Presidents and Analysts Discuss Contemporary Challenges E-Book

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

Seitenzahl: 205

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Since their inception, America's community colleges haveundergone continuous change. They must, because their mission is toprovide learning vital for those who face local as well as globaltransformations, and that requires vigilant, vigorous commitment. This volume contains insights from men and women who have ledthe thinking and practice in these colleges to current historicalheights. They were asked to forecast solutions to today's mostcritical problems as well as to identify opportunities that willlikely engage tomorrow's community college leaders. In addition, aprevailing university authority was asked to review the supportsystem traditionally relied upon to provide expertise to facultyand administrators. "Presidents and Analysts Discuss Contemporary Issues"collects decades of experience from extraordinary leaders andplaces that wisdom in readers' hands. This is the 156th 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: Community Colleges in the Spotlight and Under the Microscope

Introduction

The Economy

College Completion

Accountability and Advocacy

Leadership Development

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Creating Effective Board–CEO Relationships and Fundraising to Achieve Successful Student Outcomes

The Challenge

Create a System for Effective Governance and Board–CEO Relationships

Promote Teaching Innovation and Successful Student Outcomes

Understand Critical Pedagogy and Learning Outcomes

Raise Funds for Faculty/Staff Development to Support Innovation

Chapter 3: The Next Community College Movement?

It Was the Best of Times

Mission Past

Equality of Opportunity Just the First Step

Transfer Is Only Part of the Transfer Function

Can Community Colleges Deliver?

Is the “Completion Agenda” the Next Community College Movement?

Chapter 4: Redefining Institutional Priorities

Board Retreat

Student Success

Economic Base

Summary

Chapter 5: Increased Enrollment + Student Success − Funding = ?

Assumptions

Trends Facing Community Colleges

What Are the Choices for Community Colleges?

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 6: Giving Voice: Advocating for the Community College

Protecting the Mission

Students Tell the Stories Best

Responding to Business Needs Is a Compelling Story Too

Working in a Competitive Environment

Developing Relationships

Effective Communication

Work with Colleagues in Your State

Get Others Involved

Election Year

What Not to Do

Board Policies

Role of Students

Communicate Legislative Priorities

Chapter 7: Leadership: A Balancing Act

Introduction

Leadership and Context

About You

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Moving from Good to Great

Future Expectations

Conclusion: Putting It All Together

Twenty-Two Key Ideas About Leadership in Community Colleges

Chapter 8: Further Views from Professors, State Directors, and Analysts

Finance

Vocational Education

Developmental Education

Outcomes Assessment

Further Concerns

Summary and Conclusions

Index

Statement of Ownership

PRESIDENTS AND ANALYSTS DISCUSS CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

John J. Prihoda (ed.)

New Directions for Community Colleges, no. 156

Arthur M. Cohen, Editor-in-Chief

Richard L. Wagoner, Associate Editor

Gabriel Jones, Managing Editor

Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as per­mitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923; [phone]; fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, c/o John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030; [phone], fax [phone], www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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, 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, Ste. 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104.

SUBSCRIPTIONS cost $89.00 for individuals and $275.00 for institutions, agencies, and libraries in the United States. Prices subject to change.

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).

Microfilm copies of issues and articles are available in 16mm and 35mm, as well as microfiche in 105mm, through University Microfilms Inc., 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346.

ISBN: 9781118231517

ISBN: 9781118328347 (mobi)

ISBN: 9781118328354 (epdf)

ISBN: 9781118328378 (epub)

EDITOR’S NOTES

Due to escalating retirements, we are witness to the largest exodus of experienced presidents and chancellors in community college history. Simultaneously, student populations are growing, demographics are shifting, and demands for student success are being redefined. All this is occurring while funding sources wither away.

The solutions to complex challenges facing new community college presidents are elusive. Charting new directions requires a thoughtful, insightful process that can include advice from respected sources. For insights into the future, presidents and chancellors (all recently retired) were asked to articulate significant issues, offer solutions, and comment on opportunities for our community colleges. In addition, eminent community college analysts were invited to review current college of education curricula to determine whether university programs meet contemporary needs. The result is Presidents and Analysts Discuss Contemporary Challenges, a uniquely authored volume in the annals of New Directions for Community Colleges. Originally intended to be a guide for new presidents, the depth of informative suggestions should also be helpful to a broad spectrum of those who champion the community college cause.

As readers will discover, even in retirement these authors remain deeply concerned about the welfare of this nation’s noble educational invention, the American community college. I sincerely thank them for their dedication to this project.

JOHN J. PRIHODA, EdD, is retired president of Iowa Valley Community College District, IA, founding provost of Windward Community College, HI, and acting provost of Leeward Community College, HI.

