How Community Colleges Are Increasing Student Engagement, Belonging, and Persistence
Community college students are often balancing far more than coursework. Many are working, commuting, raising children, supporting family members, attending part time, or taking classes online. That makes traditional student engagement harder to deliver, harder to scale, and harder to measure.
In this practitioner panel, leaders from Portland Community College, Madison College, and Salt Lake Community College share how they are creating more flexible and accessible engagement models for today’s community college students.
The conversation explores how community colleges are using student engagement technology, mobile communication, clubs, events, food pantries, hybrid meetings, gamification, and student leadership programs to help students find connection in ways that fit their lives.
You’ll hear real examples from campuses doing this work every day, including how Portland Community College is using gamification through its Drive to Thrive initiative, how Salt Lake Community College supports engagement across seven campus locations, and how Madison College connects student involvement to academic outcomes, including higher credit completion and GPA among involved students.
We’ll discuss:
✅ Engaging Students With Competing Responsibilities – How community colleges are supporting students who balance work, child care, family obligations, commuting, online learning, and part-time enrollment.
✅ Creating More Accessible Pathways to Belonging – How clubs, organizations, events, hybrid meetings, campus-wide communication, and mobile tools help students connect on their own schedule.
✅ Using Engagement Data to Support Persistence – How campuses are tracking participation, student group involvement, credit completion, GPA, and other retention-related activities.
✅ Meeting Students Where They Are – How institutions are bringing programming to different campus locations, supporting online learners, and creating flexible engagement opportunities beyond traditional office hours.
✅ Driving Student Adoption of Engagement Platforms – How orientation, event check-ins, group points, incentives, communication hubs, and campus partnerships make student engagement tools part of everyday campus life.
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