About the League for Innovation

The League for Innovation in the Community College is an international nonprofit organization with a mission to foster innovation and excellence in the community college environment.

CEOs from 17 of the most influential, resourceful, and dynamic community colleges and districts across the country. comprise the League’s board of directors and provide strategic direction for its ongoing activities. These community colleges and their leaders are joined by hundreds of institutions that hold membership in the League Alliance.

Learn more about the League for Innovation, its mission, and its values.
 

Member Benefits to Seattle Colleges

As a member institution, Seattle Colleges gains access for employees and students to award considerations, conferences, resources for professional development, and more.

• Awards
  • Innovation of the Year
  • Excellence Awards
  • Terry O'Banion Student Technology Awards
  • Student Literary Awards
  • Student Art Awards
• Events
  • Innovations Conference
  • Learning Summit
  • Executive Leadership Institute (ELI)
• Resources
• Innovation Library
   

History

Founded in 1968 by B. Lamar Johnson, the League for Innovation in the Community College began as a group of 12 community college presidents at institutions that, according to former League president Terry O’Banion, Johnson had identified “as among the most innovative colleges in the country.” O’Banion, who served as League president and CEO for 23 years, described how, in a decade when the number of community colleges doubled, Johnson studied innovation at two-year institutions and wrote about it in his seminal book, Islands of Innovation.

In O’Banion’s words, “the League was established, really, on the interest in innovation.” Members “saw themselves as leading innovation, and they did not want to get into policy and politics” so they focused on “innovations around projects, programs, and practices.” That, O’Banion explained, became “the stamp of the League for Innovation.” 

Bringing the conversation forward a half-century, the League for Innovation, today, is still focused on the historical aspects of its foundation. But with newer organizations like Achieving the Dream and the Aspen Institute, the League is now having conversations with these and other organizations about ways to collaborate.

[Note: taken from Past, Present, and Future: The League for Innovation at 50]