Leadership Practices in Scaling Efforts in Community Colleges

This 19-page article, provided by SRI international, discusses research on how faculty and executive leadership can either support or limit innovations on community college campuses. Published in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice, the article aims to make clear specifically what leaders do to support the sustainability and scaling of department innovations, specifically focusing on mathematics courses. The study "sought to unveil central practices that shape efforts to scale a promising, evidence-based mathematics course within two two-year colleges." The study demonstrates how "executive and mid-level leaders engaged in the intertwined practices of tracking and leveraging, where they attended to institutional culture, practices, and policies, and drew on these institutional features to both constrain and enable efforts to scale." The article includes a literature review and an analysis of the theoretical framework, methods, and data collection used. Examples from specific community colleges are illustrated throughout the article.