Advancing the Regional Role of Two-Year Colleges E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B CC Single Issue Community Colleges
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 239

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

In the midst of a challenging economic recovery, thenation's policy makers and education leaders are seeking newand potentially more effective strategies to align personal andpublic educational investments with job creation, increased levelsof employment, small business development, and entrepreneurialactivity. Reaching the 2020 national college completion goal willrequire powerful and fully implemented innovations in two-yearcolleges, particularly in states and regions where economicdifficulties are more deeply entrenched. Grounded in the Midwest context, this special issue examinesseveral promising policies and innovations that re-envision therole of two-year colleges in developing regional rather than localsolutions to the emerging economic and educational challenges. This is the 157th volume of this Jossey-Bassquarterly report series. Essential to the professional libraries ofpresidents, vice presidents, deans, and other leaders in today'sopen-door institutions, New Directions for CommunityColleges provides expert guidance in meeting the challengesof their distinctive and expanding educational mission.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

EDITOR’S NOTES

Chapter 1: Regionalizing Postsecondary Education for the Twenty-First Century: Promising Innovations and Capacity Challenges

Why Regions Matter

Why the Midwest Region Matters

Regional Innovation and Leadership: Signature Themes and Strategies

Summary Implications

Chapter 2: Reanimating the Vital Center: Challenges and Opportunities in the Regional Talent Development Pipeline

Introduction

Economic Context

Education and the Rise of Midwestern Agro-Industrial Might

Educating Knowledge Workers for a New Knowledge Economy

Challenge and Opportunity for the Midwestern Education Institutions

Public Policy Implications

Chapter 3: Building Regional Economic Growth and Innovation Capacity

Overview

The Northeast Wisconsin Education Resource Alliance (NEWERA)

NEWERA and the Development of New North

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Learning and the New Workplace: Impacts of Technology Change on Postsecondary Career and Technical Education

The Changing American Workplace and Changing Skill Needs

Reshaping Postsecondary Career and Technical Education

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Leveraging Workforce Development and Postsecondary Education for Low-Skilled, Low-Income Workers: Lessons from the Shifting Gears Initiative

Introduction

The Shifting Gears Initiative

Shifting Gears in Illinois

Illinois’ Shifting Gears Evaluation

Shifting Gears in Wisconsin

Lessons Learned

Lessons for Practitioners

Chapter 6: Illinois Innovation Talent Project: Implications for Two-Year Institutions

Introduction and Overview

Defining Innovation and Challenges in Developing Innovation Talent

Illinois Innovation Talent Project

Implications for Two-Year Institutions

Summary and Recommendations for Two-Year College Leaders

Appendix A

Chapter 7: Learning to Innovate in Twenty-First-Century Community Colleges: Searching for the General Education Niche in Two-Year Colleges

GE at the End of the Twentieth Century: Moving from Transfer to Learning

General Learning in the Twenty-First Century: Considering Productive Inquiry

GE as Three Sites for Productive Inquiry

Searching for Productive Inquiry: Promising Developments, Missed Opportunities

Progress and Prospects for Advancing General Education

Chapter 8: Community College–Research University Collaboration: Emerging Student Research and Transfer Partnerships

The Changing Research and Innovation Context

Framing the Options: New Roles for Community College–Research University Partnerships

Leveraging Promising Innovations: Selected Undergraduate Research and Transfer Initiatives

Strengthening Transfer Success: Research University Initiatives

The Leverage Challenges

Implications for Practice

Chapter 9: A Framework and Strategies for Advancing Change and Innovation in Two-Year Colleges

Models of Change

Using Models of Change: Strategic Reflections

A Framework to Guide Change and Innovation in Two-Year Colleges

Selecting and Developing Change Strategies

Conclusion

Index

ADVANCING THE REGIONAL ROLE OF TWO-YEAR COLLEGES

L. Allen Phelps (ed.)

New Directions for Community Colleges, no. 157

Arthur M. Cohen, Editor-in-Chief

Richard L. Wagoner, Associate Editor

Gabriel Jones, Managing Editor

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NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES (ISSN 0194-3081, electronic ISSN 1536-0733) is part of The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series and is published quarterly by Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company, at Jossey-Bass, One Montgomery St., Ste. 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104. Periodicals Postage Paid at San Francisco, California, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to New Directions for Community Colleges, Jossey-Bass, One Montgomery St., Ste. 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104.

