A recent report by The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) highlights how caring environments can enhance the student experience. The report, “Essential Conditions for Community College Student Success: Maximizing Student Engagement by Fostering a Culture of Caring,” draws on survey data from more than 64,000 students across 167 community colleges, emphasizing that an investment in care measurably benefits students. “Care functions as a lever for engagement – once an institution invests in a caring culture, engagement becomes more authentic, deeper, and creates the conditions for student success,” CCCSE Executive Director Dr. Linda Garcia said. “Our report shows that when students feel supported, seen, and connected at their college, their engagement levels and GPAs are higher. Caring matters because it is a foundational condition that enables engagement.”
The report identifies five benchmarks for measuring student engagement: academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student effort, student-faculty interaction, and support for learners. Students who reported experiencing a “strong culture of care” at their institution showed substantially higher engagement across all benchmarks compared to those in “mixed” or “weak” care environments.
The report also includes a feature on Caring Campus, identifying it as a leading framework that equips employees in higher education with practical tools and strategies to foster a welcoming environment and lead with care.
“We wanted to highlight Caring Campus because it offers tangible, actionable practices for building a culture of care,” Garcia said. “Colleges are seeking these kinds of concrete, replicable examples to bring care to life on their campuses. Like Caring Campus, CCCSE emphasizes that a caring culture must reach all students and that institutions implementing these approaches demonstrate stronger relationships with students and improved outcomes.”
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