The 2010 NCCCRP award goes to Roger Mourad and JiHee Hong of Washtenaw Community College (Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their paper is “Factors Associated with Bachelor Degree Attainment by Community College Transfer Students,” and Dr. Mourad will present the paper at the upcoming AIR Forum in Chicago at the NCCCRP Best Paper session. NCCCRP will cover $250 of his travel/registration for the AIR Forum.

The paper’s abstract describes the work as follows: “This case study examines the effectiveness of the community college as preparation for bachelor degree attainment, by comparing community college transfers who complete bachelor degrees to transfers who do not complete it over an 8 year period. Students who earned a greater number of credits over a shorter period of time at the community college with a higher GPA were significantly more likely to graduate from the baccalaureate institution. This finding held for both traditional and reverse transfers. These results raise a question about the relationship between sustained academic success at the community college and bachelor degree attainment.”