Collaboration allows organizations to leverage scarce resources, reduce costs, link complementary competencies, and increase speed and flexibility-but collaboration can also deeply affect the internal structure, management style, identity, and mission of participating institutions as they learn to coordinate their collective resources. This volume of New Directions for Community Colleges examines the many ways collaboration both benefits and alters the participating organizations, offering practical examples and lessons learned that can be used by a variety of institutions in their efforts to foster collaborative relationships. The authors explore how the community college can serve as a nexus between high schools and four-year institutions; how neighborhood-based collaborations can promote access and educational opportunity for at-risk students; how to integrate collaboration into the leadership role of the community college president; and much more.

This is the 103rd issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Community Colleges.