Book Review: Honored bur Invisible

Abstract

Honored but Invisible. An Inside Look at Teaching in Community Colleges by W. Norton Grubb and Associates. Routledge, New York. 1999, 392 pages, $24.99 (Paper) ISBN 0415-92165-1, $75.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-415-92164. If I don't know I don't know I think I know If I don't know I know I think I don't know R.D. Laing, Aots, 1971 Laing's words apply in many ways to community college educators today: We often take for granted that we know more than we really do about our students and our institutions. At the same time, we are often unaware that we already have important data, so we keep trying to develop new programs, wasting precious time and resources when the basics are already in place. In some cases, we do not even know the right questions to ask about what we are doing as educators. Clearly there is much we still need to study and learn about our increasingly important colleges, and this book provides some timely and provocative research. It will definitely spark some heated debate. Talking about his own well-known and often quoted research on higher education, prominent scholar and educator Ernest Pascarella noted with some dismay that of the more than 2,000 studies he and Terenzini reviewed (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991), only about 5% of those studies focused on community colleges (Pascarella, 1997). That was unfortunate for a number of reasons, he explained, but especially because statistics suggest that somewhere between 40 % and 50 % of all students enrolled in four-year institutions in the United States started in community colleges. In some states, such as California, the percentages may even be higher. In short, he felt that researchers of all kinds, at all levels of higher education, should be paying more attention to community colleges. Having said that, it is also important to note, as Pascarella and others have, that much of the research about community colleges conducted thus far by scholars from four-year schools seems biased or negative in tone and perspective. Researchers at four-year institutions often view community colleges as second-class barely part of the higher education system, not much more than extensions of high school. It is not surprising that their theories and advice are ignored by community college practitioners, despite the fact that there may be some useful suggestions within the diatribes and condescending language. How refreshing, therefore, to encounter this volume, Honored But Invisible, by W. Norton Grubb and associates. Professor Grubb holds the prestigious David Gardner Chair in Higher Education at the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and has written several books on education. Let me say three things about this book right from the beginning. First, as a community college teacher myself, I think everyone working in community colleges who is truly committed to studying and improving their colleges ought to read this book, including teachers, administrators, and researchers. Second, from my own perspective as a community college researcher, I think this book holds up a very powerful, provocative, and much needed mirror. Some of my colleagues, I am sure, are not going to like what this book says, as the writers do question the very essence of what community colleges believe themselves to be doing. In short, although we profess ourselves to be true teaching institutions, we often do not accomplish or even support that important mission. On the other hand, the book clearly approaches community colleges with respect and in the spirit of offering constructive suggestions. Our first reaction might be defensive, but it should be noted that Grubb and his associates level some of the same kinds of criticisms at four-year with their particular pretensions and shortcomings, as outlined for example in the recent Boyer Commission Report (Kenny, 1998). Third, and perhaps most important, these researchers present the actual words of community college faculty, and they have attempted to include a wide range of opinions and points of view, much in the spirit of Seidman's work (Seidman, 1985). …