What we do
Career Ladders Project promotes equity-minded community college redesign.
We collaborate with colleges and their partners to discover, develop, and disseminate effective practices. Our policy work, research, and direct efforts with colleges lead to system change—and enable more students to attain certificates, degrees, transfers, and career advancement.
HOW WE WORK
How we collaborate and build capacity for equity-minded redesign:
- Providing strategic advising and customized on-campus support
- Facilitating Guided Pathways and inclusive redesign processes
- Coordinating regional and statewide workshops and online learning events
How we research, demonstrate, and elevate promising practices:
- Working alongside colleges to support efforts at the leading edge of redesign
- Convening college practitioners to share their approaches and engage their colleagues in planning to improve student outcomes
- Providing online information and guides to support inquiry and redesign
- Providing videos and online tools for specific processes such as mapping meta-majors or creating a dual enrollment partnership
- Highlighting promising redesign initiatives through college profiles and GP Stories
How we help advance student-centered reform through policy work:
- Publishing timely and relevant policy briefs, such as
- Toward Equity in Guided Pathways Reforms: Lessons from California’s Career Advancement Academies
- The Dual Enrollment Landscape in California: A CLP Working Paper and Case Studies
- Guided Pathways as a Framework for Integrating Student Success Efforts: A Case Study of Three California Community Colleges
- Hosting briefings and convenings of policy leaders to provide practitioner-informed recommendations for change at the system and state levels
- Working with philanthropy, reform-minded leaders, and partner organizations to move recommendations into action
IMPACTS OF OUR WORK
For students: improved college experience; faster progress; higher rates of completion of certificates, degrees, transfers, and career advancement
For educators: customized support; capacity-building; networks; higher profiles.
For the community college system: exchange of innovative approaches to increase equity and student success
For policy-makers: clarification of barriers to progress and of opportunities for change
OUR KEY ISSUES
Guided Pathways redesign: supporting colleges in their inquiry, design, and implementation of equity-minded reforms
Transitions to college: dual enrollment; bridge experiences; counseling and support services; alignment of career pathways across educational systems
Supports for accelerated progress: contextualized teaching and learning; integrated and proactive student services; improved placement processes
Career advancement: counseling and career services; development of equity-minded pathways to certificates, degrees, transfer, and employment.
Our Supporters
We greatly appreciate our funders. Thank you for supporting CLP’s mission to advance equity-minded community college redesign over the past five years.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
California College Pathways Fund
California Community Foundation
Central Valley Community Foundation
College Futures Foundation
Stuart Foundation
The James Irvine Foundation
Tipping Point Community
Career Ladders Project was founded by the California Community Colleges Board of Governors in 2002. It operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the Foundation for California Community Colleges, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.