1

Community Colleges in the Spotlight and Under the Microscope

George R. Boggs

Never before have community colleges received so much attention and recognition. From modest beginnings at the start of the twentieth century, community colleges have become the largest, most affordable, and most responsive sector of American higher education. Policy makers, media, and the public in general seem to have only now discovered community colleges, which have been put in a spotlight by President Barack Obama and leading national foundations as important to the economic prosperity of the United States. With increased attention comes increased scrutiny, however. What will be expected of community colleges, and how can they best respond, especially given severe financial limitations? What are their most pressing challenges, and what opportunities are ahead for college leaders?

Introduction

Community colleges owe their success to four enduring values: access, community responsiveness, creativity, and a focus on student learning. America’s community colleges have provided access to higher education and an opportunity for a better life to the most diverse student body in history. The famous “open door” has welcomed students of all ages and ethnicities, students with disabilities, students with different learning objectives, and students with a wide difference in level of preparedness and prior educational experience. The colleges have responded to the needs of their local communities by developing partnerships with community businesses and agencies and by offering needed career programs, programs to retrain workers, and community service programs. In a higher education culture that does not often welcome change, community college leaders, faculty, and staff are among the most creative and innovative, experimenting with new methods to improve the effectiveness of their teaching and to make services to students more convenient. Long known for quality teaching (Boyer, 1988), community colleges emerged in the 1990s as the leaders in focusing on the outcome of student learning as the core mission of higher education (Boggs, 1993b) and on the importance of closing achievement gaps and assisting more students to complete their educational goals (Boggs, 1993a).

These values, which have guided the philosophy of community colleges, will need to be protected in the future. Community colleges will soon be led by a new wave of administrators, faculty, and staff who will be replacing those who came into the system during the great growth period of the 1960s and 1970s (Shults, 2001). It is important that these professionals understand and value the unique role that community colleges play among the segments of higher education. College leaders will have to become more aggressive in seeking public and private funding in an environment that will be more competitive. Entrepreneurial initiatives and partnerships will be needed to stretch limited resources. More and better data will be needed to document the effectiveness of college programs in responding to increasing calls for accountability and to advocate effectively for these programs. The definition of “community” as “a climate to be created” (Boyer, 1988) will take on new meaning as distance education breaks down traditional geographic boundaries and as community colleges expand baccalaureate offerings. We will need to continue efforts to inform the public and policy makers of the important role that community colleges play in improving the life of individuals and in improving the economic viability of communities, our nation, and the world we live in.

Community colleges will need to expand capacities to accommodate increased numbers of students as greater percentages of Americans enter higher education. These institutions will be called on to take a more active role in K–12 reform and in preparing elementary and secondary school teachers. Community college faculty and public school teachers will need to be in more frequent contact to coordinate curriculum and to facilitate the transfer of students into college. Community colleges will expand their offerings of courses, especially in the use of technology, on high school campuses and will offer more professional development programs for school teachers.

Community colleges will have to become much more effective in closing student achievement gaps that exist for minority and low-income students, documenting student learning outcomes, and assisting more students to complete programs successfully. Barriers to degree completion and transfer to upper-division institutions will have to be overcome. College leaders should ensure that more of the students who qualify for financial aid actually receive it (College Board, 2010).

The increasing globalization of our economy and our society will require community colleges to continue to integrate international and cultural issues into the curriculum, to increase enrollments of international students, and to expand opportunities for students to study in other countries. Students will need preparation in the use of rapidly changing technology to interface with the world of the future. And technological advancements will continue to change how community colleges interact with students, providing services more conveniently and changing how faculty members teach and how students learn and communicate.

The Economy

The severe economic downturn of the late 2000s, sometimes referred to as “the Great Recession,” was one of the major factors contributing to the national spotlight on community colleges. Factory closures and layoffs sent large numbers of displaced workers back to community colleges, where they hoped to pick up the skills needed to be reemployed. Major network television news stories and newspapers highlighted community colleges that were offering discounted tuition, midnight classes, and on-site counseling to the unemployed. By fall 2010, community college leaders also were reporting a significant increase in enrollments of younger students whose parents may have sent these recent high school graduates off to a university in better economic times.

Between 2008 and 2010, credit enrollment in community colleges surged by 17 percent (Mullin & Phillippe, 2009). In fact, half of all baccalaureate recipients (McPhee, 2006) and about one-third of science and engineering master’s degree recipients have taken community college courses (Tsapogas, 2004). Forty percent of the nation’s teachers complete some of their mathematics or science courses at these institutions (Shkodriani, 2004). Fifty percent of the nation’s registered nurses (Institute of Medicine, 2010), over 80 percent of the first responders (American Association of Community Colleges, 2006), and most of the nation’s technological workers are prepared in community colleges (American Association of Community Colleges, 2010). Forty-seven percent of first-generation college students, 53 percent of Hispanic, 45 percent of Black, 52 percent of Native American, and 45 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander students attend community colleges (American Association of Community Colleges, 2011d).

