New Group Will Help Community Colleges Become More Globally Focused

Several veterans of international education have started a new membership organization that will seek to help community colleges become more globally focused.

The Center for Global Advancement of Community Colleges will work with two-year institutions to recruit more students from overseas and to build greater recognition of the American community-college system abroad.

Judith Irwin, the group’s executive vice president for global and college alliances and a former director of international programs at the American Association of Community Colleges, said the membership organization would focus on helping institutions make use of limited resources to raise their profile abroad and to ensure that students graduate with skills needed to work in a global marketplace.

The group will publish an annual magazine to educate international students about community-college transfer options and hopes to use its Web site as a clearinghouse for information on community colleges and international-education opportunities.

The association will be supported by membership dues, but it also hopes to win federal grants to support its activities. Ms. Irwin said its organizers have been meeting with representatives from the U.S. Departments of Education and State, as well as other federal officials.