Center-Affiliated Scholars
Through the Center-Affiliated Scholars program, the Center extends its involvement in and ability to support community college scholarship on a broader scale.
Invitation to Collaborate
The Center invites emerging and established community college scholars and scholar-practitioners to participate in the Center-Affiliated Scholars program. Through this program, Center directors and affiliated scholars collaborate to design and conduct research projects leading to institutional improvement, seek and secure grant funding, and carry out grant activities and associated scholarship.
Depending on Center-Affiliated Scholars' needs, the Center may act in an advisory capacity, actively partner in the research, and/or provide administrative services to facilitate the receipt and distribution of grant dollars. The Center-Affiliated Scholars program may be especially useful for emerging scholars, those seeking to utilize Center-owned survey instruments or data, and those collaborating across multiple organizations or with community college-based personnel.
Center-Affiliated Scholars
Dr. Jonathan M. Turk
Iowa State
University
Dr. Jonathan M. Turk is an assistant professor of Higher Education and Community College Leadership at Iowa State University. His research and teaching focus on community college finance, governance, and public policy. Dr. Turk is working with Center directors Dr. Carrie B. Kisker and Dr. Susan Kater to quantitatively analyze data from the ACCT-CSCC Survey of Community College Trustees. In particular, Dr. Turk is investigating differences between elected and appointed boards, the politics of community college trusteeship, and key issues faced by the individuals governing community colleges across the nation.
In 2024 and 2025 the Center collaborated with the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) to survey roughly 6,000 trustees from ACCT member institutions. An initial report, published jointly by ACCT and the Center, illustrates who community college trustees are, why they serve, and what they perceive to be the most critical priorities and challenges for their institutions and the sector at large.
Dr. Carol Cutler White
Mississippi State University
Dr. Stephanie King
Mississippi State University
Dr. Carol Cutler White is associate professor and Dr. Stephanie King is professor of community college leadership at Mississippi State University. From 2023 to 2025 Drs. Cutler White and King partnered with the Center to conduct the AmeriCorps Civic Engagement among Community Colleges Project (ACECCP). The ACECCP utilized an updated version of the Center's Civic Inventory, initially developed as a companion instrument to the Higher Education Civic Outcomes Survey (HECOS).
In 2024 the research team administered the ACECCP survey to 128 colleges across 38 states and in 2025 published a Landscape Analysis of Civic and Community Engagement on Community College Campuses (available here).
The ACECCP was generously funded by AmeriCorps through a grant to Mississippi State University (Dr. Cutler White, PI).