ommunity colleges are particularly well positioned to address the quality and innovation recommendations from the Spellings Report. In particular, community colleges are engaged in creating a "robust culture of accountability and transparency." (U.S. Department of Education, 2006, p.20)

As with most culture change initiatives, leadership must come from the top, but be part of a shared governance philosophy that permeates the institution and builds support among all employees. Truman College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, has addressed this need with the creation of an all college council, with elected representation from all areas of the college's workforce. This council acts as a sounding board and a policy-making body for the college. Representatives report what happens at College Council to their respective counterparts and in turn bring feedback from their workgroups to the council, providing the college with a transparent and accountable culture that facilitates buy-in and support of all college constituencies. Examples of College Council projects include, re-crafting the college mission statement to one now infused with a quality improvement philosophy and approving general education curriculum criteria for instruction.

Truman's assessment committee and plan are based upon a grassroots, bottom-up philosophy which demands that faculty and students share the responsibility in determining the definition and methodology of the college assessment plan. Representatives of all departments serve on the assessment committee and meet biweekly with its faculty chair and with the dean of instruction. Each department is now in the process of creating its own set of mission specific goals which align with the college's larger goals and in creating rubrics specific to departments. These are shared among departmental faculty and with the college as a whole. As with the college council, this methodology has fostered buy-in, recognition, and voice for stakeholders as well as increased accountability and transparency.

However, we do not mean to imply that assessment and assessment buy-in are without challenges. In our own collective professional experience, each of the community colleges where we have been employed has had active assessment committees and assessment plans. But, assessment doesn't always come easily for us in education. Just today, we had an extended conversation with our college's director of assessment about our upcoming assessment goals and activities. We discussed planning a pre-fall workshop in August which would ask each department to examine a specific assignment. It sounds simple enough, yet each of us also knows that we will face at least a few small struggles from our faculty about why there is a need to assess, and what assessment really is. The point is that community colleges employ faculty who are content and theory experts in their disciplines. They are not all previously trained in curriculum design, or in measurement and assessment. What we must do, and what was discussed with this director is the need to offer faculty further training in measurement and just as importantly, provide a rationale for seeing value in measurement. We must use the data and show its worth.

The Studio Classroom model of instruction, the Undergraduate Research Collaborative, and the college-wide retention initiative are all results of Truman College's recognition of the need for further accountability and the need to offer students active and diverse learning strategies

Studio classrooms blend the creative methods of the visual arts with the technology and the analytical rigor of a science lab. In contrast to a traditional classroom, a typical studio classroom is set up so that students sit in small groups, work together with laptop computers on problems and projects, discuss strategies with the teacher, access data from the Internet, and present their resulting work with multimedia software. The instructor uses the foundational knowledge of the content and extends it during class time so that students have the opportunity to build upon that knowledge, using it as scaffolding for deeper, more meaningful, and long-lasting learning. The tools and curriculum of the Studio Classroom place responsibility for learning with the student, with the instructor utilized as a content expert and guide. Learning is conceptual and contextual rather than simply content-oriented.

Recognizing the need for all aspects of learning support to be addressed in experiential learning, the structure of the studio classroom is built around a teaching team. It is composed of an on-site technology consultant, the technology liaison, and an academic support specialist, the student services liaison. The technology liaison works with the teacher as a consultant to take best advantage of the computing and network tools available in the studio classroom. Similarly, the student services liaison works with the teacher to identify students who need additional support, guides them to the appropriate college services, and ensures that student's needs have been met.

A second example of innovation in active learning is the Undergraduate Research Collaborative (URC), funded by the National Science Foundation. This 2.7 million dollar initiative which partners City Colleges of Chicago with William Rainey Harper College, Oakton Community College, College of DuPage, Illinois State University, Youngstown State University (OH), and Hope College (MI) expands resources and opportunities for students pursing science degrees and undergraduate research in sciences. Students are offered the opportunity to do science research using the facilities and resources of the collaborative institutions and to share their research projects with faculty and students from each of the grant-funded institutions. It creates participatory learning for students and offers them valuable experience in research on an undergraduate level. Students from City Colleges of Chicago can create projects and spend research time during the summer at a participating four year partnering school.

Truman's college-wide retention initiative's goal is a 5% increase in retention. To help meet this goal, the College has established a retention task force which meets biweekly, examining how Truman can increase its retention. Currently, the College is in the process of holding focus groups with under-represented groups at Truman, asking questions about how students relate to Truman, to its faculty, and examining the challenges these students face in completing their educational goals and even what these educational goals are. These results will provide Truman with the information to create strategies for stronger student completion rates.

In an effort to gauge student satisfaction, Wilbur Wright College, another one of the City Colleges of Chicago, administers the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) in odd numbered years and the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) in even numbered years. The results of both are made available to the public. More importantly, the College uses the results for continuous quality improvement. The most recent CCSSE results indicated the need to improve service in financial aid and tutoring. Quality improvement measures have included the development of additional financial aid seminars coupled with individual financial aid counseling. In order to increase retention, the College added additional tutors and reinstituted a writing lab.

