This dissertation study is about the scale-up of programs intended to promote retention and transfer for underserved groups of students at community colleges. For over thirty years, the Puente program is one such program that has focused on increasing retention and transfer rates for Latino community college students in California. In 2012, with growing dissatisfaction of student outcomes, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Catch the Next (CTN)—a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting college success for at-risk students—facilitated the implementation of the Puente program in three Texas community colleges. This dissertation study uses multiple case study methods to examine the organizational change process and its effects on the scale-up of the externally developed Puente program in three Texas colleges. The engaging research questions ask if and how programs developed in one setting can be successfully scaled-up to new state and campus contexts.

The trends presented in these case studies suggest that efforts to scale-up the externally developed Puente program depended on a flexible but focused approach, which combined an adherence to central design principles with accommodations to the state and local contexts. On a theoretical level, these results confirm and advance Levine’s institutionalization-termination theory by clarifying, expanding, and extending the body of knowledge derived from a contextual change perspective. To the extent that this study establishes a better understanding of strategies that facilitate the scale-up of a Latino focused transfer program, especially with regard to Puente’s approach to professional development, the results of this analysis can also enable more comprehensive educational planning.