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EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief, Arthur M. Cohen, at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Box 951521, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521. All manuscripts receive anonymous reviews by external referees.

New Directions for Community Colleges is indexed in CIJE: Current Index to Journals in Education (ERIC), Contents Pages in Education (T&F), Current Abstracts (EBSCO), Ed/Net (Simpson Communications), Education Index/Abstracts (H. W. Wilson), Educational Research Abstracts Online (T&F), ERIC Database (Education Resources Information Center), and Resources in Education (ERIC).

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EDITOR’S NOTES

In the midst of a challenging economic recovery, the nation’s policymakers and education leaders are seeking new and potentially more effective strategies to align personal and public educational investments with job creation, increased levels of employment, small business development, and entrepreneurial activity. Through their career and technical education programs and workforce training contracts, U.S. community colleges have historically played a prominent role in economic and workforce development. As Kasper noted in the Summer 2009 Special Issue of NDCC, the community college’s curriculum sets it apart from other institutions of higher education by the many courses offered that enhance students’ immediate career opportunities, especially with local employers. However, as recent commissioned studies have noted, the global economy, widespread use of information technology tools, and the lengthy recession have fundamentally changed the game. In two-year colleges, optimal solutions in the new economy will require leaders to think, design, and enact innovations regionally, but with close attention to global opportunities as well as local workforce needs and priorities.

In recent federal and state policy dialogues, community and technical colleges have been widely touted as strategic, transformative agents for innovation, which in turn can create solutions for an economic recovery and for sustaining rural communities. In the 2009 State of the Union, President Barack Obama set forth an ambitious agenda for U.S. postsecondary education by outlining a national college completion goal: by 2020, to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Reaching this goal will require U.S. colleges to produce an estimated 8.2 million additional graduates, including 5 million additional graduates from two-year colleges.

Beginning in 2007–2008, the economic downturn heightened regional differences and outcome gaps in the United States. Depending on their location and residence, Americans have experienced minimal, moderate, or high rates of unemployment, plant closures, layoffs, declines in public services, and tax increases. These regional trends create particular and potentially unique challenges for two-year colleges and their leaders in addressing the national college completion goal. Recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reflect growing disparities in regional contributions to U.S. growth over the past decade. In 2008, the national per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew a modest 0.7 percent to $37,899. In 2005, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported the regional per-capita GDP output gap was $9,577, which reflected a 22 percent disparity between the highest and lowest regional GDP output. However, by 2008 the regional per-capita GDP output gap had risen to $11,894 or roughly 26 percent. In the five-state Great Lakes region (Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana), for example, the regional per-capita GDP for 2008 was $35,280, well below the national average of $37,899.

Reaching the 2020 national college completion goal will require some powerful and persistent innovations in two-year colleges, particularly in regions where economic challenges are more deeply entrenched. In states with healthier economies, (e.g., Minnesota, North Dakota, New York, and Connecticut), the Lumina Foundation predicts that considerably lower annual growth rates in postsecondary degree completion will be needed (3.1% to 4.7%) as compared to the Great Lakes region (5.4% to 6.4%). Within regions, two-year colleges are called on increasingly to collaborate in new ways with employers, universities, K through 12 schools, and governmental agencies in regional approaches to create new forms of economic, social, and human capital.

Grounded in the Midwestern context, this Special Issue examines several promising policies and innovations that re-envision the role of two-year colleges in developing regional rather than local solutions to the emerging economic and educational challenges. Many of the chapters, which emanated from a recent colloquium on Re-visioning Two-Year Colleges in the Midwest, held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, examine regional approaches for addressing priorities such as raising literacy levels, improving the skills of displaced workers, aligning education and career pathways, and supporting the adoption of new technologies in the workplace. Overall, the volume addresses two signature questions:

1. What key themes are embedded in regionally focused, two-year college innovations and policy priorities?

2. What strategies can be used to expand the regional capacity for innovation, leadership, and research in the two-year college sector?

While many of the authors describe Midwestern regional innovations, each chapter concludes with recommendations for college leaders without regard to the regional particulars.

In Chapter One, I examine the challenges of and opportunities for enhancing regional higher education collaboration with particular attention to expanding the regional role for two-year colleges. Following a discussion of why and how regional approaches matter in enhancing economic impact and improving educational quality, eight signature themes and a set of action strategies are outlined for expanding regional approaches to improving postsecondary education.

