Pictured above: The commons of Ivy Tech Community College - Marion.
Longjohn, M. C. (2025). A mathematician's path: Redirecting remediation using an asset-based approach. Community College Enterprise, 31(1), 60-73.
Higher education increasingly relies on remedial coursework to bridge knowledge gaps among incoming students (Chen, 2016). Students assessed as below college level enroll in remediation to review secondary concepts, especially in mathematics (Kane et al., 2020). However, pressures over funding, student persistence, and completion rates exacerbate an ongoing, inconclusive debate over the effectiveness of remedial math programs. Amidst this debate, deficit-based approaches remain a common denominator among ineffective programs (Celedón-Pattichis et al., 2018; Chen, 2016). This practice brief reconfigures remediation using an asset-based approach, offering practical and theoretical considerations to community college professionals. A developmental mathematics pathway values lived experience as a central element to learning, and it positions mathematics as a meaningful start to all academic journeys.
Longjohn, M. C. (2025). The underequipped student: Paradigms in community college student affairs. NACADA Review, forthcoming.
Many institutions are at a unique crossroads, seeking to increase access while maintaining strong metrics for retention and degree completion (Chen, 2016). Their doors have widened for students whose backgroudns have not fully equipped them for the rigor of college coursework (Barnett et al., 2018), with open-access institutinos supporting the majority of this population (Bailey, 2009). College is difficult for anyone to navigate alone (Strayhorn, 2015), especially when underequipped for the journey. The dedicated staff of these institutions provide a network of support to these students, and their perspectives are crucial to understanding the landscape and its impact on students. This phenomenological study examines the experience of underequipped students through the lens of community college staff.