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Community College Completion

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Submitted By joshuatrader
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Community Colleges are all over the nation. We know this and see this as Phi Theta Kappans in Michigan. We experience this first hand and learn from this and become successful because of them. President Barack Obama has set forth an ambitious agenda for U.S. postsecondary education: by 2020, he would like to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. This is an amazing and ambitious goal but it will take the help of us as Phi Theta Kappans to reach this.

In April 2010, the American Association of Community Colleges and five other community college organizations responded by reaffirming their commitment to completion while maintaining their commitment to increasing access and quality by issuing a joint statement, Democracy's Colleges: Call to Action. The partnering organizations were the Association of Community College Trustees, the Center for Community College Student Engagement, the League for Innovation in the Community College, the National Organization for Staff and Organizational Development, and the organization that we are all involved in Phi Theta Kappa. With this commitment to completion articulated, Re-balancing the Mission: The Community College Completion Challenge addresses what it means for community colleges to embrace completion in the same way that they have historically embraced access. Because community colleges are, first and foremost, oriented toward their communities, they may need to modify their traditional ways of fulfilling their individual missions, specifically in three areas: course enrollment, course completion, and certificate and degree completion, all of which are positive changes for the college and the students.

In terms of the enrollment mission, community colleges provide access to, and opportunity for, education through courses that serve as the foundation for a career, a new life, or a new

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