At the same time that community college student enrollment was surging, most states were responding to the economic downturn by cutting funding support. While federal stimulus funding, provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, provided temporary assistance to the states, the effects of the severe economic recession of the late 2000s will linger, creating significant problems for college leaders who are trying to respond to increased enrollment pressure with significantly less funding. Reports of students being turned away or not being able to enroll in the classes they need made national news in 2009 and 2010. Many economists predict that state economic problems will continue into 2011 (Katsinas & Friedel, 2010).

The difficult economy, however, should provide some opportunities for changes that might be more difficult in better economic times. As Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Now may be the best time to focus on an institution’s core mission, to discontinue programs that are least aligned to the mission, to eliminate waste and duplication, to improve efficiency, and to build a stronger private fundraising function. One likely positive outcome is that those younger students who are now at community colleges will tell others about the high-quality programs and care they received, leading to greater numbers of recent high school graduates starting at community colleges well into the future.

Funding problems, of course, did not start with the economic downturn. The trend toward state disinvestment in higher education has been ongoing even in good economic times (Policy Research Institute, 2010), and community colleges have been the higher education institutions most affected because of their reliance on taxpayer support. In a 2010 report from the American Association of Community Colleges, Doing More with Less: The Inequitable Funding of Community Colleges, Christopher Mullin (2010) points out that while community colleges serve 43 percent of all undergraduates (54 percent of all undergraduates in public higher education), they receive only 27 percent of total federal, state, and local higher education revenues. Community colleges are asked to educate the students who are most at risk with the least support, by far, of any other sector. If the United States is to meet the challenges of the future, policy makers must provide needed and more equitable support to colleges and universities and their students. Education at all levels must be seen as an important state and federal investment in our future, and policies must be put in place to ensure maximum return on that investment. Community college leaders must be prepared to become even more assertive in seeking necessary public support. The American Association of Community Colleges (2011e) has developed a public advocacy toolkit for college leaders that is available on its Web site.

College Completion

In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as those requiring no college experience (Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl, 2010). President Obama challenged the nation’s community colleges to produce an additional 5 million program completers by 2020, an approximate 50 percent increase over current levels (Obama, 2009). In its report of the Springboard Project, the Business Roundtable (2009) echoed President Obama’s challenge to increase education attainment levels in the United States in order to build a competitive workforce. The report recommended unlocking the value of community colleges, stating that these institutions have the potential to play a dominant role in strengthening local economies.

Despite the significant contributions of community colleges, student completion and transfer rates must improve dramatically if we are to meet President Obama’s challenge. Too many students do not make it successfully through remedial programs into college-level courses, and too many do not complete their programs because of insufficient financial support or poor institutional or state policies and practices. The first significant effort to improve student completion in community colleges was set in motion by the Lumina Foundation for Education in 2004, with the launch of the national Achieving the Dream (ATD): Community Colleges Count initiative (Achieving the Dream, 2011). The goal of ATD is to help more community college students succeed, especially students of color, working adults, and students from low-income families. The ATD initiative emphasizes the use of data and the creation of a “culture of evidence” at the colleges to inform decision making and to measure progress against a specific set of student success metrics. Ultimately, Lumina’s “Big Goal” is to increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025 (Lumina Foundation for Education, 2010). The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (2009) rates the current educational attainment level for the United States at 40 percent.

Many community college students must overcome significant obstacles to complete their education: Many arrive unprepared for college-level work and must start in remedial courses; many are working at least part time while going to college; many have family responsibilities; some are single parents. They come to college wanting to succeed and to better their lives and to improve the well-being of their families. Through what we are learning in initiatives such as ATD, we can help more of them to complete their studies.

Begun with a cohort of 26 colleges, ATD has now expanded to128 colleges in twenty-four states, including the District of Columbia. ATD efforts have focused on improving or expanding developmental education, gatekeeper courses, first-year experience, learning communities, academic and personal advising, student support services, and tutoring. A recent report indicated that the initiative is effectively increasing student persistence rates by as much as 13 percent (Jaschik, 2010). ATD colleges are working to strengthen linkages to K–12 and to engage the community. The initiative also is focused on changing state and federal policies that create barriers for students.

