Guided Pathways

The English department at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) was well prepared to address the curricular changes required by AB 705, the state legislation requiring colleges to provide incoming [...]

Their Approach
As Madera Community College became an independent college instead of a center associated with Reedley College, it began to reassess its progress on guided pathways implementation and [...]

Their Approach
Chaffey College set out to make deeper connections between the classroom and employability skills. They wanted to integrate these skills across the college in Career Education (CE) [...]

The Begining
In 2014, Riverside City College (RCC) used Student Equity funds and a grant from the Anthony & Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation (AJPFF) to develop the Guardian Scholars [...]

At the December 16 webinar, practitioners from Chaffey College and Mt. San Jacinto College shared how they have embedded employability skills and badging in programs across the college—including CTE and [...]

Recordings and resources from the fall 2021 series of six webinars on redesigning student services and implementing systemic changes are available below.
September 15. Successful Student Entry: Addressing & [...]

Introduction
Credit for prior learning (CPL) has emerged as one way that colleges can recognize and give students credit for the skills and knowledge that they bring to the [...]

The Beginning
Mt. SAC’s noncredit offerings have recently gone through a major expansion. As the credit arm of the college was embarking on guided pathways planning and implementation, the [...]

Research indicates that students will change their major three times on average while in college. First-generation college students and students farthest from opportunity struggle more with understanding how college pathways [...]

CLP co-presented two breakout sessions at this year’s Strengthening Student Success Conference.

A Community Engagement Approach to Dual Enrollment for Equity

Community engagement increases dual enrollment [...]

Their Approach
Before City College of San Francisco (CCSF) launched their guided pathways efforts, which the college named Re-imagining the Student Experience (RiSE), their Office of Workforce Development began [...]

The six-part roundtable series, Conversations with Counselors: Strengthening our Practice with Equity in Mind, was designed by California Counseling Network (CaCN) members to connect counselors across the community college system, [...]

“We keep focusing on the need for student voice, and this [project] really puts it into action. The key is that we are then making choices and changes based on [...]

The work of Compton College in student-centered redesign is profiled in CLP’s new case study and tool, Equity Walk at Compton College. The equity walk exercise helps participants gain insight [...]

The Beginning
Santa Ana College (SAC) set out to develop success teams that would improve college communication with students and also improve communication between offices and services. The Guided [...]

Their Approach
Glendale Community College (GCC) and its feeder high schools responded creatively to the challenges that the COVID-19 crisis presented to dual enrollment when all services and communication [...]

Their Approach
Santa Ana College (SAC) recognized that new students are inundated with emails from the college. Many of these go unread, consequently, students are not learning about resources [...]

The Beginning
Visiting the City College of San Francisco English Lab tutors correlates with higher grades and more robust pass rates. CCSF looked at the success of students who [...]

The Beginning
One of the newer campuses in the State Center Community College District, Clovis Community College began Guided Pathways planning by investigating what initiatives were on the horizon [...]

Unpacking the Student Experience in Learning Communities Deepens Capacity for Change at Two Colleges
Understanding the student experience is essential in student-centered college redesign, a core principle of guided [...]

CLP worked in partnership with Compton College to develop a digital equity walk based on Fullerton College’s campus equity walk, an exercise to gain insight into how students experience the [...]

THE BEGINNING
Compton College learned about the equity walk, an exercise to experience the virtual or physical campus from a student’s perspective, from the Guided Pathways Regional Coordinator who [...]

CLP’s monthly dual enrollment problem-solving webinar series concludes this week with a focus on dual enrollment integrated with guided pathways redesign. Since the first webinar in late March shortly after [...]

Practitioners from colleges across the state convened virtually on November 13 and 20 for Redesigning with Equity and Careers in Mind, a two-part series of GP workshops focused on strategies [...]

Practitioners from colleges across the state convened virtually on November 13 and 20 for Redesigning with Equity and Careers in Mind, a two-part series of GP workshops focused on strategies [...]

A new CLP publication, Student Success Teams at Santa Ana College, highlights the college’s work to develop success teams including their use of student-centered design and equity-minded approaches. Last year, SAC [...]

The second GP workshop convenes on November 20 from 9:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and focuses on strategies and evidence-based practices that colleges are using to remove barriers to equitable student enrollment [...]

What do you do when previous change efforts fail to move the needle on success metrics? Los Angeles Trade Technical College (LATTC) took action, this time working backwards from specific [...]

Registration is open for the next, free CLP guided pathways workshop webinars on November 13 and 20 from 9:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. This is a two-part series of workshops with a [...]

This year’s Strengthening Student Success Conference is unrolling virtually each Friday in October. The conference underscores the continuing equity imperative for redesign. CLP and LearningWorks are partnering with 3CSN and [...]

