Resource Library
Free tools for thinking about the future of community colleges
The resource library gathers the Lab’s publications and tools in one place. Everything here is free to read, print and share, with credit to the Lab.
Publications
Five series, one family
Each series looks at the future from a different distance, from changes already visible to provocations about what a college could become.
Signals of Change
Short notes on emerging change
Board Discussion Guides
Questions for use in the boardroom
Policy Briefings
Governance questions on a single issue
Futures Briefs
Scenarios and longer-range futures
Provocations
What-ifs that test planning assumptions
Policy Briefing No. 01 · July 2025
Anticipatory Governance and Artificial Intelligence
Questions community college boards should be asking
Most campus conversations about AI focus on tools and risks. This briefing treats AI as a governance question. It asks what AI means for mission, teaching and learning, the workforce and the board’s own decisions.
Policy Briefing No. 02 · October 2025
Anticipatory Governance for Community College Boards
What it is, why it matters, and how boards can begin
Every board decision rests on assumptions about the future. This briefing introduces anticipatory governance, a practice in which a board considers several possible futures before it decides. It explains where the idea comes from and how a board can begin.
Policy Briefing No. 03 · February 2026
Three Scenarios for the Future of Community Colleges
Provocations for rethinking the purpose and structure of the institution
Three plausible futures: The Learning Ledger, The Living College and The Commons College. Each gives a different answer to what a community college is for. Read side by side, they make that question harder to answer by default.
Policy Briefing No. 04 · April 2026
Questions Boards Ask
How anticipatory governance reshapes board deliberation
A set of questions for the boardroom. They help trustees surface assumptions, lengthen their time horizon and bring the future into ordinary decisions. The questions are grouped by time, environment, patterns, direction, identity and the limits of current thinking.
Policy Briefing No. 05 · September 2026
Planning Beyond Assumptions
Ten what-ifs for community colleges
Ten provocations that test common planning assumptions. They range from autonomous transportation and fragmented work to AI tutors, outcomes-based funding and student-led micro-colleges. Each asks what today’s choices might be producing without anyone intending it.