Printer FriendlyFlorida Colleges
 |
Florida Colleges |
| Text Index |
Custom Search
|
2009 Connections Conference
The fourth annual Connections Conference was held in Orlando in May 2009, and aptly themed “Opening Doors to Student Success.” Florida’s community college system has been meeting the education and career/technical training needs of its citizens since 1933. Florida’s Achieving the Dream colleges have spent the last five years as part of a national initiative to help more community college students succeed. This year, those colleges were featured (strategies/best practices) under the sub-theme “Building on Our Strengths,” where best practices and data-supported strategies were discussed.
The 2009 Connections Conference was honored to welcome Dr. Linda Hagedorn as its keynote speaker. Dr. Hagedorn is Professor and Director of the Research Institute for Studies in Higher Education (RISE) at Iowa State University. Dr. Hagedorn’s research focuses on community college student success, retention, and transfer. She is especially interested in issues pertaining to underrepresented student groups and equity. Dr. Hagedorn’s presentation for her keynote speech, “The Community College and the Pursuit of Success” is located below under “Presentations.”
Dr. Beverly Bower from the University of North Texas (UNT) provided a timely speech, “On the Horizon,” which addressed the educational needs of veterans with the expansion of the G.I. Bill in the 2009 Legislative Session. Dr. Bower is Professor of Higher Education, Don A. Buchholz Endowed Chair, and Director of the Bill J. Priest Center for Community College Education at UNT. Dr. Bower’s experience as a former community college administrator, and her belief that community colleges are the “dream keepers” for an increasing number of higher education constituencies, has led her to focus much of her research on the experiences of women and minorities in community colleges, as well as on the delivery of distance learning technologies.
As a program director of Jobs for the Future (JFF) Building Economic Opportunity Group, Mr. Chris Baldwin’s primary work is with the national Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count project. Much of the initiative’s work involves facilitating cross-state conversations on supporting student success at community colleges through policy work and other strategies. Chris addressed such efforts in his speech “Cross-Sector Alignment Policy Trends in Achieving the Dream States” at the 2009 Connections Conference.
2009 Connections Presentations
- Legislative Wrap-up (PDF, 477KB)
- Valencia CC Ewan Brown (PDF, 740KB)
- Broward Reid Gao Comarcho (PDF, 1MB)
- Jacobson Presentation (PDF, 107KB)
- Lake Sumter Module Approach (PDF, 157KB)