Los Angeles Trade Technical College’s Journey
The Beginning
Jess Guerra, Chair of the School of Advanced Transportation and Manufacturing, was instrumental in leading the redesign of pathways at [...]

Career Ladders Project has launched an online Guided Pathways Design Guide for Integrating Student Supports into the community college student’s journey. The team has spent the last year researching and interviewing college [...]

Their Approach
When the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order went into effect and all services and instruction had to move online, Chaffey College knew they needed to break down previously siloed [...]

Career Ladders Project offers stories illustrating how California community colleges are redesigning their programs and structures. Each college faces different challenges and opportunities, depending on a variety of factors. College [...]

The Beginning
To develop a first-year experience, PCC introduced success coaches as part of its “guided entry” process, beginning in 2011 with four. In 2012, they added a counseling [...]

The Beginning
Jam began in 2006 as a two-week workshop intended to ease first-year students’ math anxiety. It was funded by an Irvine Foundation grant (through SSPIRE) for three [...]

The Beginning
In order to address the roughly 50% loss of incoming students between their first Fall and Spring semesters, the Student Services Office at Skyline College launched the [...]

Career Ladders Project supports the inquiry, design, implementation, and assessment of Guided Pathways in California community colleges. To build capacity for evidence-based institutional redesign, focused on equity, we collaborate with [...]

Their Approach
While West Hills College Lemoore (WHCL) is determined to stay focused on increasing student completion, their “North Star,” the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shift in how WHCL [...]

Their Approach
As Sierra College took steps to serve its students during the sudden pandemic and shelter in place orders, the innovations of the Guided Pathways (GP) redesign enabled [...]

CLP has produced a brief video featuring Dr. Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, professor of education and the associate dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information [...]

The Beginning
At the start of Guided Pathways implementation in 2015, Bakersfield College (BC) noted that students were obtaining most of their information about academic requirements from other students [...]

Colleges are redesigning transitions to college to reach and support students, especially those furthest from opportunity. On May 1, CLP hosted Redesigning with Transitions in Mind: A Guided Pathways Webinar, [...]

Their Approach
Mt. San Antonio College approached designing and implementing meta-majors as an iterative process with the goal of easing students’ struggles in finding and choosing a major. Instructional [...]

Their Approach
Based on a core belief that Skyline College’s meta-majors need to be livable, breathable, and flexible, the college’s design team started by creating design principles for all [...]

To support Guided Pathways redesign teams across California as they re-oriented to an all-online world, CLP hosted a series of four conversations on Wednesday mornings in April 2020.

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An overview of three essential components of transition strategies
Connection
What connection means: K-12 schools and districts, community colleges, four-year institutions, employers, and community organizations connect through collective [...]

Their Approach
CCSF’s RiSE Team approached Guided Pathways with equity at the foundation and students at the center of its planning. RiSE, an acronym for Reimagining the Student Experience, [...]

Their Approach
Reedley started its Guided Pathways work with a core team of seven—two instructional deans, three instructional faculty, the president, a vice president—who brought lessons back from the [...]

Their Approach
Knowing that careful data analysis can inform decisions and help improve equity, Bakersfield College took the step, early in its Guided Pathways work, of creating and assigning [...]

Their Approach
Santa Rosa Junior College’s Office of Institutional Research set out to create a self-service data culture across the college in order to democratize data-driven decision-making. College researchers [...]

Colleges are redesigning transitions to college to reach and support students, especially those furthest from opportunity. CLP hosted Redesigning with Transitions in Mind: A Guided Pathways Webinar, the first in [...]

Their Approach
Bakersfield College, facing low college attainment in its region, wanted to bring more students into higher education and support students more effectively so that more achieve their [...]

Their Approach
To make significant strides in closing achievement gaps, West Hills College Lemoore (WHCL) needed a North Star that integrated all efforts at the college around specific student [...]

Their Approach
A streamlined schedule with reliable course offerings and clear pathways is key to student success and career advancement. Recognizing this, Lake Tahoe Community College (LTCC) aimed to [...]

Their Approach
Santa Monica College (SMC) has a history of supporting the Career Services Center. With this in mind, a cross-functional team — which included students — was put [...]

Their Approach
Bakersfield College started its Guided Pathways redesign with a recognition that “our systems were broken,” says Jennifer Johnson, chair of the college’s nursing department and a member [...]

Their Approach
Santa Rosa Junior College built its Student Success Programs around four main goals. Students should (1) be invited and welcomed; (2) be guided and supported; (3) be [...]

CLP now offers four webinar series for community colleges, three focused on challenges and strategies for providing all classes and student supports remotely, and one on redesigning transitions to college [...]

Their Approach
With the goal of lifting the voices of populations identified in its Student Equity Plan as showing an achievement gap, City College of San Francisco focused on [...]

