Melinda Mechur Karp

March 2018

Why Do Some Community College Students Use Institutional Resources Differently Than Others in Program Selection and Planning?

This paper describes how degree-seeking students at the City Colleges of Chicago make choices about their programs in their first year of enrollment, focusing especially on how they interact with advisors and how they use college-based resources in program selection and program planning.

July 2017

Leadership for Transformative Change: Lessons From Technology-Mediated Reform in Broad-Access Colleges

This study explores the influence of different types of leadership approaches on the implementation of a technology-mediated advising reform at six colleges, and assesses which types of leadership are associated with transformative organizational change.

July 2017

Colleges’ Experiences Integrating Support Services for Military Veterans

This review draws from the experiences of colleges awarded the Kisco Foundation’s Kohlberg Prize to highlight the practical and philosophical challenges involved in creating integrated services for student veterans.

February 2017

What We Know About Technology-Mediated Advising Reform

This practitioner packet summarizes CCRC’s research on technology-mediated advising reform and discusses how institutions are attempting to transform advising systems so that they can support a more intensive and personalized case-management model.

December 2016

Transforming the Community College Student Experience Through Comprehensive, Technology-Mediated Advising

This chapter examines the use of technology and other structural changes to encourage comprehensive advising reforms.

November 2016

Supporting Military Veteran Students: Early Lessons From Kohlberg Prize Recipients

This review describes the early experiences of five colleges that received the Kisco Foundation’s Kohlberg Prize, a grant aimed at making community colleges more welcoming and better able to meet the needs of veteran students.

October 2016

Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS): State of the Literature

This paper examines the current state of the literature on Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS), an increasingly popular approach to technology-mediated advising reform.

September 2016

A Holistic Conception of Nonacademic Support: How Four Mechanisms Combine to Encourage Positive Student Outcomes in the Community College

Building on Karp's 2011 framework of nonacademic support, this article explores the evidence that holistic support can encourage community college students’ success.

July 2016

How Colleges Use Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) to Transform Student Support

This paper examines technology-mediated advising reform in order to contribute to the understanding of how colleges engage in transformative change to improve student outcomes.

May 2016

Improving Student Services for Military Veterans

Based largely on an examination of college proposals for the Kisco Foundation’s Kohlberg Prize, this review (summary available) presents key insights and policy recommendations about services for military veterans attending community colleges.

March 2016

Redesigning a Student Success Course for Sustained Impact: Early Outcomes Findings

Based on a qualitative and quantitative study at Bronx Community College, this paper provides findings on students who take First Year Seminar, a recently redesigned student success course.

February 2016

Collective Impact: Theory Versus Reality

This Corridors of College Success brief highlights challenges involved in collective impact work and provides a lens for understanding why well-intentioned collective impact efforts may not take root.

October 2015

Lessons From the Corridors of College Success Initiative: An Introduction

August 2015

Student Attitudes Toward Technology-Mediated Advising Systems

Using focus group data from students at six colleges, this paper examines student preferences concerning technology-based advising tools and in-person advising sessions for different kinds of advising tasks.

June 2015

Using Technology to Reform Advising: Insights From Colleges

Based on research at six colleges, this guide provides lessons for colleges that want to use increasingly common technology tools to reform advising practices.

March 2015

Dual Enrollment, Structural Reform, and the Completion Agenda

This chapter addresses structural systems reform and college completion, as well as the role of dual enrollment in ensuring equitable postsecondary outcomes.

July 2014

Evaluating Your College’s Readiness for Technology Adoption

Based on CCRC’s Readiness for Technology Adoption framework, this self-assessment tool provides rubrics to help colleges identify issues that may need to be addressed to facilitate successful reform.

May 2014

Adopting New Technologies for Student Success: A Readiness Framework

This report presents a framework that identifies characteristics associated with colleges’ readiness to adopt technology-based reforms, emphasizing the need for both technological and cultural readiness.

March 2014

“They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn’t Know What to Do”: Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student

Drawing on interviews with students, faculty, and staff at three community colleges, this paper aims to clarify the role of community college student and the behaviors that must be enacted for students to succeed.

July 2013

Book Review: “Higher Education in the Digital Age”

Melinda Mechur Karp reviews Higher Education in the Digital Age and argues that the author ignores the potential stratifying effects of online learning in higher education.

May 2013

Entering a Program: Helping Students Make Academic and Career Decisions

This literature review examines the evidence on student decision making in the community college, focusing on the activities most relevant to students’ entry into programs of study—academic and career planning.

February 2013

Student Success Courses and Educational Outcomes at Virginia Community Colleges

Using administrative data from the Virginia Community College System, this paper examines the associations between student success course enrollment and short-term student outcomes.

February 2013

Dual Enrollment for College Completion: Policy Recommendations for Tennessee

This report makes a series of policy recommendations for strengthening dual enrollment in Tennessee to ensure that the program contributes to Tennessee's college completion goals.

