and activities. The college also provides Spanish instruction for school personnel who want to better communicate with Hispanic students and their parents. The program currently operates in 5 elementary schools. Each school has taken on the role of “community center” for Hispanic families.     

PERSISTENCE AND THE RELATIONSHIP TO ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE MEASURES: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

The persistence rates of community college transfer students were contrasted to those of native university students over a six year period. A general trend was observed which suggested community college transfer students were less likely to persist when returning to school for their second or third semesters of coursework. However, those transfer students remaining for the third semester of coursework were just as likely to persist as the native students for the next semester. Questions were raised about the validity of the notion of “transfer shock”, which may actually be a reflection of the change in the student population being observed.     

VOCATIONAL PREPARATION: HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS’ ASSESSMENT

This study investigated the perceptions of Human Resource Development (HRD) Specialists regarding the preparation of Illinois community college vocational/ technical program graduates. Two hundred and forty‐five respondents answered a mail questionnaire concerning the technical, human relations, problem solving and basic skills of program graduates. The graduates were employed in Nursing and Allied Health, Industrial Technology, Secretarial and Clerical, Agriculture, Marketing and Management, Accounting and Data Processing, and Social and Public Services. The perceptions of these HRD Specialists toward community college program graduates are positive. Graduates of Nursing and Allied Health programs were consistently rated higher than graduates of other programs. Overall, graduates were ranked highest on human relations skills and lowest on problem solving skills. Finally, implications for practice included suggestions for involving HRD Specialists in community college vocational programs.     

The surprising viability of a simple alternate estimation procedure for construction of large‐scale structural equation measurement models

As part of developing a comprehensive strategy for structural equation model building and assessment, a large‐scale Monte Carlo study of 7,200 covariance matrices sampled from 36 population models was conducted. This study compared maximum likelihood with the much simpler centroid method for the confirmatory factor analysis of multiple‐indicator measurement models. Surprisingly, the contribution of maximum likelihood to model analysis is limited to formal evaluation of the model. No statistically discernible differences were obtained for the bias, standard errors, or mean squared error (MSE) of the estimated factor correlations, and empirically obtained maximum likelihood standard errors for the pattern coefficients were only slightly smaller than their centroid counterparts. Further supporting the recommendations of Anderson and Gerbing (1982), the considerably faster centroid method may have a useful role in the analysis of these models, particularly for the analysis of large models with 50 or more input variables. These results encourage the further development of a comprehensive research paradigm that exploits the relative strengths of both centroid and maximum likelihood as complementary estimation procedures along an integrated exploratory‐confirmatory continuum of model specification, revision, and formal evaluation.     

Longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis: Common,time‐specific,item‐specific,and residual‐error components of variance

Following Cronbach (1970) and others, it is useful to decompose test score variation into common factor, time‐specific, item‐specific, and residual components. In the traditional approach to factor analysis, only two sources of variance can be estimated: common factor variance and a uniqueness term that confounds specific sources of variation and residual error. When the same items are measured on different occasions, however, it is possible to separate specific variance and residual error. Two approaches, the first‐order approach described by Raffalovich and Bohrnstedt (1987) and a second‐order approach based on Jöreskog and Sörbom (1989; Jöreskog, 1974) are considered initially. The two approaches, although based on different rationales, both suffer a similar weakness in that two of the four sources of variance are confounded. In the Raffalovich and Bohrnstedt approach, time‐specific variance is confounded with common factor variance that generalizes across items and time. In the second‐order approach based on Jöreskog and Sörbom, time‐specific variance is confounded with residual error. Here we demonstrate that by combining features from both approaches we can eliminate these weaknesses and estimate all four of Cronbach's sources of variance, and that this combined approach is easily generalized to a wide variety of applications.