Chapters Two and Three offer some valuable insights on the future of Midwestern community and technical colleges. Authored by John Austin of the Brookings Institution, Chapter Two describes a regional growth strategy, one featuring enhanced collaboration between two-year colleges and research universities. In Chapter Three, Jeff Rafn provides a rich case study of regional collaboration spanning the past decade, involving ten two-year colleges, three four-year universities, and, more recently, a new regional economic development partnership.

Chapters Four through Eight offer detailed analyses of policies and practices emblematic of the regional collaboration themes identified in papers from a recent Midwestern colloquium on Re-visioning Two-Year Colleges in the Midwest. While the chapters feature community college innovations in the eight-state Midwest region, the authors offer recommendations for community college leaders regardless of regional contexts.

In Chapter Four, Janet Washbon describes several key features of Wisconsin’s technical colleges that enable the colleges to address the rapid technological changes occurring in manufacturing, health care, information technology, and other sectors. Increasingly, programs and learning opportunities are situated in settings that meet the needs of both employers and students.

Debra Bragg, Laura Dresser, and Whitney Smith describe the Joyce Foundation’s Shifting Gears initiative in Chapter Five. Working in selected Illinois and Wisconsin two-year colleges over the past five years, this initiative has created and demonstrated the value of career pathway and bridge programs for educated low-skilled workers needing both developmental and technical education.

Chapter Six, authored by Jason Tyszko and Robert Sheets, describes the Illinois Talent Development Project. Designed to provide student teams with authentic and discovery-focused project-based learning experiences identified by industry partners, the implications for using this instructional approach in two-year colleges are discussed.

In Chapter Seven, Todd Lundberg offers persuasive evidence for shifting the role of general education in two-year colleges to focus on twenty-first-century problem solving and inquiry skills. Such skills, he argues, are a vital aspect of the innovation talent needed in business and community settings.

Echoing the challenges outlined in Chapter Two by Austin, Allen Phelps and Amy Prevost document in Chapter Eight various community college efforts to promote student research experiences and to strengthen faculty involvement in research partnerships.

In Chapter Nine, Christopher Matheny and Clifton Conrad offer a framework to guide the decisions of two-year college leaders when they are advancing regional innovations and initiatives.

As noted earlier, the chapters presented herein emanated from a recent colloquium sponsored by the School of Education at UW–Madison. Dean Julie Underwood and members of the planning team provided valuable insights for framing the agenda and topics addressed at the colloquium: Clifton Conrad, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Gregory Lampe, Noel Radomski, Christopher Rasmussen, Janet Washbon, and John Wiley. Martha Kantor, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education, offered provocative opening-session remarks encouraging the eighty-five invited participants to think and act boldly in creating regionally focused community college policies, innovations, and partnerships. Gail Kiles Krumenauer managed the colloquium project with timely, cogent, and supportive facilitate.

Finally, this volume is dedicated to Morgan, Olivia, Matthew, Hunter, and Lincoln, my spectacular grandchildren, whose future well being will be anchored, I trust, in the student-centered college learning environments and experiences described herein.

L. Allen Phelps

Editor

L. ALLEN PHELPS is a professor emeritus of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and former director of the Center on Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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Regionalizing Postsecondary Education for the Twenty-First Century: Promising Innovations and Capacity Challenges

L. Allen Phelps

This opening chapter describes why regional approaches to postsecondary education policy and implementation matter in the current economic and social context. Eight signature themes and strategies for regional two-year college innovation are introduced.

Without question, U.S. postsecondary institutions are facing monumental challenges in meeting the rapidly evolving demands for preparing a well-educated twenty-first-century citizenry. As the changing landscape of higher and postsecondary education is increasingly linked to and driven by economic recovery, the role of two-year colleges is changing dramatically. Over the past twenty years, rapid globalization and the intensive use of information technology in all sectors of society have changed the formula for preparing the nation’s workforce. The boundaries of our economy are no longer defined primarily by city, county, or state borders. Rather, the formula and strategies for preparing workers and communities for the twenty-first century must include and capitalize on regional economic interests—that is, interests defined by a diverse group of industries needing key assets such as infrastructure support, investment, and the availability of local talent.