November 2012

Improving Developmental Education Assessment and Placement: Lessons From Community Colleges Across the Country

This paper describes a range of approaches to improving poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards associated with traditional assessment and placement practices at community colleges.

October 2012

College 101 Courses for Applied Learning and Student Success

A study of College 101 courses at three community colleges in Virginia suggests that these courses could have long-term impacts if they focused more on the application and practice of learned skills.

June 2012

“I Don’t Know, I’ve Never Been to College!” Dual Enrollment as a College Readiness Strategy

This chapter provides a theoretical framework through which to understand the experiences of dual enrollment students as they "try out" the role of college student.

June 2012

Dual Enrollment for College Completion: Findings From Tennessee and Peer States

Commissioned by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, this report reviews dual enrollment policies in Tennessee and five peer states—Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Kentucky.

April 2011

Toward a New Understanding of Non-Academic Student Support: Four Mechanisms Encouraging Positive Student Outcomes in the Community College (Assessment of Evidence Series)

Effective nonacademic supports work by creating social relationships, clarifying goals and enhancing commitment, developing college know-how, and addressing conflicting demands on students.

June 2010

An Exploration of Tinto’s Integration Framework for Community College Students

This paper examines whether Tinto's integration framework—commonly used to examine student persistence in the four-year sector—is applicable to two-year institutions.

January 2009

Student Success Courses in the Community College: An Exploratory Study of Student Perspectives

In this journal article, the authors examine how student success courses help students develop relationships that provide support and useful information long after the class is over.

December 2008

Information Networks and Integration: Institutional Influences on Experiences and Persistence of Beginning Students

This article explores the ways that information networks are related to student persistence in the community college and how institutional structures can encourage such networks.

October 2008

The Postsecondary Achievement of Participants in Dual Enrollment: An Analysis of Student Outcomes in Two States

This study uses rigorous quantitative methods to examine the impact of dual enrollment participation on students in Florida and New York City.

June 2008

A Typology of Community College-Based Partnership Activities

This paper presents a typology of the institutional partnerships in which community colleges engage so that policymakers can develop fiscal and regulatory policy to support such activities.

June 2008

Towards a Community College Research Agenda: Summary of the National Community College Symposium

This paper contains a summary of the National Community College Symposium, at which experts met to articulate a community college research agenda.

April 2008

Supporting College Transitions Through Collaborative Programming: A Conceptual Model for Guiding Policy

This article provides a theoretical rationale for policymakers' support for programs that allow high school students to take college-level classes for credit.

March 2008

Conducting Research to Answer Your Questions About Dual Enrollment

This summary is intended to help decision-makers understand why research on the effectiveness of dual enrollment programs is important and how policymakers can support research activities.

January 2008

Do Support Services at Community Colleges Encourage Success or Reproduce Disadvantage?

This study examines the ways that student support services in community colleges inadvertently perpetuate and legitimate disadvantage.

December 2007

Book Review: “After Admission: From College Access to College Success”

CCRC researcher Melinda Mechur Karp reviews After Admission: From College Access to College Success.

March 2007

Learning About the Role of College Student Through Dual Enrollment Participation

This paper explores whether dual enrollment helps students learn about the role of college student.

January 2007

The National Academy Foundation’s Career Academies: Shaping Postsecondary Transitions

This chapter examines the extent to which career academies deliver on their promises.

January 2006

Strengthening Transitions by Encouraging Career Pathways: A Look at State Policies and Practices

This report identifies ways in which state policies can support students’ academic and labor market success by creating coherent systems of preparation for students entering technical fields.

October 2005

Pathways to College Access and Success

This report reviews findings from a study of five programs that allow high school students to take classes for college credit, or "credit-based transition programs."

September 2005

Dual Enrollment/Dual Credit: Its Role in Career Pathways

This chapter in Career Pathways: Education With a Purpose explains the differences between articulation (which is predominant in typical Tech Prep consortia) and dual enrollment.

September 2005

State Dual Enrollment Policies: Addressing Access and Quality Report

This report analyzes dual enrollment legislation in all 50 states and examines whether these policies promote or inhibit the spread of dual enrollment programs.

February 2004

School-Based Career Development in an Age of Accountability: A Synthesis of the Literature

This literature review examines research on the effectiveness of school-based career guidance and development programs.

November 2003

Promoting College Access and Success: A Review of Credit-Based Transition Programs

Focusing on dual enrollment, Tech Prep, AP, IB, and middle college high schools, this report offers a comprehensive look at the evidence base on this rapidly growing group of education initiatives.

March 2003

What Role Can Dual Enrollment Programs Play in Easing the Transition Between High School and Postsecondary Education?

This article provides an overview of preexisting relationships between high school and colleges and discusses the promising initiative of dual enrollment.

November 2002

Credentials, Curriculum, and Access: The Debate Over Nurse Preparation

This monograph explores the nurse licensure debate, what is known about the programmatic differences between pre-licensure programs, and research on the job performance of ADN- and BSN-educated nurses.