In 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a major postsecondary success initiative. The foundation is focused on ensuring that postsecondary education results in a degree or a certificate with genuine economic value. It has set an ambitious goal to double the number of young people who earn a postsecondary degree or certificate with value in the marketplace by the time they reach age twenty-six. The foundation notes that the types of jobs fueling our economy continue to change rapidly. Success in the workplace demands advanced skills in critical thinking and problem solving as well as the ability to shift readily from one task or project to another. Workers with strong language and math skills, technological capabilities, and a capacity to work well in teams are most likely to succeed. Carnevale, Smith, and Strohl (2010) project that, through 2018, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of all new jobs will require more than a high school diploma; nearly half of those will require some college but less than a bachelor’s degree. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that, through 2014, more than half of all new jobs will require more than a high school diploma (Hecker, 2005). Twenty-two of the fastest-growing career fields will require some postsecondary education (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2009). Speaking at the White House Summit on Community Colleges in October 2010, Melinda Gates told the audience that to meet the goals set by the foundation, the focus has to be on community colleges.

In April 2010, six national community college organizations repre-senting trustees, administrators, faculty, and students signed a call to action to commit member institutions to match President Obama’s 2020 goal (American Association of Community Colleges, 2011a). The organizations are currently seeking funding to develop cohesive and integrated strategies to move ahead, although challenges presented by the current economic climate that was already discussed could very well inhibit early progress. Nonetheless, these major associations are determined to move ahead with the “completion agenda.”

College leaders and policy makers must also work to change state and institutional obstacles that block pathways for community college students to the baccalaureate degree because of poor transfer-of-credit policies. Organizations such as Complete College America (2011) and the National Governors Association (2011) appear ready to assist in improving these policies so that more students can complete baccalaureate and higher-level degrees. Phi Theta Kappa, the International Community College Honor Society, has launched CollegeFish.org to connect community college students to transfer institutions. Information is available on the Phi Theta Kappa Web site (Phi Theta Kappa, 2010).

In their 2009 book Crossing The Finish Line, Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) refer to research studies which find that students who start in community colleges are significantly less likely to attain a bachelor’s degree than students who start in four-year universities. The authors concede that students who begin their studies at two-year colleges are very different from those who went directly to four-year schools, making it “foolish to simply compare the bachelor’s degree attainment of these two groups” (p. 136). Community college students are more likely to be first-generation college students and less prepared for college; have a gap between high school graduation and college attendance; be place-bound, minority, female, less economically advantaged, working at least part-time; and not dependent on parents for financial support. In fact, many community college students have family obligations of their own, and many have to “stop out” of college to attend to family or work responsibilities.

Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) tried to adjust for some of the differences between the two- and four-year students by dividing them into “propensity” groups based on high school grades, Scholastic Achievement Test scores, gender, family income quartile, parental education, and educational aspirations. They used this method to define students with similar propensities to attain the baccalaureate and thus to compare students who started at community colleges with those who started at four-year institutions in a quasi-experiment. Their study, based on the North Carolina high school graduating class of 1999, showed an attainment disadvantage of starting in a community college of 26 to 36 percentage points for the ten propensity groups.

Similarly, Jones and Wellman, in a recent National Center for Higher Education Management Systems Delta Cost Project publication, called Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about Higher Ed Finance (2009), advise states against directing more students to community colleges to improve productivity. The authors say that, although costs per student are lower in community colleges, costs per degree are higher because they award so few degrees or credentials relative to student enrollment. The authors are quick to point out that they do not advise states to increase enrollments in public research universities. Perhaps an alternative would be to provide better funding to the least-well-funded institutions that are being asked to educate the most at-risk students.

In what might seem at first to be a contradiction to their earlier disparagement of community colleges, Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) also say that many four-year institutions could increase their own overall graduation rates while enrolling and graduating more low socioeconomic students by increasing their numbers of community college transfers. They say that transfer students do better in the university than if they had come directly from high school with the same credentials. In fact, they found that transfer students in the Maryland and North Carolina state systems graduated at substantially higher rates than did freshman enrollees.

These results should not really be surprising. Many studies show that community college transfers do at least as well as native university students after transferring, in terms of both grade point average and degree attainment. However, not enough community college students transfer. Some of this disparity is explained by how transfer data are collected. A 2001 study from the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics looked at community college transfer rates using alternative definitions (Bradburn, Hurst, and Peng, 2001). One definition included only students who had declared an academic major and were taking courses that led toward a baccalaureate. Using this definition, 52 percent of the students successfully transferred. Using a broader definition of those students who simply say they want to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher resulted in a finding of only 36 percent who transferred.

Today’s college students are more mobile than ever, frequently taking courses at more than one institution on their way to a baccalaureate. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study, an American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Research Report, En Route to the Baccalaureate: Community College Student Outcomes