by Alicia Barghout (Guest Blogger)

Dr. Stella A. Perez started with a brief history of community colleges and moved into an introduction of why community colleges are an important part of the current and future educational system. She mentions support for the roll of community colleges from Dr. Jill Biden and President Obama. The CGI (Clinton Global Initiative), Quad Learning, and Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Learning (SIAST)–Instrumentor: Perioperative Nursing program were all listed as having examples of highly advanced and effective apps.

Dr. Perez goes over the 5 Part Mission of the American Community college: academic transfer, vocational tech (now referred to as work-force development), continuing education, developmental education, and community service. For those really interested in community colleges, Dr. Perez highly recommends the work of Tom Bailey, on reevaluating the mission of community colleges. The culmination of her message is well concluded with a powerful insight: “When we wrap what we know of the virtual student support world around what we know is the rich instructional, contextual world, then we deliver the real message of e-learning.”