What if a survey could do more than collect data? What if it could connect students in real-time to the support they need while also providing insights to strengthen long-term student success initiatives?

Addressing non-academic barriers such as food and housing insecurity is critical to improving student success at community colleges. To better understand these barriers and students’ engagement with support services, Ozarks Technical Community College developed a dual-purpose survey to inform institutional planning and give students an immediate way to request assistance. Actionable insights from the survey have strengthened the college’s culture of holistic, data-informed student care and encouraged innovation in removing barriers to student success.

In this session, I will share how I have utilized the National Community College Benchmark Project (NCCBP) over the past 16 years at two Texas colleges to significantly reduce classroom withdrawal rates. We will explore how NCCBP data helped shift faculty perceptions toward the value of data-informed decision-making, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Additionally, I will discuss how both institutions implemented strategic policies to boost student commitment in college-level courses—resulting in increased in-class completion and overall student success rates.

This session will explore the critical role of academic advising in promoting student success, engagement, and satisfaction at community colleges. Grounded in research from the National Community College Benchmarking Project (NCCBP) and existing literature, we will examine how student-to-advisor ratios correlate with early momentum metrics, student outcomes, and student engagement and satisfaction. This research-based, interactive presentation will provide insights to better support diverse student populations. The format will include research design and findings, data visualizations, and opportunities for audience engagement through sharing of best practices and Q&A. The presentation is aimed at community college administrators, educators, and policymakers seeking to improve student success strategies, making it suitable for those at various levels of experience and expertise in higher education.

As public skepticism about higher education grows among segments of the population, institutional research and planning professionals can play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between perception and reality. By exploring how various groups view higher education, meeting people where they are, and addressing their concerns, we can contribute to crafting messages that truly resonate and foster support.

This interactive session invites participants to reflect on their own perspectives and delve into those of diverse stakeholder groups, informed by key national survey data. We will start with a brief participant survey to gauge opinions, followed by an examination of public sentiments toward major institutions. Then, we’ll focus on perceptions of higher education institutions, giving special attention to variations by age, educational attainment, and ideology—critical factors influencing views of higher education.

The session will feature:

• Insights into how broader views on societal institutions intersect with public perceptions of higher education.
• National and Florida specific data on graduate earnings, employment outcomes, workforce needs, and wealth accumulation by educational attainment.
• Strategies for connecting with target audiences and effectively communicating higher education’s value proposition.

We invite you to participate in a discussion about understanding and leveraging diverse perspectives to support higher education’s mission, empower additional students, and strengthen public trust.

What does it look like to put students at the center of process development? In this session, we’ll explore student-centered design inspired by user-centered and human-centered approaches. We’ll discuss how students naturally create their own paths through college systems and how we can use data to understand their interactions with our processes. By focusing on how they interact with college processes and using data to understand those interactions, we can make more thoughtful decisions that support them.

This session will present an insightful session on integrating generative AI tools into data-centric project management. Her presentation delves into how platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Microsoft CoPilot can assist in structuring project tasks, estimating durations, and managing dependencies. By demonstrating the creation of detailed project plans, including Gantt charts and task breakdowns, Dr. McCain showcases the practical applications of AI in streamlining project workflows. She also emphasizes the importance of critical thinking when interpreting AI-generated data, discussing strategies for effective prompt engineering and the ethical considerations of AI use in project environments. Attendees will gain actionable insights into harnessing AI to enhance efficiency and decision-making in data-driven projects.

This presentation chronicles Johnson County Community College’s five-year journey integrating predictive analytics to support student success. It traces the evolution of models—from identifying at-risk students at term-end to building proactive, real-time tools for early intervention. The session reflects on key lessons, the impact of COVID-19, and the shift from generating insights to applying them in day-to-day operations. Now, our focus turns to integrating analytics into daily workflows through strategic planning, training, and tool development—laying the groundwork for sustained, data-informed student support.

As mental health needs rise across college campuses, how can institutions use benchmarking data to better support students, staff, and faculty? This session explores how one community college Counseling and Wellness Center leveraged internal trends and national benchmarking data to assess the reach and impact of its services. The presentation will highlight how data is used to guide service delivery, identify emerging needs, advocate for resources, and promote a culture of care across campus. Participants will gain practical strategies for using data to evaluate counseling center effectiveness, enhance programming, and collaborate with campus partners. Whether you’re just beginning to collect data or refining your existing approach, this session offers valuable insights for mental health professionals and institutional leaders alike.

City Colleges of Chicago has spent the past year developing "Institutional Health" Dashboards to monitor key operational and outcome metrics across the institution. Creating these dashboards required more than a technology investment—it demanded a cultural shift toward using data for continuous improvement. In this session, Brittany will share practical tools and structured conversation frameworks that help teams move from data insights to concrete action. Participants will practice these approaches in small groups and leave with a roadmap for tackling at least one challenging data-driven conversation at their own institution.

Addressing the disconnect between labor market information systems and educational program offerings is crucial for aligning workforce supply with industry demand. This alignment ensures that educational institutions, particularly community colleges, can effectively prepare students for in-demand occupations, thereby supporting regional economic growth. This session will introduce participants to data sources that are publicly available and provide a brief tutorial on how to analyze these data in such a way that can help you identify supply and demand in your state/region.

There’s a strong commitment at Cowley College to live up to a mission that speaks to opportunity, quality, integrity, and accountability but what defines and supports claims those ideals are met? Of course, the answer is data and again, more data! As a former HLC Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) pathway member, we recognize the importance of broad engagement in quality improvement work and, the Accountability and Institutional Measures (AIM) is the foundation of our institutional assessment plan to support student success, institutional effectiveness and meet accreditation needs.

This presentation will focus on how Cowley College uses national report data and peer comparison benchmarking using metrics from the National Community College Benchmark Project (NCCBP) to give insight into four strategic groups of metrics:

• Educational Access including high school graduation enrolling rate and market penetration for credit enrollment
• Student Retention: remedial course success; first gateway course success following remediation; gateway course completion; online course success
• Student Success: 100% completion and transfer out to four-year institutions

Participants will learn how Cowley College expanded information sources to use NCCBP data with information from its Jenzabar student information system and federal data sets to increase campus data literacy and maturity. Data dashboards will be shared to increase audience understanding of the overarching goal of the AIM, its use of a variety of metrics, data and targets and how these are used to create a comprehensive knowledge management process. Finally, the presentation will speak about the creation of cross-departmental review teams and annual assessment of organizational data maturity using the ASSCU Institutional Transformation Assessment and the SUNY Council on Assessment’s Assessing Institutional Effectiveness rubric to create sustainable, organizational action.

Community colleges often face a critical gap between data analysis and effective execution. While institutional data and student success metrics are widely available, the challenge lies in translating those insights into coordinated, measurable action. This session explores how colleges can use Franklin Covey’s 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) to bridge that gap and improve outcomes in student retention, completion, and persistence.

Drawing from multi-institutional experience—including Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC) and other community colleges—this presentation demonstrates how institutions are leveraging the 4DX framework to stay focused on high-impact goals. Using institutional data to identify what matters most, these colleges defined Wildly Important Goals (WIGs), developed lead measures, created compelling scoreboards, and built a cadence of accountability that engaged leadership, faculty, and staff across campus.

Participants will explore how 4DX fosters a culture of execution, enabling teams to maintain strategic focus and align efforts around shared priorities. Real-world results from multiple institutions will highlight how this approach led to improved course completion, increased persistence, and stronger institutional collaboration.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore execution models or looking to strengthen your college’s strategic implementation, this session provides both vision and tools to move from data insight to measurable impact.