American community colleges represent a true success story. With their multiple missions, they have provided access and opportunity to millions of students. But community colleges are held accountable for their services and must be able to show that they are indeed serving their variety of students appropriately. This volume speaks of the multiplicity of data required to tell the community college story. The authors explore and detail how various sources workforce data, market data, state-level data, federal data, and, of course, institutional data such as transcript files all have something to say about the life of a community college. Much like an orchestral score, where the different parts played by individual instruments become music under the hands of a conductor, these data can be coordinated and assembled into a message that answers questions of student success and institutional effectiveness. This is the 153rd volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Always timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.
