Implementing Guided Pathways

Implementing Guided Pathways at the College

As part of Community College of Philadelphia’s uncompromising focus on student success, the College is implementing a Guided Pathways reform. The Guided Pathways reform effort focuses on providing students with a highly structured experience. This experience is driven by providing students with academic pathways and clear program maps, an intake process that clarifies student goals and career direction, facilitates access into a program of study for students with developmental education needs and provides intentional advising coupled with progress tracking and individually-designed support.

While reform is not easy, it is now more than ever a necessity in a changing economic and accountability environment. Beyond this, it is an obligation that the College community must embrace to more fully realize a collective vision of improving student lives upon achievement of their goals. The Guided Pathways framework holds the most promise to achieve this vision.

The implementation of this model will require significant redesign. It will test long-established assumptions and traditional models of how students are served. It will require a hard look at the values and beliefs that are inherent in current practices, structure and systems. It will embrace what is working well and what needs to change guided by evidence-based practices. Through full-scale implementation of redesigned programs and support services, the College will set a new trajectory for greater student success guided by the continued and collective efforts of faculty, staff and students.

Please be sure to check back often as we will update this site regularly with our progress.

Academic Pathways and Programs

How academic pathways will pave the road to student success

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Resources

Learn more about Guided Pathways from an overview of what we know thus far, to tips and tools, completion by design resources, and more.

A Closer Look at Guided Pathways

A Focus on Student Success

Read “Impact 2025,” the President’s vision statement, and learn more about Guided Pathways developments at the College.

News & Announcements

Community College of Philadelphia Highlighted for its Guided Pathways Work

Community College of Philadelphia was one of 30 colleges nationwide chosen for the first cohort of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Pathways Project. The Community College Research Center (CCRC) of Columbia University is the national research partner on this project and this month, CCRC published a report describing how eight of those institutions have made progress on its Guided Pathways reform. Additionally, CCRC wrote "a suite of in-depth case studies describing how five of the colleges managed the process of institutional transformation.

Guided Pathways: An Uncompromising Focus on Student Success

In preparation for the complete rollout of Guided Pathways, now is a good time to reflect on the progress and potential challenges. Outcomes from early adopters, in conjunction with our own insights, can be instructive. A recent study conducted by the Community College Resource Center (CCRC)—“What Do Students Think of Guided Pathways?”—examined the outcomes of City Colleges of Chicago. City Colleges of Chicago is a large, urban community college system with seven campuses.