New Education Design Lab Initiative Convenes Five Community Colleges to Reimagine Their Future

New Education Design Lab Initiative Convenes Five Community Colleges to Reimagine Their Future

• By Rhea Kelly
• 02/18/25

Education Design Lab, a nonprofit devoted to designing, prototyping, and testing education-to-workforce models, has announced the inaugural cohort of its Reimagining Community Colleges Design Challenge. The multi-year initiative will bring together five community colleges to develop strategic plans that reorient their program offerings around "new majority learners" (non-traditional students who now represent the majority of learners today), implement those plans, and measure their success, according to a news announcement.

Participating colleges are:

• Rio Salado College (AZ);
• St. Paul College (MN);
• Forsyth Technical Community College (NC);
• Cuyahoga Community College (OH); and
• Lone Star College-Tomball (TX).

A key goal of the initiative is to "make learners' skills more visible to employers and educational pathways clearer and stackable and ensure learners have job-relevant applied learning experiences and equitable access to support services," Education Design Lab said. The colleges will work with the Lab over the next three to five years, using a human-centered design approach to envision a new age of community colleges.

"Students come to us with a vision of a brighter future and the belief that education can help them get there. It is our job to deliver on that belief by developing programs that help learners achieve an economic advantage and access meaningful careers," said Michael A. Baston, president of Cuyahoga Community College, in a statement. "Together with Education Design Lab, we are seizing a once-in-a-generation chance to transform the way we meet students' needs and shore up faith in community college as a pathway to greater opportunity."

"Reimagining community colleges isn't just an exercise in innovation — it's necessary to ensure that these institutions remain engines of social mobility and workforce development," commented Lisa Larson, senior vice president of college transformation at the Lab. "By embracing bold, human-centered design, we can support colleges in their missions to meet the needs of today's learners and tomorrow's economy. This work is about more than redesigning colleges; it's about reshaping futures."

For more information, visit the Education Design Lab site.