Book Review: First in the World: Community Colleges and America’s Future by Brown, J. N.

Abstract

Brown, J. N. (2012). First in the World: Community Colleges and America's Future. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 152 pp. $49.95 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-4422-0997-8. $48.99 (eBook). ISBN 978-1-4422-0999-2.J. Noah Brown, CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), has a monumental task as he aims to identify and define the key issues that he suggests have the power to benefit or threaten the long-term health and vigor of community (p. 8). His intent in the book is to identify salient public policy issues and articulate how community colleges can be reimagined to support the long-term health of the community college and the nation. The primary intended audiences for Brown's book are academics, higher education practitioners, and association leaders. His book is structured according to five issues: leading with accountability, citizen governance, resource and scarcity, completion matters, and leadership imperatives. Brown guides readers through these five issues with relative ease, exploring the issues from economic, social, and political contexts.Brown's discussion of the five issues begins with accountability, where he argues that community college leaders should not follow but rather lead the accountability movement. The book identifies many inherent challenges associated with the accountability movement for community colleges such as the dominant use of success metrics that are more appropriate for 4-year colleges and universities, and the diverse characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of community college students that often impede students' degree progress and success.In his chapters on citizen governance and leadership imperatives, Brown's role as a former community college trustee and current leader of the ACCT is most recognizable as he outlines the purposes and functions of community college Board of Trustees (BOT) and the desired characteristics and attributes of community college leaders. Not only do these chapters include useful descriptions of BOT responsibilities and leadership styles, Brown also provides practical guidance on how effective boards should operate and the appropriate roles and priorities of community college leaders.Two chapters address two of the most salient contemporary public policy issues in higher education: resources (i.e., finance) and college completion. Brown frames the resources chapter based on the idea of scarcity and outlines the ways community colleges increasingly rely on limited alternative resources (e.g., earmarks and National Science Foundation funding, outsourcing services, entrepreneurial activities, philanthropic contributions) in a climate of diminishing state and local funding. He argues that to ensure sustained and increased public investment in community colleges, BOT and institutional leaders must be the loudest advocates for community colleges and reinforce, champion, and assert the value of community colleges in local communities and the states. The fifth chapter addresses the ubiquitous public policy issue of college completion, and Brown identifies the conflict between the college completion movement and community colleges' open access purpose. He cautions that community college leaders must balance the contradictory goals of open access and college success and offers several practical suggestions to achieve this balance.Brown concludes the book by arguing that history should inform future decisions and actions of policy makers and community college leaders. Brown reminds readers that the growth and success of community colleges and the higher education system are the result of deliberate investments and bold thinking. Historic national investments in higher education such as the G.I. Bill in 1944, the National Defense Education Act in 1958, and the Higher Education Act in 1965 illustrate this type of public investment and bold thinking that has sustained community colleges and advanced American higher education to its first in the world status. …