Panther PATHways

In fall 2018, Community College Research Center (CCRC) researchers conducted site visits at eight community colleges implementing guided pathways to learn how they are managing the whole-college change process involved. These colleges are among the 30 nationally that were in the first cohort of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Pathways Project, a national demonstration initiative that was launched in late 2015 to show how community colleges could create clearer pathways to program completion, employment, and further education for all students. The full report on this study, "Redesigning Your College Through Guided Pathways: Lessons From Community Colleges in the AACC Pathways Project," synthesizes lessons from all eight colleges visited and shares new findings on how long it takes to implement guided pathways at scale. This report provides a case study of Wallace State Community College in Alabama. During a two-day site visit to the college, CCRC researchers conducted one-hour interviews with 14 faculty members, administrators, advisors and counselors, and other staff. Researchers also held hour-long focus groups with 15 additional faculty members, advisors and counselors, and students at the college. Based on the data collected, this report describes the organizational change work that has enabled Wallace State's exceptional progress in redesigning academic programs, student services, and related support systems using the guided pathways model. [For the full report "Redesigning Your College through Guided Pathways: Lessons on Managing Whole-College Reform from the AACC Pathways Project," see ED598443.]