Adventures in Two-Year/Four-Year College Border Crossings

Abstract

When Case Willoughby took his first community college job, he started by applying student development and student engagement theory to advising. He refocused advising to support students in exploring academic and career goals and teach them the intellectual and practical skills they need to learn. This experience led Willoughby to notice that two-year colleges did not often use research to support student success. To change this, he calls on researchers and conference attendees to break out of the idea of the traditional college student and include two-year college students in their research. He shares the "Guided Pathways" concept as an example of bringing together academic and student affairs in a way that would benefit all types of students, especially community college students.