These college level efforts are enhanced by the City Colleges of Chicago's district wide Annual Program and Service Analysis (APSA) process. APSA is a process for collecting, reporting and analyzing program and service information on a yearly basis. APSA builds upon existing program reviews required by the Illinois Community College Board every five years and upon the college and district strategic planning initiatives. The purpose of APSA is to assist the college community in the improvement of college programs and services through an evaluation process that encourages systematic reviews of effectiveness. It is a tool for planning continuous quality improvement based on data collection, review and analysis. It is also a participatory process that involves the collaboration of faculty, college staff and administrators.

This collegial process aims to assist faculty and college staff in highlighting program strengths, as well as identifying opportunities for strategic change and areas of improvement. Program enhancement recommendations are linked to the strategic plan, annual plan and annual budget. Strengthens and opportunities for enhancement from the APSA report provide simple benchmarking and act as a dashboard for each department's goals for the upcoming academic year. A specific example of this is in Truman's criminal justice department. Results from the 2006 APSA have led the social science chair and criminal justice department to work towards the creation of a full A.A. degree in criminal justice.

Other Midwest community colleges have taken up the continuous improvement challenge by choosing Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) over the Program to Evaluate and Advance Quality (PEAQ) for the accreditation process conducted by the Higher Learning Commission. In 1999 with assistance from the Pew Charitable Trust, the Higher Learning Commission launched an alternative accreditation process that's based upon a continuous quality improvement model and the Malcolm Baldrige Award Process AQIP. Each AQIP institution has a portfolio of Action Projects determined by the institution that it works to complete in short-term cycles. Action Projects have measurable goals and objectives and rely heavily on data analysis to determine direction. Currently, there are thirteen community college districts are accredited using AQIP in Illinois alone. The advantage of AQIP is twofold. It has created a learning environment and training ground for higher education institutions as to what continuous quality improvement is, and it forces institutions to make continuous quality improvement the focus and impetus for progress.

Additionally, state quality improvement award programs, like the Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence in Illinois are increasingly involving higher education institutions. Blackhawk College, Waubonsee College, and Kaskaskia College are all past winners of the Bronze level award for Performance Quality Excellence from the Lincoln Foundation. And while winning the award is laudable, what is more valuable is the feedback report from the judges at the Lincoln Foundation which defines the band for each of the seven Baldrige criteria for the institution along with opportunities for improvement. Along with the award application process is a clearly defined and managed process for training judges for the Lincoln Foundation. In the summer of 2006, judges were trained for four of Illinois ' thirty eight community colleges. These judges bring back knowledge and experience as quality improvement experts to their respective campuses and education of quality improvement planning and techniques is further fostered.

One of the largest drawbacks for community colleges in terms of quality improvement has been the lack of benchmarked data with like peers on more than a state level. The inception of the Community College Benchmarking Project in 2003 has begun to address that issue. Conferences like the one at Johnson County Community College in June 2006, The National Community College Benchmarking Conference addressed these needs. Sessions on peer review analysis, benchmarking and scorecards, demonstrated that indeed community colleges are striving to extend quality at their campuses.

Illinois Central College in Peoria adopted Six Sigma, a process improvement methodology utilized by its neighbor, Caterpillar, to assure high quality in their products. In an educational setting, Six Sigma can vastly improve the quality of products and services by removing non-value added steps, listening to the voice of the customer, and using other quality enhancement techniques. Currently, the college is using Six Sigma to improve such processes as advisement, reporting of time for payroll purposes, processing of financial aid, and reporting of student performance. To implement the Six Sigma process, special quality improvement projects are conducted under the direction of Six Sigma "black belts". And Black Belts are assisted by "yellow belts", and "green belts", employees trained in Six Sigma techniques. The college has provided 512 employees with Yellow Belt training, an introductory 3-hour course on Six Sigma, and 21 employees have participated in Green Belt training, a more in-depth program that prepares employees to participate on teams. The college president hopes to provide additional Black Belt training to senior members of the administration. Educational leadership is increasingly turning to the problem-solving and efficiency methodologies first employed by business and industry to meet the demands of higher education.

Numerous colleges, like Wilbur Wright, are making the results of their performance transparent. Grand Rapids Community College presents performance on selected key indicators on its web site DASHBOARD, another tool borrowed from business and industry. Under the Learners, Programs and Services, People, Community, and Financial categories related to strategic outcomes and priorities, data is presented in gauge format related to retention, course success, workforce placement rates, and graduation rates.

Community college leaders need to continue to seek innovative practices, frequently through the use of technology, to define, measure, and document learning outcomes. And, in the pursuit of that goal, leaders must be willing to make those measures available to the public. This is not to suggest that any of the institutions or models mentioned constitutes a panacea for the Spellings recommendations. Yet, it is clear that community colleges recognize the need for continuous quality improvement in teaching and learning excellence. We are the beyond the awareness stage and clearly recognize the challenges ahead.

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Dr. Marguerite E. Boyd is President of Truman College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia and can be reached at mboyd@ccc.edu. Elizabeth Roeger is Dean of Instruction at Truman College. She may be reached at eroeger@ccc.edu.

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Reference

U.S. Department of Education (2006). A test of leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. higher education (2006). Washington, DC.