Doña Ana Community College is a public community college with several campuses in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. It was established in 1973 at the request of the Gadsden, Hatch, and Las Cruces school boards to provided vocational and technical education opportunities to the citizens of Doña Ana County. It is independently accredited by The Higher Learning Commission. The community college offers instruction leading to associate degrees and technical certificates and preparation for further academic work. It is a branch of New Mexico State University. Doña Ana Community College has six campuses, with three in Las Cruces, and one each in Anthony, Sunland Park, and Chaparral. Dual credit classes are also offered in conjunction with local high schools.As of 2017, the school had 10,644 credit students (including part-time) and 3,498 non-credit students.
The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence has challenged long-standing assumptions about assessment in higher education. While much of the current conversation has focused on academic integrity and AI detection, these approaches do not address a more fundamental question: What evidence is needed to make valid judgments about student learning? This paper argues that the emergence of AI has not changed the purpose of assessment but has highlighted the need to reconsider how learning is demonstrated. Building upon authentic assessment and evidence-centered assessment, the paper introduces Human-Centered Assessment as a conceptual approach that emphasizes making student thinking visible through authentic voice, reflection, judgment, context, process transparency, and ethical AI integration. It then presents three complementary frameworks that guide faculty from understanding the principles of human-centered assessment to evaluating existing assignments and redesigning assessments for AI-mediated learning environments. Together, these frameworks shift the conversation from detecting AI to designing assessments that generate richer evidence of student learning. The paper concludes by discussing implications for assessment practice, faculty development, and future research.
The international issue of human trafficking is an all-too-familiar issue in many parts of the state of Texas. With areas like El Paso and Houston identified as some of the largest human trafficking hubs in the United States, it is important to understand how these areas, and others like them in the state, are responding to human trafficking. Using areas identified by CEASE Texas as having high sex trafficking solicitation activity, as well as publicly released information of law enforcement and community responses in these areas via internet search engines, a holistic understanding of combating human trafficking can be seen in metropolitan areas in Texas. This chapter concludes by examining what information remains unknown in these areas, and postulates about the intertwined relationship between human trafficking and other crimes against persons in the state of Texas.
Although active learning improves student outcomes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, it may provoke anxiety in some students. We examined whether two psychological variables, social anxiety (psychological distress relating to the fear of negative evaluation by others) and academic self-efficacy (confidence in one's ability to overcome academic challenges), interact with student perceptions of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) and associate with their final grades in a STEM-related course. Human anatomy and physiology students in community college courses rated various EBIPs for their perceived educational value and their capacity to elicit anxiety (N = 227). In general, practices causing students the most anxiety (e.g., cold calling) were reported by students as having the least educational value. When controlling for students' self-reported grade point averages, socially anxious students rated several EBIPs as more anxiety inducing, whereas high-efficacy students reported less anxiety surrounding other EBIPs. Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that individual differences in academic self-efficacy at the beginning of the term explained some of the negative association between students' social anxiety levels and final grades in the course. Our results, obtained in a community college context, support a growing body of evidence that social anxiety and academic self-efficacy are linked with how students perceive and perform in an active-learning environment.
The role of community colleges in training public health professionals is of growing importance to the continuum of public health education. Some 5 years have passed since the Framing the Future initiative outlined curricular models at community colleges, and colleges deploying these models are serving as learning sites for public health education at community colleges. While past research has focused on capturing insights from community college executives and program administrators, this study captures perspectives from teaching faculty. Drawing on a national sample of teaching faculty at community colleges and universities accepting transfer students throughout the United States, an online survey of teaching faculty affiliated with public health programs was coupled with follow-up interviews. This study characterizes the nature and scope of public health programming in community colleges and transfer settings, and highlights associated challenges and opportunities as public health becomes further integrated into health professions pathways in 2-year settings and beyond.
First-generation college students face a variety of barriers in higher education compared with their continuing-generation peers. Active learning practices in STEM classrooms can potentially narrow the achievement gap by increasing academic self-efficacy, or confidence in academic abilities. However, these practices can also provoke anxiety in students. Given that anxiety can impair cognitive performance, we sought to understand how first-generation students perceive active learning practices and whether these perceptions affect the anticipated benefits of active learning. As part of a larger study on pedagogical practices in anatomy and physiology courses at the community college level, we asked students to rate various active learning techniques on how much each provoked anxiety and how much each contributed to their learning. All students (N = 186) rated some techniques as more anxiety-provoking than others (e.g., cold calling); however, compared to continuing-generation students, first-generation students' ratings tended to be higher. First-generation students anticipated doing more poorly in a course and attained lower final grades. Notably, the use of active learning practices did not improve first-generation students' academic self-efficacy: by the end of term, academic self-efficacy decreased in non-white first-generation students whereas other students showed little change. When introducing active learning strategies, instructors may need to proactively address underrepresented minority students' emotional reactions and ensure that all students experience success with these practices early in a course as a way to bolster academic self-efficacy.