Their Approach
Using design thinking, Santa Monica College’s Guided Pathways Steering Committee began its inquiry work by identifying creative ways to involve students. As the primary users of the [...]

Their Approach
Solano College brought ESL and English courses—traditionally in siloed disciplines—together, overhauling its assessment criteria and teaching approach as it embarked on Guided Pathways. This decision reflected the [...]

Their Approach
In anticipation of the changes that AB 705 requires in supports for students in transfer-level English classes, as part of its Guided Pathways redesign, Cuyamaca offered professional [...]

Their Approach
In the hope of streamlining the college experience for students and contributing to their success across campus, College of the Redwoods (CoR) increased collaboration among disciplines. In [...]

The Beginning
With the Skyline College Promise, College leaders explored how to create a meaningful and intentional academic and student support experience for all new students.


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The Beginning
To improve student onboarding and make early counseling more effective, Sierra College integrated career exploration into orientation. The larger goal was to improve retention and completion by [...]

Representatives from 55 California community colleges gathered in Sacramento on Feb. 18 for a Guided Pathways workshop; this one explored how colleges are redesigning with students’ careers in mind. Highlights [...]

Bakersfield College is working to make dual enrollment available to all high school students in its vast and largely rural service area in Kern County. A strategy for equity, the [...]

The Beginning
FCC’s new student welcome day — Ram Ready — is a collaboration of the college relations, student activities, and business offices, instructional and counseling faculty, outreach, student [...]

A Case Study
Bakersfield College is leading a sea change. Collaborating with numerous partners across Kern County, the college aims to enable every high school student in its vast [...]

Bakersfield College aims for every high school student in its vast service area to have the opportunity to enroll in college courses while in grades 9 through 12. Hundreds already [...]

Education leaders are increasingly turning to design thinking as a method for re-envisioning their work and reform practices and for tackling the knottiest challenges on their campuses. Career Ladders Project [...]

Many community college practitioners across California look forward all year to recharging during the Strengthening Student Success Conference. Each year, we return home energized and full of new information and [...]

At the Strengthening Student Success Conference this week in Burlingame, CLP and others will highlight transformative work under way at colleges across California on closing achievement gaps and advancing student [...]

More than 250 community college practitioners from across California gathered Sept. 27 in Fresno for this academic year’s first Guided Pathways workshop about promising approaches to reimagining counseling and student [...]

As part of its Guided Pathways inquiry, Fresno City College sent teams to three other California community colleges and three campuses of CUNY, the City University of New York.
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Required remedial math and English classes once served as a barrier to many of California’s community college students, and the problem disproportionately affected students of color, non-native speakers of English, [...]

Colleges across California that are undertaking the momentous process of Guided Pathways redesign can learn from one another’s ideas and approaches, missteps, and successes. 

This guide summarizes the [...]

Learning Clusters are events that bring together colleges in one region to learn from one another about Guided Pathways. Practitioners from a host college share their promising approach to one [...]

At our first-ever multi-location webinar, practitioners across Orange and Los Angeles counties shared practices and ideas.

Here is a PDF of the presentations given at the event, and here [...]

Lessons from California’s Career Advancement Academies
The Career Advancement Academies at more than 30 California community colleges offered concrete examples of how to ensure equity for all students, and [...]

Two leaders from Georgia State University came to Long Beach on Nov. 15 to talk about reforms that are credited with raising graduation rates campuswide above 75%. In fact, Latinx [...]

A CLP Working Paper
Multiple studies have shown that students who participate in high-quality dual enrollment programs during high school are more likely to graduate, enter college, and persist [...]

Presentations from 2018 Strengthening Student Success are now available
Career Ladders Project staffers presented on Guided Pathways implementation, the Dual Enrollment Game, re-entry programs for students who have been [...]

A Case Study as a Framework for Integrating Student Success Efforts
The purpose of this Brief is to explore how Guided Pathways can unify different initiatives by providing an [...]

A new CLP brief explores how colleges can use Guided Pathways to bring together innovation, people, and resources across initiatives. It highlights the stories of three California community colleges that [...]

In recent years, California has made important investments to aid public high schools and community colleges to improve students’ transitions to and through postsecondary education, with a specific emphasis on [...]

Presentations from the 2017 Strengthening Student Success conference are now available.
SSSC – CLP Breakout Sessions
Wednesday, October 11
Guided Pathways: A Framework for Integrating College Plans
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Findings from Student Focus Groups at Two California Community Colleges
Between March and April 2017, Career Ladders Project (CLP) staff facilitated 16 focus groups with a total of 137 [...]

Kris Palmer, a senior director at Career Ladders Project, presented on Guided Pathways at the 97th annual American Association of Community Colleges convention in New Orleans on April 23.
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